ศาลาชุมนุม

[unknown123]

ผมไม่เขียนภาษาไทยเนื่องจากพวกเราพูดภาษาอังกฤษครับ และบางคนไม่สามารถเข้าใจภาษาไทยครับ ผมจึงจำเป็นต้องเขียนเป็นภาษาอังกฤษ

Sure i agree 100% with all of you - i think learning a language requires a lot of different methods - one is always not enough.

Does anybody know any other smartphone programs to study Thai? For me its convenient way as i am working a lot and have time to study only in taxi, brakes, queue etc. No time for books unfortunately...

[unknown123]

I'd like to say that I don't participate in this topic because I find anything offensive

BTW - what did you find offensive?

[daฟาน]

@Pirin: Please try Anki for the French verb conjugations, it works like a charm and public decks are available (grammar is the only thing that works well with public decks imho).
I had to study French about 2 years ago in university, the conjugations were the only things I could handle.

[pensive]

I'd like to say that I don't participate in this topic because I find anything offensive

BTW - what did you find offensive?

She means that she doesn't find anything offensive and that the reason she doesn't participate is because she is dubious of the claims for the product.

[Pirin]

@Pirin: Please try Anki for the French verb conjugations, it works like a charm and public decks are available (grammar is the only thing that works well with public decks imho).
I had to study French about 2 years ago in university, the conjugations were the only things I could handle.

I downloaded Anki. Too bad that I have no idea how to use it.

I'm not good at using elctronic program at all.

Probably, I might just review my knowledge of the imperative mode in French; it won't take time because I used to study it.

[daฟาน]

Yeah unfortunately Anki looks very confusing at the beginning. However I can help you with the deck if you really want to give it a try - just write me a pm or something. If you just use it for reviewing, there is not much you have to know / do

Oh talking about learning French, please give french.about.com a try, it was a huge help while I was taking the course at my university... (e.g. http://french.about.com/od/grammar/a/imperative.htm )

[Pirin]

.....

[daฟาน]

pas de problème, c'est น่าจะ assez

(ถ้าผมพยายามพูดภาษาฝรั่งเศษ ผมคิดภาษาไทยตลอดครับ แปลดกี... เคยพูดคำศัพท์ภาษาไทยที่ห้องเรียน (ภาษาฝรั่งเศษ) เพื่อนทุกๆคนงงกับตกใจ 55)

[tod-daniels]

Sorry, I couldn't be bothered reading this oh-so long thread in its entirety. Nor did I look at the link or the app either.

As a rule, I tend to shy away from anything which uses buzz-words like; "hi-speed", "rapid" or purports to be some magically faster way to do something.

It is my experience that none of the above words are applicable to acquiring the Thai language (or possibly any language! ) It takes TIME, lots and LOTS of it. More than that, it takes motivation by the learner, because simply putting in time w/out the motivation to learn is, well it's a waste of time.

Knowing a lot of random Thai words, even high-frequency ones, isn't gonna help you speak Thai at all. In Thai; structure is everything. If you say something in a non-Thai way, even if you pronounce every word perfectly, these people will just "lock up"; give you the deer in the headlights look. I've found Thais are far more forgiving on errant pronunciation when you're using correct Thai sentence structure. It's almost as if their brain self-corrects for the bad intonation without them even knowing it. They understand you way better if you're saying it "like a Thai" even if you're speaking the American accented half-assed version of Thai which comes out of my mouth most days .

Now as far as learning to read Thai; that's nothing more than memorizing TONZ of Thai words so that when you see it you know the meaning of the word. Also seeing as reading is usually done "silently to yourself"; it is my opinion that simply knowing how to read Thai doesn't make you a better Thai speaker. I realize others may disagree with me on this, but my own experience was I could read and understand written Thai, long before I could speak more than "2-word-tourist-thai". Knowing what a word meant when I saw it didn't make me pronounce it clearly, because I just memorized Thai words and it took quite a while before I got the tone rules and other stuff down to where I could reasonably pronounce a word when I saw it written down.

Don't get me wrong, there are many apps, schools, methods, which use those buzz words and probably do provide good value.

Heck the Thai bookstores have shelves stacked with books about learning English. Almost everyone of them is titled; "rapid", hi-speed", "accelerated", or is a "learn to speak English in 'X' number of hours. All they are is "catch phrases" designed to make you think you're acquiring the language at a faster rate. I mean who wants to buy a Thai language book or an app called; "Learn Thai; not all that fast"? I doubt it'd be a best seller, ..

In other news; I stumbled across a book which teaches Thais to speak Cambodian. I don't particularly know why although it says it's due the the upcoming AEC dealy, however last time I checked the "language of communication" between the countries was already chosen as English. However that's for the Thais to sort out amongst themselves...

Now I can't read a word one of Cambodian (and quite honestly don't care to know how to either )... What I can do though, is read Thai and seeing as the book is written IN Thai, I can pronounce the "karaoke" Cambodian written in Thai script pretty darned close to how it actually sounds. I was sitting with some friends from one of the Thai provinces which border Cambodia and reading thru the book with them. They said, even though some of my sounds were 'off', I'd easily be understood in Cambodia. Now who'd da thunk that me learning to read Thai would help me learn to speak another language? Strange huh?

Again, apologies for not reading thru the entire thread, in skimming thru it, it just seemed to have veered away from the O/P's topic.

[claude06thailand]

I've found Thais are far more forgiving on errant pronunciation when you're using correct Thai sentence structure. It's almost as if their brain self-corrects for the bad intonation without them even knowing it.
simply knowing how to read Thai doesn't make you a better Thai speaker.

I agree with this, from my own experience.
Then, people who are not using correct sentence structure will rarely use correct pronunciation and tones. The comparison could be like between a skilled worker with poor tools and a poor worker with quality tools.
As for Cambodian, being a non tonal language makes it easier for us to learn.