ศาลาชุมนุม

[tachaya]

I am a native Thai speaker, female, 23 years of age. I can help you with the language. You'll have fun learning Thai with me i have experiences in teaching Thai to foreigners before and I only charge 500 baht for an hour. If you are interested, please contact me at my email address: (I also use MSN)

[daidekiru]

I got to study a few times with Tachaya on my recent trip to Thailand. She is competent, experienced and friendly, fluent in English and Japanese. Requests a two hour minimum. Great teacher!

[ASG]

I haven'd been to Thailand yet so I have little idea. I am suprised that 500 baht (USD$14) an hour would be considered a low price for quality service. Sounds like tourist prices to me.

When I go to a country I like to pay local prices as if I work there I would be paid local prices.

Forgive me if I am astray. I am just giving my impression.

[dharmathai]

it is not an expensive pric e in general thats the normal price..
However stupid peole like me used to do it for 100 baht an hour... strangely enough i got very few people.. which proves what i learnt when i was professional tattoo artist;
The more people pay for the service, the more they value it.. when you make a tattoo too cheap it doesn't matter how beautiful you make it, the people just don't appreciate it! strange but true.. people like to boast "i paid so and so much for this".. it makes them feel special. I suppose that learning Thai isnt a physical thing you can show as a paid for product, so this might be the reason that people don't feel like they got quality when they pay expensive.
anyway - 500 baht an hour is not expensive.. but i am doubtful if Thai people can explain the grammar rules when learning to write Thai language.. there are some very complex rules which i had to find out myself as no Thai was able to explain it to me.. such as why the word Hmak (หมาก) has a low sound when the first consonant is a rising tone consonant.. all they could tell me was "because of gor gai at the end (ก - ไก่) - this was tno use to me, i needed to know the rule.. later after improving my reading abilities i b ought a book leading from p3 to m6 and University entrance exams for Thai grammaar, and finally resolved the issue. It is a rule called Thua Sagod (ตัวสะกด)
I now increased my price.. but it's still cheaper than 500..
i concentrate on teaching to read and write more than conversation, because i believe that it is impossible to speak fluently without reading and writing Thai.
Conversation is good for people who need a crash course, but you don't really need a teacher for that you can just try chatting with Thais and pointing and asking the name of things.. the tones will always be wrong if you don't read and write, and you won't understand how two similar sounding words are different unless you see the spelling. The spelling also tells you which tones to use.. so i recommend forgetting the conversation bit first and learning to read and write.
If you acheive this you will automatically be able to then understand 80 percent of laoatian script if you use your imagination - Lao is very similar to Thai.
I recommend learning one consonant from each of the 3 main tonal groups (rising, middle and low) and then learn how the tone symbols (roop wannayukt - รูปวรรณยุคต์ ) react with each family of consonants

[markinbkk]

Sorry to disagree with you on two separate threads (it's not a campaign honestly!) but I think conversation lessons can be very useful. It's all very well saying you can just speak to Thai people for practice but I find there are two problems with that. One is that most of them are too polite to correct you, unless you specifically ask them to.

Secondly, even if you do ask them to, they won't do it consistently or for any length of time as it quickly becomes boring. That also applies to pronunciation drilling. That's boring for anyone, especially if they aren't getting paid for it.

Regarding the word หมาก, that's a basic rule as far as I'm aware. All high class consonants with a "dead" syllable (i.e. one that ends with a hard consonant - ("k", "t" and "p" sounds - forgive me if I have missed any) take a low tone. That's the whole purpose of putting the ห at the beginning of that word. If it wasn't there it would take a falling tone of course.

[mangkorn]

I can see how a learned farang teaching another farang may be useful - but only in a supplementary way. I've done it myself, at times...

I have managed to teach my lazy friend some things that he couldn't or wouldn't understand otherwise, by explaining in a way that is clear to both of us, and only because I had already sussed out the same questions that he has for myself, or with the help of a Thai teacher or friend. When there is a question of "how do I express this thought?" - a farang who is quite knowledgeable about Thai language can be a good shortcut, sometimes. But I would stress that can work only for very specific questions (such as how we do it on this forum, and even then, we usually require Khun Nan's very generous assistance).

I wouldn't consider that a recommendable path for school study, if for no other reason than that a farang student should hear the "music" of Thai language from native Thais. Do you really want to replicate the sound of a farang pronouncing Thai? Only if that farang actually sounds like a Thai, of which there are scant few. How could a novice even know whether this teacher possessed proper diction, or not?

Also, the following phrase casts some serious doubt in my mind about this premise: "...such as why the word Hmak (หมาก) has a low sound when the first consonant is a rising tone consonant..."

Well, there is no such thing as a rising-tone consonant in Thai language. The proper definition is "high-class consonant," which by itself does not determine the tone; the class is just one of a couple elements that determine the tone of a syllable. Perhaps that was just a typographical error - or, is it a fundamental flaw in the pedagogy?

If I were a novice being taught about "rising-tone consonants," I think that I would be very confused, perhaps irreparably so.

And, let's face it: farang students (especially those who would study with a farang teacher, instead of a native Thai teacher) do consult romanized transcription, whether anyone wants to admit it, or not. So, what is the point of writing that word as "Hmak," when the Thai ห is merely a silent tone-determiner, as Markin notes? Seems to me that can only lead to mispronunciation, and casts more doubt on the proposed method, making one wonder about the comprehension of the person doing the teaching.