Women Learning Thai… and some men too ;-)

You are browsing the archives of 2010 July.

David Smyth updates Teach Yourself Thai … Only a handful of Thai courses are highly thought of, and David Smyth’s Teach Yourself Thai is at the very top of that list. When I asked polyglot Stu Jay Raj which books he’d recommend to students of the Thai language, David’s Teach Yourself Thai was the only [...]

A Sticky Problem… I was reading one of those Thai expat blogs recently when I came across someone discussing the Thai word for “stingy” (seems like his girlfriend uses this word with him often). To add a little humor to his blog he did a direct translation of the Thai word for “stingy”, ขี้เหนียว /kêe-nǐeow/. [...]

James Higbie and Essential Thai… From the inception of the Successful Thai Language Learner series, I’ve had my eye on James Higbie. I was patiently tracking Jim down, but he found me first. During our back and forth Jim mentioned that his highly prized Essential Thai is being tidied up for a reprint. And just [...]

Google Translate, the challenge… Over a year ago, Google Translate launched, and the language sites started buzzing at the possibilities. My contributions were Thai Translation: Google Translation & Thai Dictionaries and Google Translates Documents and Email Too and Thai Google Translate: Will Crowdsourcing Work. During it all, Jeff Gray mentioned the below: …the sheer volume [...]

Interviewing Successful Thai Language Learners… Name: Andrew Biggs Nationality: Australian Age range: Mid-twenties. Oh allright, 47. Sex: Male Location: Bangkok Profession: Writer, TV producer, Tv and radio emcee, school owner … you name it Website/blog: www.andrewbiggs.com Products (books, courses etc): Too many to mention What is your Thai level? That depends on how much sleep [...]

Mindfulness and learning Thai… Reading a recent article by Catherine Wentworth, Learning Thai (for the shy), I hit upon a paragraph that grabbed my attention. She was talking about shy people learning languages but the thing that particularly piqued my interest was her mention of mindfulness in connection with learning Thai – I knew she [...]

The Thai phrases you use most often… Moving to a county with a new foreign language to tackle, I depend on two sure-fire phrases. The first phrase I learn is ‘I don’t understand’. And the second phrase is ‘this does not work’. I also practice my blank stare. Why these three? Ok, I know from [...]

Who is Andrew Biggs?… Andrew Biggs, the coolest bald guy in Thailand, is one of those long-time expat curiosities that a chunk of Thai learners know next to nothing about. A part of the reason is because Andrew does not market his talents to expats (he’s an all Thai sort of guy). And (taking a [...]

Are you a shy Thai learner?… Back when I was much younger, I’d shrink from meeting new people, and sometimes people I knew. One time, I even burst into tears when a male teacher focused on me too intently in class. But years later, I am no longer what I would consider painfully shy. Now [...]

Reviewing iPhone apps for the Thai learning market… In this series, so far I’ve reviewed Thai Language Phrase Books and Thai Alphabet and Vocabulary apps. So unless you’ve downloaded a Thai dictionary already, this review is for you. You might notice that I included all dictionaries listed as English Thai. And the reason I did [...]

HEdictionary English Thai HD… Before I launch back into my extensive reviews of iPhone apps for the Thai language learning market, I thought I’d share this beauty with you. HEdictionary English Thai HD is a superlative dictionary not only for Thai to learn English but also for English to learn Thai. The comprehensive dictionary contains [...]

Active Learning vs Passive Learning… I’ve been learning languages by myself since I was 13. As an experienced self-learner, I came to the conclusion that there is no one best method, but there are some universal principles one can stick to and which I think should be shared for the benefit of those who really [...]