Well, they announced the results of the Top 100 Language Blogs of 2010. Drum roll?

We came in at #31!

I am incredibly (and I mean incredibly) surprised at this. I was not expecting this at all; I wasn’t even thinking we were going to make it into the top 100, let alone the to 50. Thank you everyone who voted, and especially thanks to everyone who takes the time to visit and read my blog. Without you I would just be talking to myself and that’s only fun some of the time.

As I’m sure most of you know by now, pronouns such as ผม /pǒm/ and ฉัน /chǎn/ are used by males and females, respectively, as the word “I”. We also use the pronouns พี่ /pîi/ and น้อง /nɔ́ɔng/ for older and younger sibling and พ่อ /pɔ̂ɔ/ and แม่ /mɛ̂ɛ/ for father and mother. These should not be new to you.

However, quite often in Thai when one person is referring to him or herself, or when referring to someone else, these pronouns (and others) get used differently than the way we are used to in English.

Wanna find out how?

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ใคร

I sound so important when I use big words like “interrogatives.” Makes me feel all smart and stuff. In English we use the term “interrogative” as a grouping for words that ask the questions “who, what, when, where, why.”

Thai certainly has these words, but each of these interrogatives also comes with their own set of answers, and you don’t even have to learn a new word.

Let’s take a look at what I mean…

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Okay, so today we’ll continue with Part 2 of our Thai Tones review. Before we go further down the rabbit hole, here are the answers to yesterday’s “quiz”:


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I’ve been hearing a lot of people – both on and off the blog – talk about their difficulty in understanding and internalizing the tone rules for the Thai language. I admit that it did take several months before I felt truly comfortable with them, but rest assured it can be done.

So let’s start from the beginning.
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Phrasebooks are something of a necessary evil when traveling to a new place for the first time. Especially when the native language of the country you are visiting isn’t based on Latin characters, it’s very important to have a backup plan to get you where you need to go and make communication easier.

I’m a little bit surprised that there aren’t more Thai phrasebooks on the market. Considering the complexity of the language for the lay visitor I would think there was a larger market. Perhaps there is in Europe; in the U.S., however, there don’t seem to be many available.

Given the dearth of phrasebooks that seem to available, I picked up “The Rough Guide Phrasebook – Thai” to see if it would be something I could recommend to people who are looking for a book they can bring with them.

A phrasebook should, obviously, make it very easy for a visitor to communicate with native speakers. Does this book live up to that expectation?
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The Internet surely can produce some interesting things to look at, eh? Yes, it’s disturbing, I know. Disturbing as it might be, however, (I kind of find it amusing, actually) it also does a good job in illustrating today’s topic quite well.

(Don’t stare at this picture too long… eight years was long enough, for sure!)

Several of the vowels found in the written form of the Thai language are written in different ways depending on whether or not the syllable/word has a final consonant or not; they are written one way when there is no final consonant, but written another way when there is. I call this phenomenon “vowel morphing.”

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A few months ago I reviewed a set of Thai consonant flash cards sent to me by Chiang Mai-based Lanna Innovation. The folks at LI were kind enough to send me their next set of flash cards, dealing with the Thai vowels.

As I recently mentioned in another post on vowel hacking, many students find vowels to be extremely hard to learn. What could be better than having a small set of flash cards to help you drill while you have an extra ten minutes?

I admit to having some reservations and slight objections to the consonant cards Lanna had produced, so when they sent me the vowel cards I was a little hesitant to look at them. Jeff from Lanna did an excellent job, however, of walking me through some of my concerns, so the question is whether or not the vowel cards can stand up to my concerns and be something I would recommend to my readers.
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The voting has begun. You can help support my blog by voting for me as one of the Top 100 language blogs of 2010. All you have to do is click the graphic to go to the voting page. Once there, select “Learning Thai” and submit the form.

It’s that simple, and I would really appreciate the help!

One of the unique features of the Thai language is the use of particles. In essence, particles as they pertain to the Thai language are words that don’t really translate to a comparable word in another language; they are used to express a range of grammatical quirks – from emotion to politeness level to changing a word’s function.

Because Thai is a tonal language, they somewhat lose out on the ability to use vocal inflection as a means for making a sentence a statement or a question. Here is an English example:

I’m not going.

I’m not going?

Obviously, the way we – in English- make distinctions between these two sentences is the inflection of our voice. The statement will be somewhat more monotone, and the question will rise on the word “going.” We can’t do this with Thai because of the tones. To get around this, several particles are used. Today I’m giving you a few of the more commonly-used particles. You will see these a lot, so you should learn them and practice how to use them.

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