Women Learning Thai… and some men too ;-)

Interviewing a Thai Skype teacher… When I got stuck into the research for this series, the basic benefits of learning Thai via Skype weren’t that difficult to suss. Especially for a hermit such as myself! But as I was fairly clueless about what happens on the other side of the connection, interviewing a Thai Skype [...]

Interviewing Successful Thai Language Learners… Name: Hamish Chalmers Nationality: British Age range: 30-40 Sex: Male  Location: Bangkok Profession: EAL Faculty Head Website/blog: Tweet Yourself Thai Twitter: @AjarnPasa What is your Thai level? In the language world we have two basic benchmarks between no language and full fluency. These are BICS (Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills) and CALPs [...]

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 [...]

Interviewing Successful Thai Language Learners… Name: Ian Fereday Nationality: British Age: 50 next month (oh dear!) Sex: Male Location: Phuket Town, Phuket Profession: Semi-retired owner of Patong Language School Website: phuket-languageschool.com | study-thai-online.com | teflplus.com Products: Commenced studies at Patong Language School using the Ministry of Education series produced for Thai children studying in primary [...]

Interviewing Successful Thai Language Learners… Name: Doug Nationality: American Age range: 50-60 Sex: Male Location: Bangkok Profession: Computational linguistics Website: Sealang.net What is your Thai level: Intermediate/Advanced/Fluent or a combo? Combo Do you speak more street Thai, Issan Thai, or professional Thai? Semi-pro. What were your reasons for learning Thai? Living here, wanted to fully [...]

Creating a Thai dictionary… Like most students of the Thai language, I keep adding to a list of Thai words I must know. It started out on a simple spread sheet with just the Thai word and the meaning(s). Then I added whether the words were noun, verb, whatever. When I discovered classifiers, they were [...]

Interview: Luke Cassady-Dorion the linguist… I never tire of reading about the language attributes of linguists. Luke, a talented photographer, just happens to be studying for a Bachelor’s Degree at Ramkhamkaeng University (Thai Major, Japanese Minor). In addition, he has taken on Spanish, Sanskrit, Lanna, and Burmese at the university level. Impressive. Goldenland Polygot In [...]

Interviewing Successful Thai Language Learners… Name: Gareth Marshall Nationality: British Age range: 30-40 Sex: Male Location: Bangkok Profession: Magazine editor Website: www.director-thailand.com What is your Thai level? All a bit mixed up, really. Overall I’d say intermediate, although I practice writing rarely, if ever. Do you speak more street Thai, Issan Thai, or professional Thai? [...]

Learning Thai with translated lakorn videos.. If you are serious about learning Thai, you probably search out every available avenue for getting the rhythm of the language into your heart, your head, down to the tapping of your fingers even. To assist, Thai songs are a great way to go, as are lakorn’s. Dedicated, professional, [...]

Interviewing Successful Thai Language Learners… Name: Martin Clutterbuck Nationality: British Age range: 40-50 Sex: Male Location: Bangkok Profession: PR Website/blog: Siamese Cats: Legends and Reality Book: The Legend of Siamese Cats What is your Thai level? Fluent, but shy of bilingual Do you speak more street Thai, Issan Thai, or professional Thai? Early on, I [...]

Interviewing Successful Thai Language Learners… Name: Stuart (Stu) Jay Raj Nationality: Fijian Indian / Australian Age range: 30-40 Sex: Male Location: Anywhere and Everywhere Profession: TV Host / Cross Cultural Business Consultant   Web: Stu Jay Raj stujaystujay’s YouTube Channel Note: As this is the final post of a three part interview, some of the [...]

Interview with polyglot Stu Jay Raj… Heads-up everyone: This post is a continuation of Stuart (Stu) Jay Raj: Interview Part One.   Stu, with Cracking Thai Fundamentals and now Mnidcraft, you’ve taught the Thai language to expats for some time. In your experience, which learning difficulties are the most common?   The writing system always [...]

Interview with polyglot Stu Jay Raj… When I moved to Bangkok I was fortunate to discover Stu Jay Raj’s Cracking Thai Fundamentals course located at that time on Suk Soi 1. Once a week for eight weeks I’d jump on the MRT to travel into the bowels of Bangkok for an hour of hilarious fun. [...]

Interviewing Successful Thai Language Learners… Name: Herb Purnell Nationality: American Age range: 70+ Sex: Male Location: Currently in Chiangrai March to mid-April 2010, then Bangkok to the end of August, then to the U.S. Profession: Retired from university teaching in applied linguistics but still active in field language projects in Thailand. Current projects include producing [...]