Using Thai language to communicate

[luckyfarang]

On my first trip to Thailand in the eighties, I fell in love with the country right away as so many others do, and extended my trip from two weeks to four.

 

I didn't come to Thailand for the female companionship, but had some good experiences anyway with ladies in Chiangmai and Phuket, not so good in Bangkok. My biggest error there was asking the mamasan for a girl who spoke English. Newbie mistake.

 

I tried using some phrasebook Thai, but caused more amusement than actual communication. When I returned three years later, I began to learn to speak Thai in earnest.

 

I was faced with the decision that many repeat visitors face: to learn to read or just speak?

 

It was an easy decision for me. The amount of time necessary to learn to read would slow my progress learning to speak, and would certainly not help me communicate any better in the short run. I was a tourist with only a few weeks holiday here and there, certainly no time for classroom learning.

 

So I kept my eye on the goal, learning to communicate. I developed my own shorthand to transliterate Thai into English with the proper tones. If I learned five new Thai words every day, I would remember only one the next day if I didn't immediately write them down. Many slang, commonly used words and colloquialisms are not in any dictionary or phrasebook, and the only place to learn them is on the street.

 

Never underestimate the importance of speaking with correct tones and accent. I learned right away that you can't hold a Thai's attention for even one minute if your accent is bad. I remember on my second trip to Chiangmai trying to tell the laundry lady that my shirt had "disappeared". It took her quite a while to figure out that I meant HAAI® with a long rising tone.

 

Even just the length of the tone is very important to be able to communicate. When I first tried ordering 'spring rolls' in Thai, I had the tones exactly right, but used a short rather than long tone on the first syllable. PAW-PIA(f) The waitress just gave me a blank stare until I repeated it about five times, and finally she figured it out and repeated it correctly with a long first tone, and I learned a valuable lesson.

 

Many Thais are undereducated or even illiterate, but they can recognize and pronounce these words correctly, because they have heard the word pronounced only one way since birth. Even a Thai three year old can do it.

 

I have no intention of reading Thai literature any time soon, and I can always get my news on television. Not being able to read is now hindering my progress in spoken Thai, but, for now, it's too late for me to take a class in it. My business takes up most of my time, and in a few years, when I retire in Thailand, I will take up reading. For now, I can always find someone to read me the odd Thai road sign or menu in the rare instances that they are not also in English.

 

Would I recommend to learn to read when first learning the language? It depends on your goal and how much time you have. Not if you just want to learn to communicate quickly.

 

Some hints:

 

1. Learn to recognize and reproduce the tones and other unique sounds such as "ng" at the beginning of a word. You will need the assistance of a Thai to do this, unless you are really talented, in which case you might be able to learn from tapes.

 

2. Carry a small pocket notebook at all times and jot down any new words you learn immediately with tone markings.

 

3. Buy some English-Thai dictionaries and phrasebooks with English transliteration so you can look up an English word and then say it in Thai or point to it if necessary.

 

4. As your vocabulary and skill increases, learn to think in Thai. This is the only way to attain real fluency. It takes a long time, and the way to do it is to practice thinking every single thought simultaneously in both Thai and English.

 

Communicating in Thai will take your holiday experience to a whole new level. You'll get a lot more out of it than just being able to order in a restaurant, or get the best price at a market.

 

You can travel anywhere in Thailand without a guide. You can get some real insight into the Thai culture and state of mind. And you can start thinking of Thailand more as a second home, and not just a tourist destination.

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest]

Good info and observations. As far as reading, a lot of Thai's use the maanii book to in primary school to learn to read and write. It is a fun way to learn because it is a story book form. I have found it a good conversation piece to tell Thai's you are studying it; they know this book from their childhood and often laugh hysterically an adult is studying it! The book is online and is broken into short lessons and has other learning aids with it like flash cards and comprehension quiz's. So in your spare time, you can learn a character or two at your own pace. It's free too. You can find it inside here:

 

http://www.seasite.niu.edu

 

[Guest]

I think not paying at least a little attention to learning the Thai alphabet when you're first starting out can be a mistake. Some grounding in the way Thai is written will help enormously in learning to communicate beyond the very initial stage.

