Comments on: What Makes the Thai Language Easy to Learn?

By: Saar

Saar — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 16:31:27 +0000

Thank you for all of this, makes me want to give it a shot!

By: Thai Language | Bangkok Beyond Blog

Thai Language | Bangkok Beyond Blog — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 20:39:26 +0000

[...] What makes the thai language easy to learn // AKPC_IDS += "227,";Popularity: unranked [?] This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged thai language, Thailand. Bookmark the permalink. ← Thailand Floods update [...]

By: Hugo CNX

Hugo CNX — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 19:14:57 +0000

Tina, that was a good story for me to read.
I am a dutchman, living in Thailand for more than three years.
Adopting foreign languages I do very quickly and specially speaking it quite easily. I made my own vocabulary with the help of Glenn’s website thai-language.com which is great. But when trying to learn to read and write I had something like OMG, all these symbols and in my opinion Thai language was a broken item put together again but with all funny symbols used to do that. After reading your blog I feel a bit better about it and will pick it up these days again. Only these classes……
Cheers,
Hugo

By: Tina Gibbons

Tina Gibbons — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 09:36:26 +0000

Hi guys

Glad you liked the blog post.. I must say – I enjoyed writing it… and felt quite clever at the end of it for actually being fluent in English!!

I’m also a firm believer in how our perception of whether things are difficult or not, can actually influence how difficult (or not) these things are.. (does that makes sense?)..

I found that just by learning a few words in Thai – like “have”, “want”, “no”.. then combining it with a few subjects – like “water”.. I could communicate loads… “have water, no?” etc etc…

I hope viewing things slightly different makes your learning easier…

By: Catherine Wentworth

Catherine Wentworth — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 00:59:58 +0000

Martyn, ‘So effectively you have learned the missing words…am,to the,to,some,that is,they,got any….before you even learn your first word.’

That’s a great way of looking at it… And if anyone asks you how many Thai words do you know, you can top up the tally to include the assumed words too :-)

When Tina first suggested an article about how easy Thai is to learn, I quickly shot her back a reply full of smilies. But she’s right. Thai sentence structure is amazingly easy.

And, like you pointed out, learners do need to get it into their heads that Thai does not need to use all the words we do.

What a nightmare it must be for Thais, who have to learn the use of all those extra words!

By: Martyn

Martyn — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 20:39:24 +0000

Catherine putting it the way you have does actually make the challenge seem a little easier.

I think a major help in learning Thai is the sentence construction and I use the following as an example which may not be 100% right.

If in English we said ‘I am going to the market to buy some pork, that is if they have got any’….the translated Thai would read something like this…

‘I go market buy pork, if have’

So effectively you have learned the missing words…am,to the,to,some,that is,they,got any….before you even learn your first word.

I hope I explained that okay.
.-= Martyn´s last blog ..The Road is Wrong With Many a Lisp and Burn =-.