ศาลาชุมนุม

[xkkpafi]

Hello from one for whom learning Thai has proved impossible. I have been to a fro from Thailand many years, done intensive courses, have done one-to-one teaching courses, spend many hours doing homework, yet: I cannot read a thai novel, speak thai so badly no-one understands, usually spell about 75% of the words incorrectly when writing, cannot understand the TV, what people say in everyday life.. and so on, in other words total failure. I am now more interested in finding out for some people like myself why is it completely impossible to learn Thai when most of the few falangs who i know can now speak very well. Now I am not stupid or intellectually handicapped in any way. I have a BA and MSc and have worked for many years in telecoms and software engineering. My project orientation in these areas makes it imperitive to find out why or what prevents me from learning Thai. I am wondering if others have ever reached this stage and have had to give up, or am I an exception? If your attempts have been as futile as mine, did you ever discover what was preventing you from getting on? Is there a type of psyche, personality or psychological trait that simply makes learning Thai impossible? If this or these factors could be identified then one would know beforehand not to embark on mission impossible and save a huge amount of disappointment, frustration and disappointment.

[Pirin]

Hello from one for whom learning Thai has proved impossible. I have been to a fro from Thailand many years, done intensive courses, have done one-to-one teaching courses, spend many hours doing homework, yet: I cannot read a thai novel, speak thai so badly no-one understands, usually spell about 75% of the words incorrectly when writing, cannot understand the TV, what people say in everyday life.. and so on, in other words total failure. I am now more interested in finding out for some people like myself why is it completely impossible to learn Thai when most of the few falangs who i know can now speak very well. Now I am not stupid or intellectually handicapped in any way. I have a BA and MSc and have worked for many years in telecoms and software engineering. My project orientation in these areas makes it imperitive to find out why or what prevents me from learning Thai. I am wondering if others have ever reached this stage and have had to give up, or am I an exception? If your attempts have been as futile as mine, did you ever discover what was preventing you from getting on? Is there a type of psyche, personality or psychological trait that simply makes learning Thai impossible? If this or these factors could be identified then one would know beforehand not to embark on mission impossible and save a huge amount of disappointment, frustration and disappointment.

I might not share exactly the same experience with you about learning Thai because I started doing it when I was 7, and I went to the same school with classmates who all spoke Thai from the ages 13 to 18.

The experience I share with you is the one of learning German -- the experience of learning a foreign language by ourselves. I can't communicate in German after I had left the clasroom for around 20 years. Now I do have a friend who speaks German, but it is not possible for him to find time to explain to me every question I have about German language. I hardly have a chance to go to Germany or Austria either.

However, I do believe that I will able to at least read German articles on my own. I do this by trying to read some articles in German about what I like.

In doing so, I found a big collection of articles about Mozart and his work at (http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/buch/mozarts-briefe-5000/1).

To be able to read those articles, I have to start from getting to know the aspects of different German word classes, how to use different forms of verbs in the present tense, and so on, again.

Because I'm rather busy with all of the things to do every day, that's not easy; I can spend some time on German language only once a month. I also have to write a note to myself to keep in mind that I must pratice German once a month.

This is just to say that it is advisable that you yourself are the one who will make it hapen; you are the one to start the whole process again. Then you will know what you're required to do. (In such case, it is also advisable that you do not give up.)