I've always wanted learn how speak, read and write Thai but it looks extremely complicated. I wouldn't know where to begin. Anyone any ideas? Without spending lots of cash on lessons.
Easiest way to learn or to initiate it... make a trip to Thailand. Far better to get to the country and actually deal with the people. No point in learning Thai if you're not going to use it. If you're not speaking it on a day to day basis there isn't going to be much point in learning it. Spoken in general will be a whole lot easier than the written aspect. I can write basic Thai and speak relatively fluently. But bear in mind... I lived in Bangkok and Khorat for several years... as well as I had a girlfriend for a very long time who was a native Thai/Lao speaker. In terms of lessons for speaking Thai you won't find many lesson with a tutor out there. Though if you're dead set on it you can ring the Thai consulate in your country and they might put you in touch with someone. Or become a regular customer at your local Thai grocery or food shop. Well... that's if they're not Chinese that are running a Thai 'style' restaurant which is very very common. Personally... I have a particular affection for the Thai people and I'm sure that the time and space in my life when I first landed in Thailand had a lot to do with that. But one thing that endears Thai people to me is their sense of humor. Probably the best in Asia to be honest. If you YouTube and look up Thai TV commercial you will find they're hilarious!!! And it's a good way to pick up bits and bobs of the Thai language. Unfortunately some of the best books I've ever seen for westerners to learn Thai language I've only ever been able to purchase in Bangkok. But.... saying that I've not checked on the internet. A simple way to start with basic sentence structure is to go the phrase book route. Lonely planet or any of them will do. At least for the basics. A few key things to remember when speaking with Thai people: 1) Stay off the subject of the King unless it's in tones of reverence. 2) Muay Thai for most Thai's is something for country bumpkins and not even remotely middle class so you might find that most Thai's you will meet outside of Thailand only have a very cursory knowledge of it. A lot of national pride... but that's about it. In general the vast majority of women couldn't care less about Muay Thai. It's generally of zero interest to them. 3) Don't bring up how attractive Thai women are. You will come off like one of the millions of westerners that is the typical 'farang' on holiday. Not good. 4) Don't be entirely surprised if you come across Thai's can read and write only a minimal amount of Thai script. Many live completely content and successful lives with very little formal education. So you want to avoid any situation where you would put them in the place of having to explain they have no education. 5) Also be very careful about asking about what jobs people do. Thai people are very keen to preserve face as many Asian cultures and in a place like Thailand that is largely poor and agricultural... the actual answer might not be very nice. Don't push this point and have to put someone in the position to work around an answer. 6) In general avoid the issue of Burma and Thailand. The Thai government has been very successful at promoting Thai nationalistic feelings at the price of factual record with the interaction between the Thai's and the Burmese. Most Thai people will immediately not have anything good to say about the Burmese. But there are thousands of Burmese working in Thailand as both refugees and illegal workers... but they are often abused and taken advantage of. It's best to avoid the subject because most Thai's will have taken the governments line on it's history with Burma at face value. 7) Begin to try to understand the differences in interests between the social classes in Thailand. You find the difference in interest can be massive. As an example there are more Laotian people living in Thailand than there are in ALL of Laos. Go figure. Studying Thailand and it's people is a great way to gain an understanding of S.E. Asia and it's history. You will find that in many ways a middle-class or upper middle class Thai might have more in common with a Chinese American than with the hardened teak warrior that are most nak muays. And yes there is a rather large amount of ethnic Chinese in Thailand... have been for a very, very long time. One final note.. the best way to learn the script is to get your hands on some childrens learning books for Thai script. They are usually a picture with a character. The picture will represent the character so you can make an association and learn the sound. They're cheap cheap in Thailand but not sure if you can get them where you're at. Ok that's a ramble from me. Based on my experience living in BKK in a Thai community (NOT the Khao San road loser/bck paker community). Thailand is massive and in some respects varied. It's not quite the land of smiles - as they try to promote in their PR campaigns... well at least not in the way they try to whitewash it. But Thailand can change your life and your views on people and you will come away with a good insight into one of the most fascinating places and peoples on the planet.