 

Note that I didn't say that learning to read is essential. I can't read past the level of a small child but being able to sound out Thai words, use a dictionary properly, even understanding the rationales behind the way Thai is transliterated are helpful.

 

About tones, I completely agree with what you said in your post. We tend to think that even if we sort of get the tones wrong, a native speaker would be able to get the gist of what we are trying to say. In my experience this is really not so true. Different tone = different word, period. (One nit: long vs. short are different vowels, not tonal variations. One example of where a small amount of grounding in the writing system provides helpful insights.)

 

I recommend the Thai-English/English Thai Dictionary from Paiboon Publishing. It's compact and pretty complete, and the transliteration system is good. This is from the same people who do Thai for Lovers and a couple of other books that I also recommend for learning the basics of written Thai. The Lonely Planet Thai Phrasebook has a very good pseudo-academic introduction to the basic structure of the language.

[Pescator]

Hi Luckyfarang,

 

I have a friend of mine who speaks excellent thai although he has never opened a book in his life.

In fact if you hear him on the phone you wont be able to tell that he is not thai.

He has no clue about reading or writing, but has picked up every bit he knows from talking with thai people.

It is not that he is a great linguist because his english is quite poor and never improves although he uses that regularly.

But he is what I would describe as a "Thailophile". Nuts about everything thai and spends most of his time chatting with thai girls and is generally extremely preoccupied with everything related to Thailand.

 

I do read and write and if I ask him what tone and vowel duration this and this word should be pronounced with, he cannot tell. But he gets it right anyway!

 

I started off myself by building a vocabulary and getting to know common idioms, as I needed to know some thai in a hurry.

I think that if you start off by learning the reading and writing in thai a lot of people will probably be disencouraged due to slow process.

It is much more rewarding to be able to speak basic thai quickly although it may very well set you back at a later stage when you attempt to learn reading and writing.

However, if I had started by learning to read and write, I feel rather sure that my thai studies would have ended right there. That approach is a little bit too academical to me.

 

Cheers

Hua Nguu

 

[Pharcyde]

I agree with many of the points you made in your post. especially the importance to learn while you have the chance, and what chance is better than actually being in Thailand hearing the language every day, everywhere. The idea about a little notebook is also very good as it helps your mind remember words and way of pronounciation from real-life stiuations as you encounter them on the streets. I learnt my thai along the same methods, and i can only stress that is essential to ask ask and ask again, because out there, nearly every thai feels flattered from your interest in their language and willing to teach a few gold nuggets.

About the more complicated endings such as "ng", that you mentioned. Just try and say Hongkong, or maybe bong, its all there...

Cheers,

Pharcyde

[markle]

I agree with most of what's already been said.

Regarding the reading debate I agree with the idea that if you don't feel you need to read in the short term then there is no real need. However if you really want to communicate fully in the language then, as Kn Married pointed out, you really should have a good grasp in the fundamentals of reading. I can't see how it would bog you down because you will always need to do it eventually, if you want to go that extra step. As for never really needing it or people speaking Thai perfectly without it then I agree but illteracy is illiteracy. Illiteracy, no matter how well you speak the language, will always isolate you in some way, from the mundane - road signs and to labels on cans, to literture, magazine articles, personal letters.

I can read quite well but my writing is quite poor and I find it very frustating to not be able to write simply notes or I get embarrassed taht my handwriting is like that of a preschooler.

[Guest]

Very nice post, Lucky. Good job.

 

Our wat is poor, and many in our community are simple, country folk. I would dare say quite a few have poor reading and writing skills. Doesn't seem to bother them in the least, though. Of course there are limitations, but also consider the thousands of generations of people who spoke and developed their language before Gutenberg (sp) came along. Reading ranks least IMO as far as developing your skills. Helpful, absolutely, but not the most important.

 

Markle - regarding your handwriting issue, grab a couple of music CD's and experiment with the font styles used on the album covers. This helped me enormously, as I could make certain letters look much better than before. It looked more modern as well. Got compliments from the monks, too!

 

[markle]

Says pjacktpa:

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but also consider the thousands of generations of people who spoke and developed their language before Gutenberg (sp) came along

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and then consider the explosion of ideas, knowledge, technology, etc that came after the printing press (it's not called the Enlightenment for nothing). Reading is an important way of aquiring knowledge beyond your circle of friends/contacts.