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bkkz
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You learn by making mistakes... make some more! 
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Bangkok Girls : Meet Attractive Thai Girls
Posted on: 1:04 am on July 25, 2012
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Quim
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After my first innocent visit to LOS sometime in 2002 (on a bicycle no less), I started learning Thai on my own with Teach Yourself Thai, by David Smyth, complete with CD and and a self-study book that believed in teaching you how to read and write from the beginning, but wasn't always entirely consistent in terms of giving you the Thai script, rather than the largely incomprehensible transliteration. Still, I recommend it to beginners who want to go it on their own. http://www.amazon.com/Teach-Yourself-Complete-Course-Audiopack/dp/0071419160
(I also eventually bought and studied his excellent grammar book http://www.amazon.com/Thai-An-Essential-Grammar-Grammars/dp/0415226147)
I also made use of the (expensive) Pimsleur's Thai (which, I have learned, teaches you an oddly awkward and stilted way of speaking). I am still not sure if it helped or hurt me, but I did make it through all 30 half-hour lessons, with their endless repetitions.... http://www.amazon.com/Thai-Comprehensive-Understand-Pimsleur-Language/dp/0743544927
I paid ridiculous sums for twice a week one-on-one tutorials with a Thai teacher in NYC who insisted that I begin with ก ไก่ (i.e., learning the alphabet, like all Thai children) and from there the basic grammar, etc. After nine months of her my patience and money were exhausted, but at least I knew the alphabet and tone rules.
When in LOS, as BK so well advises, I sought out the least english speaking companions, and bored them to death with my endless questions about where they were from and how old they were and whether I was hurting them with my big cock. But at least my listening comprehension was improving. I knew when to stop.
I eventually bought all six volume of Benjawan Poomsan Becker's Thai language series http://www.paiboonpublishing.com/
And listened to them faithfully on my iPod and in my car whenever I remember they were there. And I am sure that they have helped, yet at the moment the only thing I can remember is the phrase ทำปุ๊บ เสร็จปั๊บ, don't ask me why.
I also found the excellent online dictionary http://www.thai-language.com/dict
and downloaded the Beckers' amazing iPhone dictionary app http://word-in-the-hand.com/thaidictiphone_ov.html
and posted blogs in Thai on http://lang-8.com/
where Thai natives correct your multiple mistakes.
And yet, after nearly 10 years of effort and strife and dedication well beyond what can reasonably be expected of a farang just looking to get laid in LOS, my U.S. based Thai GF (who admittedly has never previously had a falang BF) can barely understand my spoken Thai (because I rarely hit the tones accurately enough), and is only beginning to sort of understand my texted Thai (because my spelling sucks). And when I ask her to speak Thai with me, her general response is, Yes, I would, if you could speak Thai, and then she laughs. I think she is laughing with me, but I am not entirely sure.
Still, and I say this somewhat heroically, if albeit pathetically, I am not about to give up, even though it is the hardest language I have every tried to learn (and I speak two natively, and two or three others on a passable basis), largely because tones are not something my ears are attuned to hear. I find that writing and reading is much easier to master. And my Thai GF says my written Thai (iPhone texted) is easier for her to understand than my spoken Thai, although I am not sure if she means it as a compliment.
To all of those who have actually mastered speaking the language, my hat is tipped to you. To those of you who have learned to read and write it (a must, I personally believe), a double tip and a tap. And to those of you who, like me, are still struggling, take heart, it is not easy, despite all the various means and sources out there, long haired, short haired, or otherwise, but know that even when your TGF is laughing at you, she still appreciates that you are trying.
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Bangkok Women : Meet Sensual Bangkok Women
Posted on: 1:57 am on July 25, 2012
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badfishlbc
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Quim for every farang like you there's several more Thai's struggling with nearly the same problem with English. I've had some tone deaf Thai employees who were all over the place with their tone heavy delivery of English. I told them I would fix how they pronounce at least 1 word each day. Most of the time they simply could not detect that they were mispronouncing the words. It's not that they didn't possess the phoneme which is a different problem altogether.
In contrast, people like myself, and I'm sure many others on here can distinctly hear what they are saying and can duplicate the correct tone and pronunciation in 1 or two tries.
