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Ballsburstin
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Thx for the link BK, am going there now ...
- Balls
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Thai Girls : Meet Sexy Thai Girls
Posted on: 1:00 am on July 13, 2003
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China Sailor
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All,
I will work on the spelling and English as soon as the Curevo wears off.
Balls,
I am currently starting the Pimsleur Instant Conversation course (18 lessons 30 min a day). Picked it up from Amazon.com for USD 35.
It is a lot like the conversational Tahi course and is a good "quick start". The full course is three courses of about 30 lessons each, I do not have 8 months to spare.
I figure once I get conversational Chinese down my Chinese girlfriend can help with the rest.
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Bangkok Women : Meet Sensual Bangkok Women
Posted on: 1:00 am on July 13, 2003
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haam sup
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No help on the Pimsleur courses, I'm afraid, but my standard position on learning Thai (and probably Mandarin, since it is tonal, too):
Listening is better than trying to talk, and feedback is ESSENTIAL when you do try to talk.
You will NEVER speak Thai from a phrasebook, because until you learn to distinguish, and reproduce the tones, your speech will be COMPLETELY unintelligible to Thais.
I used to think they were thick, because when someone mispronounces English, you can usually figure out what they are trying to say. No so Thai. They would look at me in puzzlement, and I would wonder why they couldn't extend the same effort to me that I extend to non-English speakers, and figure out what the hell I am trying to say!
Because I underestimated the importance of tones, I didn't realize that I was saying whole different WORDS than what I supposed I was saying...
That's why AUA's course works, and why it takes so bloody long...you absorb the tonal info by listening, and ONLY after a lot of time doing that, you begin to be able to hear your OWN tones, and reproduce the SOUNDS.
Feedback from a trained teacher is invaluable, because they KNOW what kind of mistakes you will make, and have techniques to help you around them. Native Thai speakers are NOT all trained teachers, including bargirls. 
Simple phonetic speech, without tone content is worse than useless.
haam sup
'Is it near or far?'
'Yu glai reu yu glai?'
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Thai Girls : Meet Sexy Thai Girls
Posted on: 1:09 am on July 13, 2003
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Ballsburstin
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haam sup,
have to agree on the tone problem. I actually didn't start getting the tone stuff down until I was able to read, in written Thai, and understand the high/med/low/tone mark rules better. I found the transliterations only slowed down my progress after the first couple of months. Still struggling, but my ear didn't distinguish the long/short vowels and dipthongs until I saw it written (which according to Pimsleur, I shouldn't have to do).
So you may be right, need to get some good listening in, and the Pimsleur web page talks about this. The starter course from Amazon (quoted by CS above) is a lot cheaper than the full course, so maybe I'll give it a try. I don't have the time right now to have formal instruction from a good teacher. Maybe when/if I get to Shanghai in September.
- Balls
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Bangkok Girls : Meet Sexy Bangkok Girls
Posted on: 1:19 am on July 13, 2003
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China Sailor
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Tones are very important and I agree with HS that listening to the language is the only good way to go. When I was a child I lived in Tokyo and had to learn Japanese. The teacher the school gave us was good but it was my playmates that taught me how the language should be spoken.
However, as HS noted, unless a BG has been well educated; she is probably not the best example to copy. Better to find someone in your profession to emulate, then you can pick up the 'buzzwords' and technical terms also.
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Thai Women : Meet Matured Thai Women
Posted on: 1:28 am on July 13, 2003
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Ballsburstin
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BK,
BTW, I just took a gander at your Thai eBook again and noticed that the Thai translation for
"Kid Theung/Kid Theung Jung Loei"
leaves out the "Jung Loei" in Thai.
- Balls
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Bangkok Women : Meet Beautiful Thai Girls
Posted on: 1:33 am on July 13, 2003
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Ballsburstin
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BK,
Actually, found a couple of minor things in the Langauge eBook that need to be updated (came across these when reading it with my TGF). If you like, rather than me babble about it here, I can send you a PM in the next couple of days with the stuff I've found? (Give me a chance to be productive for a change.)
- Balls
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Bangkok Girls : Meet Attractive Thai Girls
Posted on: 1:38 am on July 13, 2003
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Thor
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Quote: from bkkz on 12:55 pm on July 13, 2003
Quote: from Ballsburstin on 12:52 pm on July 13, 2003
My TGF also used it to learn some English. And we both got some laughs out of practicing some of the more "useful" phrases ...
It's a great ice-breaker. Bring it along to bars and have fun with the girls.
I have found my wallet to be a great ice-breaker.
- Thor
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Thai Girls : Meet Active Thai Girls
Posted on: 2:01 am on July 13, 2003
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The Machine
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BK
The Thai phrases that i downloaded off your site went down really well with the girls when i used it a few trips back.
I had to make photocopies for lots of the girls.
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Thai Women : Meet Matured Thai Women
Posted on: 5:07 am on July 16, 2003
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