That's some good knowledge you have there. I can't visit Thailand of my own accord just yet, as I'm only 16, but I'm keen to learn about the history, culture, language, architecture and religion, social and economic classes of Thailand. I have lots of spare time on my hands so I'll use that to study up .
Slip has pretty much covered it tbh. Only thing i can add is when i went to Thailand and tried picking up the language i scribed down in little notes how they were pronounced. In the books they will do a direct translation into English but the word may not pronounced exactly like its wrote down. For example, Hello in Thai-English books have it wrote like Sawat-dee Khraap But is pronounced Sawadee Kaap (Thai's have a tedency to miss the letter R out) Although this is from my expierence which is very limited. Writing it down this way helped me and i never got strange looks from the Thai's because ive pronounced it totally wrong. Admittedly this is only for beginners, when starting to learn the tonal differences in words it will fall flat on its face. But by then id assume you'd be pretty fluent in Thai. Hope that helps for when you eventually go out there
rosetta stone is a good way to learn im getting it for my birthday this month thailand is without a doubt the greatest country in the world
Slip has is bang on, if you want to learn how to read and write, pick up the books that they use to teach children in Thailand. There are some places you can pick them up on the web. Being able to read (even if you don't get to be good at writing) can be a big advantage when you go to Thailand. Even though most signs are also in English knowing that the Thai script underneath the English gives a cheaper price for Kon Thai can save you some money if you haggle! Most Thais will always be delighted to discover you can speak, read and write even a little of their language, it tends to differentiate you from most farang and they will be more willing to help you and smile when you accidentally their dog a horse or something unlucky instead of beautiful.
You can download anything from the internet for free. If you know some thai people I think you should just ask them for lessons and offer to pay them or do something for them. Also most people I know that are learning a new language tend to focus on the spoken language first and then if they get confident in that they will move on to written language later on in their training. Taking on to much at one time may make things more difficult in the beginning, especially for you since you are still in school and probably already have a homework you should be doing. I know it sounds like a long time but if you really want to do this, I think you should try to think long term and study hard and wait until after you graduate from university before you make a trip to Thailand. Or go after you are finished high school if you can't wait.
Wow, excellent post from slip... I was just going to say that thai is a tonal language and thus hell to learn for the average anglo. But I guess my experience from thai mate/neighbour in Cambridge is nowhere near as good as slipthejab. @slipthejab The thai army trains aikido but (AFAIK) not muay thai... Any interesting in cultural reasons behind that you know of?
Just out of curiosity where did you get the info that the Thai army trains Aikido but not Muay Thai? In general most armies anywhere go over modified versions of traditional martial arts... and it varies from time to time. Sometimes it's stand up sometimes it's grappling based sometimes it's a big mix. I don't think there is in general a blanket rule. Not even in Thailand. Around the military base in Bang Na, BKK one thing I noticed is that there were several TKD studios. It was very popular in Thailand. Much in the same way that TKD is very popular in India (who has a long tradition of it's own martial arts) and in Nepal who are home to the Gurkha caste and culture - world renowned for their martial abilities. As always people want what is new and exotic of sorts... so Muay Thai to most Thai's is both a point of national pride and something from poor farm kids from Isaan to do to earn a buck... but no way in hell is the average upper middle class Thai parent going to let their kid train Muay Thai. It's far to mixed up with gambling and what the upper middle class considers nefarious elements of Thai society. In the more affluent and upper portions of Thai society there is a lot of Chinese influence (due to their contact with wealthy Chinese traders etc.) so they work as hard as they can to be white skinned, refined, gentle mannered and persue Confucian ideals... bashing it out with genetically gifted kids from Isaan who are as hard as nails... isn't their idea of a good time.
Thailand has national service, which can be served either as a few months of solid living on an army base or by being in an organisation similar to the CCF in the UK. My friend did the latter and so did training camps during his school hols as well as stuff during school. He mentioned that they did aikido as part of this and performed a finger hold on me by way of demonstration, noting how he thought it was a rather clever system. He never stated that he DIDN'T do other martial arts as part of his army training, but he's never mentioned them. Perhaps only the aikido derivatives interested him...
im learning the basics of thai from free podcasts on itunes store, they come in video as well so you can see how the word is spelt/pronounced and the audio is over the top of it, upload them to your ipod and then you can practice anywhere!