I know for my Thai friends and employees that have this problem it creates more of a struggle to learn the language.
We should ask the guy in this video for some tips...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMz3gjl9x-M
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Bangkok Girls : Meet Sexy Bangkok Girls
Posted on: 3:24 am on July 25, 2012
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bkkz
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I just remembered, there may be a problem if you're practicing your Thai with your TGF only, she could get accustomed to the way you speak without correcting your pronunciation. So you may be mispronouncing some words but she understands you as she knows what you mean. However, when you meet another Thai person and when you speak, that person may not know what the heck you've just said. That's why, you've gotta butterfly!! 
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Bangkok Girls : Meet Attractive Thai Girls
Posted on: 6:16 am on July 25, 2012
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Quim
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In general I have found that Thais are very bad at comprehending poorly toned spoken Thai, partly because the tone actually changes the meaning entirely, rather than just making, for example, dog sound a bit like dug, and, perhaps more importantly, relatively few Thais have experience listening to a falang try to speak Thai beyond the basic swatdeekraps and sabaideemys.
In contrast, English speakers tend to have a lot of practice listening to foreigners garble our language.
That said, BK's point about butterflying is well taken. Your GF, after all, learns to read your mind as much as anything.
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Bangkok Women : Meet Beautiful Thai Girls
Posted on: 5:01 pm on July 25, 2012
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DaffyDuck
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It does help if you already speak 3-4 other languages fluently before attempting Thai -- which of course means that most Americans and Brits are screwed
The problem is that Americans/Brits miss a serious amounts of tones from their simplified language, and like all English speakers, tend to phonetically pronounce Thai words they way the word looks *in their language*.
Even when repeatedly trying to explain to someone to pronounce a given word, they still "read" it, and thus mispronounce it.
The first thing I noticed while dabbling in Thai has been the way many of the anglicized written words are more intended to be pronounced in a European (German or French) manner, than in an American manner.
Pattaya is the classic example - which even long-term expats constantly mispronounce as "Pat-yah" instead of a closely more accurate "Patt-eye-Yah" (I'm trying for closeness and differences of pronounciation - we could split hairs over details here).
Yet, no matter how much I would pronounce it the more local way (I basically asked several Thai friends how the city name is pronounced - that's how I found out), or even try to point it out to "local expats", these idiots still keep getting it wrong. "residents" - my ass!
This is why I often laugh about expat claims of "you're just a bloody tourist, what the f*** do you know? I *live* 'ere!" -- Yeah, but apparently I can pronounce most of the words better, still.
(well, except for Banana - "Kwai" - obviously).
The other thing is that I personally get a big kick out of pronouncing something wrong, making a mortal and petrifying mistake, and being corrected by a laughing Thai... Not so for a lot of "expat veterans", who take grave offense to correcting their mangling of the local language.
Has anyone else experienced the same?
How many others here speak several other languages, and how have you found that to help you with Thai?
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Bangkok Girls : Meet Attractive Thai Girls
Posted on: 7:44 pm on July 25, 2012
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DrLove
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I don't know if it helped, but before learning Thai, I spoke English, German and Dutch.
Another thing, some people have a talent for learning languages, while other have a talent for mathematics.
As I stressed earlier, there is no best way to learn a language. It all depends on a person's ability.
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Thai Girls : Meet Active Thai Girls
Posted on: 3:39 am on July 26, 2012
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bkkz
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I find that Chinese people who speak Cantonese have no problems with the Thai tones, compared to Chinese people who only speak Mandarin. Hong Kong Cantonese has 7 tones, so they are able to mimic all the 5 Thai tones, whereas Mandarin has only 4 tones. I guess, people fluent in Vietnamese will have no problems with Thai as well.
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Thai Women : Meet Matured Thai Women
Posted on: 1:49 pm on July 26, 2012
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badfishlbc
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Quote: from DaffyDuck on 7:44 am on July 26, 2012
instead of a closely more accurate "Patt-eye-Yah"
This is not correct. No "eye" sound in Pattaya, I see this mistake a lot. Somehow people hear it that way, not sure why. Put-tuh-ya is more like it.
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Bangkok Girls : Meet Attractive Thai Girls
Posted on: 2:21 am on July 27, 2012
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