Speaking Thai
May 9th, 2006 by Lillian
Last night the house owner came over ( I’m still collecting all the documents to get my drives licence renewed). We got all the papers copied, signed etc. Towards the end of the meeting the owner said, you really don’t speak Thai well. Awwww that hurt. Truth hurts doesn’t it?
I should have gone to Australia instead. I’d sound like a real aussie now. How can I improve my Thai? Well.. speak thai. The people I speak with are often poor people who don’t correct my thai. If I speak to richer Thai people, we end up speaking english. Its hard. Maybe I just have to go back to language studies. At least I’d learn a lot of new words with my teacher…
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Yes, that s not easyfor farang speak in thai tone and thai people speak in farang tone,so my boyfriend he’s ausie he speak thai in thai tone as well coz he copy my thai tone….eieieieieie. Anyway a little secreat with thai tone, pls keep low accent!!!!
You’re already multi-lingual, Lillian. You can do it, although it’s a tall order to talk with a Thai accent and tone. It’s doable just the same. (I think Tagalog/Filipino is easier to learn. It’s not a tonal language.)
All the best in your language studies. (As for me, I keep hearing every week Bern Deutsch, Basel Deutsch and Zurich Deutsch as I study High German!)
It is hard to speak another language perfectly. You can have the grammar and vocabulary down but the accent all wrong and vice versa. My french unforunately falls down in both those areas
and unlike you I STILL don’t have the added problem of it being tonal. In France people are pretty tolerant of bad french. You know when you are getting good because people love correcting you. NOBODY bothers correcting me yet. Lessons are important though. A friend told me 20 minutes a day. No more. No less. Progress is virtually assured. I think going back to language studies is a great idea. Good luck 
Don’t worry! Since you are trying to speak Thai - you’ll get better. Definitely try some of the AUA courses - the classrooms are small, intimate and they work quickly. The setting is very nice in the old compound with the old-style buildings.
I’m a bit surprised your landlord told you about your Thai. Normally, Asians don’t want to give any bad news. Either they really were thinking about it a long time and wanted to let you know or maybe you asked her/him how good your Thai is?
One tip I was given - chop your words by syllables - Sa-wa-dee, ka! Practice by pronouncing each set strongly - and listening to children is easier to get the way to pull in your mouth for different sounds. Chok dee, krap!
I did at least 7 modules over the last few years, did reading and writing. I have a certain fluency, I can talk thai on the phone, when I go to the hospital with my kids I only speak thai.. but .. well.. I guess I’m at a certain level and as you all said, if I go back to studies I’ll be able to get even better… There are some subjects in thai I never learnt. eg the whole legal document vocabulary, insurance, religious language. Ok, back to language studies I go….
Wow! You speak Thai! Congratulations! I tried Tagalog but didn’t achieved much.
And Thai is much more difficult!
ya i tried to learn thai and it was very complex and conffuzzling! anyway now im learning french!!! o ya!