Now, all of you who know more Thai than I do are required to read the lesson below, submit your corrections, critiques, and suggestions, and I will consider these comments to be your indication to willingly volunteer to do all further lessons yourself. (Just kidding, but seriously: If there is anybody out there who knows the Thai language and would like to do these lessons (as formatted below, in general) for me, I would be more than willing to hand over the reins.)
Rule #1 though: No critiquing allowed of the phonetic spelling system I have chosen. It is a combination of how Thai-Language.com spells their words, and my own rising/falling/high/low tone marks, which are as follows:
- á, é, í, ó, ú are "rising" tones.
- à, è, ì, ò, ù are "falling" tones.
- â, ê, î, ô, û are "high" tones.
- ă, ĕ, ĭ, ŏ, ŭ are "low" tones.
2 comments:
I just returned from my first trip to Thailand last week. I spent most of my time in Pattaya with my g/f. It was the most amazing 3 weeks of my life.
Returning to the US was very hard after my experiences in Thailand. I found your blog when I was searching for something to remind me of my time there. Some people only see differences when they go to Thailand, and they are everywhere that you look, but I found more similarities than differences. I learned so many lessons in my far too short time in LOS.
I worked to learn the Thai language for 9 months, but it wasn't until I got there that I realized how little I had learned. Yet I was able to communicate at least a little with everyone I met and a lot with most.
For new students I would recommend some of the following materials to begin with: Thai for Beginners (including both audio casettes or CD's), Thai-English English-Thai Dictionary, and Improving Your Thai Pronunciation. They all have the same publisher. If you get courses and books that are from differing publishers, you are going to be very confused by the pronunciation guides.
Tones are of utmost importance if you want to be understood. It takes a LOT of adjustment to understand Thai. Rome wasn't built in a day, as the old saying goes, therefore it will take time to learn. Western ears aren't trained to recognized tones other than to express emotion or urgency.
There is a children's book you can find online called Manee and Friends. It's out of print, so you can find it for free on a few websites which have audio to accompany it. Reading that inspired me to purchase nearly $100 worth of children's books while in Thailand.
You also need to get used to the sounds. In the long run that means making Thai friends online for language exchanges AND going to Thailand. Listen to Thai music (ethaimusic.com), karaoke, podcasts, broadcasts, and movies. Maybe not a lot at first, but try to get a feel for what it sounds like in real life.
I've returned with a renewed sense of desire to learn the language for my return trip. Thanks for making the heartbreak of my return a little more bearable!
Thanks Matt. All good tips, those.
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