Women Learning Thai… and some men too ;-)

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The Do-Be-Do-Be-Do system of learning Thai tones… (Apologies to Frank Sinatra) If language were like a song, then the vocabulary and grammar of the language would be the words. The vowels, consonants, syllable stress and sentence intonation in English, and the tones in Thai would be the music. You really have to sing both the [...]

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 [...]

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/. [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

I’m Not Fine, Thank You… From my years of teaching English I have learned that there is a two-line dialog that is ingrained in every student of English, probably in the world. It goes like this: Hello, how are you? Fine thank you, and you? As native speakers of English, we know that there are [...]

Thai alphabet and vocabulary apps for your iPhone… When I started collecting Thai language iPhone apps last year, only a dribble came through. Later, they started coming fast, but then slowed down soon after. You will see what I mean when noting the creation dates for each app (listed below). And btw. The iTunes store [...]

Learning the Thai Alphabet on YouTube… Clicking around YouTube, I came across new videos of Thai children practicing the Thai alphabet. The video below was so precious, I contacted Natcha to get permission to feature her daughter. And if that didn’t make you smile, I don’t know what will. More YouTube sweeties learning the Thai [...]

Rosetta Stone* Methodology… *After the stone and not the expensive software In her interviews of Thai speakers, Catherine likes to ask if we have ever had an “Ah ha” moment in our Thai studies. An “Ah ha” moment is sort of a Zen “satori” experience where we become enlightened, although sometimes only for a short [...]

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 [...]