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Beer Barone
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Never mind I'm an idiot.
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Thai Girls : Meet Sexy Thai Girls
Posted on: 3:06 pm on Mar. 8, 2003
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Future Park
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A very useful site (probably been mentioned many times before) where you can listen to someone speaking basic Thai words and phrases is:
www.learningthai.com
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Thai Girls : Meet Sexy Thai Girls
Posted on: 2:58 am on Mar. 9, 2003
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haam sup
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Quote: from Beer Barone on 7:39 pm on Mar. 8, 2003
A little off topic, but here it goes. Where can an English speaking person go to learn some basic Thai? While I'm there I would like to learn some Thai maybe an hour or so per day for 2 weeks. Thanks.
Sounds like a reasonable request to me...
First, there is a section on this board devoted to language, and you can get others' opinions there.
Also, here is a list of schools:
http://thai-language-online.com/resources/Bangkok_schools.shtml
Sounds like you want to learn to speak, rather than read/write, and you need something flexible. Of all the schools on the above website, AUA is by far the cheapest, and arguably the best for developing the ability to speak well enough to be understood, as well as the ability to understand everyday Thai around you.
The only drawback is that it is SLOOOOW: about 200 hours for each of 10 levels, on average. You can start at the absolute bottom, AT Intro, and take as many hours per day as you like, as many days per week as you like, all at about 90 baht/hr, if purchased in 30 hr. blocks. It emphasizes listening, and discourages speaking, so you may not find it useful in the short term. But it WORKS, if you can put in the time, and want to be able to speak well over the long haul.
For your particular situation, you probably want private lessons, which will, of course, be more expensive. Books and tapes work, especially if you have a tutor to help you correct your speech. Without feedback, you will never get the tones right, and that means you will not be able to speak Thai, period. A tutor, ideally, should be someone with experience teaching Westerners to speak Thai. A native Thai speaker is NOT necessarily able to TEACH Thai, although you'll find MANY who will offer. Forget them - they won't have a clue as to how to help you overcome your problems, and you'll end up frustrated.
My best advice is to LISTEN. Every chance you get. Tapes, TV, radio, and yes, bar girls! After a while, the music of the language will make sense to you.
Then you can start...
good luck,
haam sup
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Bangkok Girls : Meet Sexy Bangkok Girls
Posted on: 8:49 pm on Mar. 9, 2003
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nikko
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Of the language schools for thai mentioned in this and other threads there are at least two that specifically offer 20 lesson intro courses designed to give you the basics. Pro Language in the Times Square Building (cost 3,000 baht) and Inlingua (cost 4,500 baht at a couple of locations). Other schools undoubtedly can offer one on one tuition for 300-400 baht an hour (Nisa, Union, Unity, Somchart, etc.). As for english classes, I think a 30 hour course at AUA costs about 1,800 baht or so plus a few hundred more for the book. They don't teach english the same way that they teach Thai and have a decent reputation (maybe slipping?) for actually getting results. AUA, ECC, and Siam Computer are probably the most inexpensive english language schools that also provide native speakers as instructors.
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Thai Women : Meet Matured Thai Women
Posted on: 9:46 pm on May 10, 2003
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BeegMember03
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I have been to Bangkok couple of times already over the past few months,
Maybe it is my Observation that Asian Punters.....Pick up thai Easier than Farangs,, considering the fact that Thai Grammar and some words have many common sounds with chinese, Malay,Chiu Chow, Cantonese......
to be fair, its easier for Farangs to pick up Russian, Spanish than Asian people ( if they were to Punt in Russia and Latin America)
....just my linguistic observations
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Bangkok Women : Meet Beautiful Thai Girls
Posted on: 12:45 am on June 2, 2003
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haam sup
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Any speaker of a tonal language, i.e. Chinese dialects, Vietnamese will have an easier time of it with spoken Thai. Japanese and Korean (non-tonal) language speakers, will have no advantage, IMHO. In fact, I have studied with a lot of Japanese Thai language students, and they were pretty much distributed around the old bell curve, except that, almost invariably, their study habits are better than mine were. (Not saying much, here.)
The written language, being alphabetic, gives Japanese/Chinese/Korean people fits, same as Westerners.
haam sup
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Bangkok Girls : Meet Attractive Thai Girls
Posted on: 1:18 am on June 2, 2003
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bkkz
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The Malay language does not have any tones either. It is probably the easiest language to learn.
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Thai Girls : Meet Active Thai Girls
Posted on: 6:34 am on June 2, 2003
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Smegma
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non-tonal does not mean it is not phonetically complicated.
From a purely phonetics standpoint Spanish and Romanian are the easiest -so the experts say. Though the grammar complicates things. All things included, perhaps Malay may be easier.
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Thai Women : Meet Matured Thai Women
Posted on: 7:26 am on June 2, 2003
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JktGuy
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In Malay/indonesian, the most important word is 'pulang', which means home. It is definitely the easiest language I have found.
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Bangkok Girls : Meet Attractive Thai Girls
Posted on: 8:00 am on June 2, 2003
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