Seeking (and giving a little) Sage Wisdom on Learning Thai

[Flashermac]

I knew a Peace Corps gal who was tone deaf! She couldn't carry a tune in a bucket. Something of a disadvantage when learning a tonal language.

 

[bibblies]

Sadly so am I. I'm not even sure how I'm saying it half the time.

 

I've often thought that it would be helpful to have a piece of software that showed the sound of a word in graph format and that recorded you and showed you to compare. That'd probably help me to improve. (Been too lazy to try to improve in 6-7 years )

 

I've also thought that the importance of tones is maybe overdone in our eyes because it's the main difficulty. I think we tend to overlook other things, especially long versus short vowels because that's another thing that doesn't matter in English. I let this slip all the time whereas I'm always thinking about the bloody tones!

 

Flasher, have you ever learnt any Vietnamese? I'm vaguely interested in that (based on my rule that, if I like the women in a country, I'm interested in learning the language ). I took a quick look, thinking the tones learnt in Thai might at least help me because surely they'd have a few the same. But they're all different!

[khunsanuk]

Hi,

 

"I've often thought that it would be helpful to have a piece of software that showed the sound of a word in graph format and that recorded you and showed you to compare."

 

This is around, but most of them are crap. Mostly recording the sound volume rather than pitch/tone.

Usually no help whatsoever.

 

Sanuk!

 

[buffalo_bill]

" Obviously, you can't learn a language in 7 days. "

 

Once upon a time I learned Portuguese within about that time so that I could speak to anybody and his/her reaction was according to plans . I tried the same with Thai 2 years ago and it terribly failed because you need a native speaker whom you can talk to and he puts your tone right . I learned word after word like an idiot but nobody understood what I wanted .

[Flashermac]

<< Flasher, have you ever learnt any Vietnamese? >>

 

I just picked up a few basic phrases in the Army, stuff like "Where's the loo?" ... "Hello, you're pretty" ... "Where are you going?" ... "Where do you live? ... "How much?" etc.

 

 

Vietnamese has some strange sounds to it, but at least it's written with the Roman alphabet (with tone markers). It shouldn't be that hard to learn, but I'd say it's probably more difficult than Thai. Never really tried though, so I may be wrong.

 

 

 

[Flashermac]

Hmmm ... according to this, our interpreter was teaching me northern pronuncation. But he was from Nha Trang. Only northern I knew was another interpreter, whose family had fled south from Hanoi when the communists got the north in 1954. (He was a Buddhist and told me most who fled were also Buddhists, though the anti-war mantra claimed they were all Catholics who had worked for the French.)

 

p.s. Our interpreter, SSG Ngyuen Than Tu, used to make fun of the way people in Binh Dinh (central) spoke.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_language

 

 

 

 

 

 

[jitagawn]

You reach a plateau where you are not picking up any new words. I'm guilty of that myself.

 

 

Hm That sounds like my present situation. It all sounds really good until I get in uncharted water.

 

[Flashermac]

Yep. Suddenly you go from 100% comprehension to 50% or less.

 

 

[Mekong]

A funny but true story: one PCV had been a civil action vol, which meant he worked upcountry with Thais who didn't speak English. When he took his proficiency test, the examiner knew something was wrong because the PCV's score was only a level 1. (Level 1 = basic command of the language, but poor pronunciation, faulty sentence structure, poor listening comprehension etc. Level one is where a PCV should be at the end of training.) The examiner asked the PCV where he had worked. Seems he'd spent 3 years in Sakon Nakhorn! PC arranged for the guy to come in for another exam - in Isaan Lao! Then he scored a level 3.

 

 

 

Flash I can relate to that 100% My ex wife was a BG from Udon (yes even I made the mistake) and what I thought I was talking Thai was actually Isaan / Laos. What amplified the situation was the fact that the most of the Thai's I associated with at that time in BKK were all friends and relatives of my ex from the same area.

 

You can imagine my shock 9 years ago when I decided to get away from the scene and intergrate with thais in other circles and 75% of what I said believing it to be Thai was not understood.

 

[Flashermac]

I spent my first 5 years in the lower North. Apparently I picked up a Northern accent. When I moved to Bangkok, everyone asked why I spoke Thai like a northerner. I wasn't aware I did!