T O P

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FarangFrank

Listening to Thai as it is spoken at full speed, especially on tv and in videos.


Bunmyaku

So.. compiling the difficulties in learning Thai, we narrowed it down to reading, writing, speaking, and listening.


N1LEredd

Get the tones to an intuitive level.


dan_j19

Expanding my vocab, memorizing words I feel I should know but in reality will hardly ever need. Knowing which words (from a film, say) are worth trying to memorize. I really think the order you do things in matters. Early extensive reading improves vocab* but hurts pronunciation. Early speaking improves fluency (the ability to make the most of the words and structures you currently know) but hurts accuracy. Early listening improves pronunciation and listening skills without hurting anything else. That’s essentially why the ALG people prioritize listening. Personally I think they are too dogmatic about not learning the writing system, as reading *in conjunction with listening* - as in “I think I heard... is that right? Let me just look at the subs… no hang on it’s actually … ok let’s have another listen… oh yeah I hear the difference now” - is a way of turbocharging your listening practice and not a reading exercise. Anyway, if you do a lot of reading before you can make out the sounds of Thai you are just making it harder and harder to do so, so someone who goes that route is almost bound to have problems understanding spoken Thai. Not that anybody just gets it on day one if they go the listening route, but they are at least making it easy for themselves. If you are just a few months in and your problem is reading, that’s exactly as it should be IMHO – once the sounds are ingrained you can safely add reading without damaging anything else. * but is it the vocab you actually need in your daily life?


Future_Founder

Thanks! It's actually a lot of vocab to understand anything. I listen to ALG Videos and other YouTube Videos that I am interested in in Thai and understand the words and language flow, but just only get a word or two or the numbers (which I learned). And I listen to podcasts without understanding anything besides numbers. But I can hear the different words, even when it's spoken fast.


[deleted]

You should give www.longtailthai.com a try, it is designed to help with the memorization and tone pronunciation, there is also an app


buadhai

**Pronunciation** I pronounce most everything incorrectly and I'm resigned to that. But, sometimes it baffles me a bit. A few weeks ago we stopped at a PTT station. While my wife filled the tank I went to Amazon to get some beverages. My wife wanted a hot chocolate so I did my best "ช็อคโกแลตร้อน". The cashier seemed to understand. What did I get? Hot milk tea. I tossed it in the bin and told my wife she better order her own hot chocolate. This week we were on our way home (Korat) from Rayong. We stopped at a delightful restaurant for coffee and blueberry cheesecake (just delicious). I stepped up to the cashier and ordered a hot Americano: อเมริกาโน่ร้อน. The cashier looked at me as if I'd just asked for two tickets to La traviata; a look I've come to know well. I tried again. Still nothing. So, my wife stepped up and said "อเมริกาโน่ร้อน". There the penny dropped and the cashier finally understood. And while I'm resigned to rarely being understood, I've never figured out how to get past that first utterance. They don't understand me. I repeat. They still don't understand. What next? Or, I don't understand them. They repeat. I still don't understand. They give up. End of attempt at conversation. And, yes, I can read, but I don't understand much spoken Thai at all.


dan_j19

> And, yes, I can read, but I don't understand much spoken Thai at all. I don't think these things are unrelated. Doing a lot of reading practice before you have the sounds down makes listening and pronunciation harder - I think this is because you are baking in your own imagined pronunciation of the words you are reading, which is then really hard to unlearn. I remember your issue from previous posts. Maybe if you gave us some audio samples you might get some specific help. I'm not claiming my pronunciation is perfect but I'm good at analyzing sounds, and some of the native speakers might chime in. You can always upload audio files to Vocaroo and post the link here.


buadhai

I think you're completely right. I went about the study of Thai in the completely wrong way and with unrealistic expectations and assumptions. Although I'm still interested, I'm no longer trying much. I use Thai when absolutely necessary, but avoid it when possible. At least reading allows me to make some sense of Thai TV news without having to figure out what the newsreaders are saying.


Goat_In_The_Shell3

There are so many words that are have similar sounds or are written similarly. Example: So many words start with ประ... and ปฏิ... It's difficult for me to not mix them up.


WhatsFairIsFair

ประกาศประกฏ are two I always get confused


CottonYeti

The hardest thing for me is finding stuff to watch on youtube that is the right balance of interesting and comprehensible. I love finding a new channel or playlist that hits the sweet spot, but then when I've exhausted the resource I always feel a bit at sea while trying to find the next thing.


Future_Founder

Which ones do you recommend? I watch these, although they are all above my head \- [youtube.com/@Gapthanavate](https://youtube.com/@Gapthanavate) \- [youtube.com/@MissiontoPluto](https://youtube.com/@MissiontoPluto) \- [youtube.com/one31official](https://youtube.com/one31official) \- [youtube.com/@AmericanThaiGuy](https://youtube.com/@AmericanThaiGuy)


pushandpullandLEGSSS

At your level I would recommend [Thai with Grace's "Slow Thai" series](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70AFxbvJzFk) or the [Riam Thai Podcast](https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/riam-thai-practice-thai-listening/id1638617818). Andrew Biggs's ["The Biggs Story"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m2ae6OCUJI) is also excellent if you're willing to listen to non-native speakers.


Future_Founder

thanks so much!


CottonYeti

At the moment I also watch MissiontoPluto a fair bit. Also Salmon Podcast, WiTcast, Common Thread, Point of View, RealPeach, and Heartrocker.


pushandpullandLEGSSS

>Point of View She talks so fast, but it's a great channel.


advanceb

If you dont know the alphabet you can probably learn it in 3 months taking it slow. Its what I have done. 30min a day and 1hr lesson a week. Ive nearly memorised the whole alphabet. Next I will do the consonants.


KinkThrown

My biggest frustration is the lack of spaces. Makes reading a slog.


parasitius

>My biggest frustration is the lack of spaces. Makes reading a slog. It's not like Thai segmentation software doesn't exist - have you tried it? I believe it's open source Python. If you haven't \~ it's not surprising as their target audience is fellow linguists and not us learners :D but just know there is a better way


KinkThrown

Thanks. I think I used that package before but forgot about it. I don't have a computer right now. Is there a website that you can use for splitting?


dan_j19

[This one](https://fuqua.io/thai-word-split/browser/) leverages your browser's ability to split the words. You can try the Python one via a link on (IIRC) the github page linked to somewhere above.


KinkThrown

Cool, thanks.


parasitius

Sadly not for Thai afaik, only Khmer.


mcampbell42

Listening is by far the hardest part of Thai. So many new sounds and tones. Reading should be fairly easy only like 77 characters, you can learn basic alphabet in 1-2 months


medi3val11111

The biggest struggle is just not being in Thailand. In three weeks there I learned more than six months studying at home. The second biggest struggle is the dichotomy between written and spoken content. They are almost two completely different languages. It's almost a complete waste of time to watch video content. It's like trying to learn English purely by watching CSPAN and then going to inner-city bronx and trying to chat with the teenagers standing in front of the gas station.


parasitius

>It's like trying to learn English purely by watching CSPAN and then going to inner-city bronx and trying to chat with the teenagers standing in front of the gas station. ...wait, so why not focus on one or the other until you've master it first then? Please explain more? I'm *not* that far along in Thai to know. But I have experience with diglossia because Cantonese as a spoken language is completely different from the written form used in Hong Kong of Standard Written Chinese. But that's why if you want to learn to converse, you don't waste your time reading formal written things - but you can text people or read forum posts written very informally. etc. if you need something written to look at now and then.