Jul29
I’ve made some slight changes to the blog sidebar in hopes of keeping it more active and encouraging you (and me) to be here more often.
First, you will see that the “Learn Thai Words” is back. A glitch in some code update made this go away temporarily, but now it’s back. I’ll be adding more words to this slowly but surely.
Second, a “Thailand News” RSS feed has been added. This grabs the latest posts from Google related to Thailand and makes them easily available for you to read.
Third, a “Community Links” widget has been added. I’m most excited about this, as it allows everyone to submit links to their favorite news stories and blog posts from anywhere on the web. I’m sure this is going to get spammed, but the good news is that the section is moderated so nothing will be posted without me seeing it first.
I strongly encourage everyone to submit links. Your favorite Thai blog articles, news items etc. The only thing I ask is that you not post overly-political items that lean too far to one side or another. Those items won’t be posted. But anything else is welcome and I hope it’s a way for us to grow the Thai blogger community.
Lastly, I’ve put up a “Buy Me a Snapple” donation widget. I held off on doing this for a long time, but since the Learning Thai (My Story) blog is now over one year old (Happy Anniversary to me!) I figured it was a good time. The purpose of the donation widget is hopefully to make enough scratch to cover my blog expenses. This would be things like hosting charges, products I want to review but have to buy with my own money, and getting royalty-free (but paid) images to enhance my posts.
It would be wonderful if I could also have it help pay for my trips to Thailand, but I’m not going to press my luck. If you like the site, if something I have written has helped you, taught you, or entertained you, and you feel compelled to donate, anything would help. If not, that’s fine too!
Thanks, everyone. I hope you like the new updates.
I don't drink coffee, but I love Peach Diet Snapple! Any donation you offer will certainly help me to keep this blog running.
In addition to interesting content it’s nice to have the “Learn Thai Words” sidebar on your website. Vocabulary is the iceberg problem one has to deal with when learning a second language. Anything which makes acquisition of additional vocabulary easier is welcomed.
Two suggestions that I think would make the “Learn Thai Words” even better …
1) Include the pronunciation in phonemic Thai. For example :
อากาศ
อา-กาด
/aa-gàat/
weather
Reason : I find having the Thai pronunciation for new words in the Thai script to be very helpful. I personally dislike having to deal with romanization systems when studying Thai. Every Thai teaching text book written for beginners (with the exception of “Everyday Thai for Beginners” by Wiworn Kesavatana-Dohrs) has it’s own romanization system. However, I’ll save my rant on why I think relying on romanizations systems to learn Thai pronunciation is a bad idea for another day.
2) Include a very simple example sentence along with an English translation. For example, an addition to อากาศ example above, add the following:
วันนี้อากาศร้อน
Today the weather is hot
Reason: Studying words in isolation is better than nothing, but learning words in at least one context helps the words to stick even better.
Thanks for taking the time to make your helpful blog even better.
Good ideas, Yedian. I’ll look to incorporating them into the widget.
I agree with you about the romanization, but it’s a bit of a necessary evil at this point. That’s why I like the Paiboon+ method the most.
It looks good, but I thought that it always did.
The Learn Thai Words gismo is clever.
All the best, Boonsong
Boonsong´s last blog ..Surprised by a Little Pinky Thing
Thanks, Kun Boonsong. I’m always looking to tweak the blog and make it better.