Dear Diary...

My wife and I recently took a trip to see friends and family, which required a long car drive. The CD player wasn’t working, so we decided to spend some time working on my Thai language skills. She first gave me a few travel-related vocabulary words, quizzed me on them, and then told me to make up some sentences using the new words and related to our current travels.

I did pretty well for about a hour before I started to hit the brain overload level. (Practicing Thai while trying to navigate through multiple states using a GPS is not the easiest thing in the world, just so you know.) When we got finished our practice session I was feeling rather confident. I had done pretty well, had been luckily able to memorize the 20 or so vocabulary words my wife threw out at me, and I could finally speak some sentences that didn’t sound like a four year-old was speaking.

And then my wife said to me, “You should keep a journal.”

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Learning Thai? What to Buy?

If you are serious about learning any trade, craft, or hobby, you will find that each endeavor usually requires a standard set of must-have items; whether they be tools, equipment, books, DVDs, etc… every pursuit contains certain essential items that those who came before you feel you simply cannot live without.

As I have now spent a fairly good amount of time in the Thai language learning community, I feel that I’m now in a place where I can pass on my recommendations to those who are just starting out on this wondrous journey.

Here is a list of the products, materials, and resources I recommend that you have at your disposal for learning Thai.

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http://www.thai-rural-education.org/

As i think I mentioned a few posts ago, my wife has finally taken the plunge to help me with my Thai in a more formal, structured setting. Rather than just helping me when I ask her specific questions, she has taken the initiative to start teaching me Thai the way she learned in school. Obviously I have been studying Thai on my own for a few years now, but to be honest I haven’t had much success. I mean, I can read/pronounce Thai very well, but I am horrible at vocabulary. I can write Thai very well but I can’t necessarily tell you what I’m writing. I guess my wife got tired of watching me struggle so much and decided to show me how you’re really supposed to learn.

Our first lesson was centered around the alphabet; you can read about it here if you are feeling cocky about your own language ability. I had thought that once we started getting the consonants down again we would move onto the stuff that I have been doing on my own — translating Manee, for example. But I was given a rude awakening when she started pulling out some very simple, elementary school level exercises. It took me a little while to get over the ego aspect of completely starting from scratch, but then I realized that we’re talking about foundations here. We all know the adage of building a house on a poor foundation; learning a language is exactly the same.

So at the risk of sounding superior, I pose this question to you: are you strong enough, are you willing enough, to tear down your language house and rebuild your foundation by learning Thai the way the Thais learn Thai?

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How well do you know your alphabet?

As I’m sure you have guessed by now, I’ve been away from my studies for a little while now. For the past few months I’ve been working on a large web development project and it has literally taken up all of my free time. I’m happy to say that the site has launched, and as a result of finally getting it out the door I am starting to get my sanity (and time) back. The timing could not have been better, either, as my wife has taken some initiative to help me with my studies.

Consistency is certainly the key, and if you’re not studying and practicing Thai on a very regular basis, you might as well not be studying or practicing at all.

In our first “lesson” back, we needed to set a baseline to determine exactly how much I remember, how much I need refreshing, and how much I just outright have no clue. And so, of course, the first place to start was with an alphabet quiz; or, more specifically, a consonant quiz.

And so my wife sat me down with a piece of paper that had 22 consonants showing and 22 consonants missing. My task? Fill in the blanks, of course.

How well do you think I did?

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Anyone remember this game show?

This past weekend Su and I had some friends over to hang out. The wife is originally from Thailand and the husband is a farang with excellent Thai language skills. I always enjoy spending time with them, certainly because they are cool people but also because I know I am going to walk away with some good Thai language learning advice and skills.

Our friends introduced us to a game designed to help me with vocabulary and basic sentence structure/grammar. We all thought it was a lot of fun and I thought it would be good to share with you as well.

I should tell you up front that the game is going to require at least two people, although having three or four people makes it much more interesting. I can understand that being difficult for some as it seems that most of us language learners do so alone. But if you have a few friends also learning Thai or, better yet, have some Thai language speakers that like games, you’ll dig this.

The game is quite similar to the old game show called The $10,000 Pyramid or the Taboo board game. If you have ever seen this show you have a pretty good idea of how the game is played.

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Glenn Slayden (of thai-language.com) and I collaborated on an online typing tutor program/game that is designed to help assist you in learning the keyboard mapping of Thai characters on an English keyboard. I originally designed this game to not only help me learn to type Thai, but I also wanted a fun project to work on that involved only HTML and the jQuery javascript library. (Work programming can be boring when you have to do it; I wanted to program something that interested me and will help others, too.)

If you remember the old Space Invaders video game from 1978 then you have a pretty good idea of how the tutor works. Consonants and vowels drop from the top of the screen, and you have until the bottom of the screen to correctly type the answer. Your score is marked on the right, as well as some filters Glenn put in to help you concentrate on specific things. You can start, pause, and restart the game as you like.

You can play the game on thai-language.com, and sometime in 2010 I will be releasing another online Thai learning game (again on TLC or perhaps here on this blog).

Good luck!

I finally finished compiling the last two volumes in the Manee series, so now all volumes from Grades 1-6 are now up on the Downloads page and available for you to use.

Thanks to everyone for your patience while I figured out exactly what was missing.

Now back to our regularly-scheduled program…

The kind folks at Lanna Innovation sent me their latest product – Thai Consonant Flashcards to take a look at and comment on. In the Thai language-learning community there is plenty of room for new product growth. The problem is that the major players have such a firm grasp on the market in terms of what books you must have to learn, it can be difficult to break through with a new product and set yourself apart from the pack. (I have some product ideas in development as well, so I know this problem all too well.)

So the question is, can a company with a new product break through and make a mark in the learning community? More to the point, does the Learn Thai consonants flash cards set have what it takes to get added to the list? Let’s find out…
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A friend was gracious enough to send me the Grade 4 volumes in the Manee series. Honestly, I didn’t even know there was a Grade 4 – I thought they only went up to Grade 3. Anyway, they are available on the downloads page if you would like to grab them.

Photo by tourismhuahin.com

“Excuse, please. Where see go Liberty Bell?”

Working in Olde City Philadelphia, three blocks from the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, and Ben Franklin’s grave, you hear this kind of question a lot. Needless to say, not a day goes by (especially in the summer) that I don’t see at least a handful of people walking around with maps in hand, trying to figure out which historical landmark to see next. This area gets a lot of foreign tourists, and quite often I am asked things like “Excuse, please. Where see go Liberty Bell?”

I know exactly what they are trying to ask me, and I am always more than happy to show them where they need to go. But one thing I do not do is correct their English. It would almost seem rude, wouldn’t it? I don’t know these people, and all they want is some help with directions. So why then is it so important for us Thai language learners to learn the tones? I mean, in all likelihood we’re not going to be corrected by a complete stranger, are we? And even if we are, who cares if they understood what we were asking and helped us?

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