My other plan is to cover the characters in such an order as to build useful words.

There are no resources for learning Thai that are all fun without any of the hard work. The two books below are highly recommended.

Ok, does that sound complicated enough? There are two tricks: As there are no conjugations, cases and genders in Thai and the word order is pretty similar to English, you can start using the words you learn from the beginning. The word order is very similar to the word order in English. First, learning Thai can be a great asset for those who want to get the most out of their stay in Thailand. Terms of Service & Privacy Policy.

gcse.type = 'text/javascript'; In the first word it is aspirated, and in the second word it is unaspirated. I’ll be sure to keep in touch as you settle into your beautiful home! When transliterating, how do we make the distinction between an aspirated and unaspirated 'k'? They want money, of course, and quite frankly it isn't worth paying for.

They just need to know and this can't be taught.

Instead of Thais asking how you are, they will ask if you have eaten yet (gin kaaw reu yung?). We can do the same with our 2nd language. The Foreign Service Institute (FSI) has created a list to show the approximate time you need to learn different languages as an English speaker: Thai has a lot of vowels that can be tricky to pronounce for native English speakers. good luck with the termites reminds me of a chap in issan who built a lovely wood kitchen the builders left a large pile of scrap wood at the back door the termites hate that and is kitchen while he was away working, ‘Easy’ is not something that I’d equate with learning Thai, but there is ‘easier’ .

Sounds simple right?

Any English speaker can learn to read some basic Thai.

In my final video you can see me having a nine minute chat in Thai about basic topics but the reality is that I’m only using a. Pay attention to the pronunciation and tones, learn the most important vocabulary first and practise your speaking skills from the beginning with tutors on websites like Italki.com. But ah, you say, Thai is a tonal language and I don't know the tone. It's a shame because reading basic Thai isn't that difficult and learning to read is within the grasp of anyone with basic learning capabilities. Wall charts aren't essential but the ones I used to have stuck next to my desk were a great help. Others are a clean slate (no Thai available). You only start to become aware of how useless it is once you start to understand how written Thai works. ( Log Out /  Languageboost OÜ

Yes, YOU. If you can't follow these free tutorials, let me know why. If you still aren’t convinced concerning the importance of studying the Thai reading/writing system. Secondly, most English speakers are unaware of this convention and thus do not understand that a 'k' is meant to be an unaspirated sound and a 'kh' is intended to be an aspirated sound. In the Thai greeting sawut-dee, the 's' and 't' in 'sawut' use the same Thai letter. During my stay in Thailand I dedicated a maximum of, Here’s a video of Olly and me trying to hold our first conversation after only. I can’t get totally smudgy in mud and grunge and be able to skittle through water when I want. Same as in a book for children’s writting.

I’ll let you know when I translate my short stories into English.

Thai is a lot more consistent than English although there are still some inconsistencies.

I’ve done this course myself and it works really well! They simply expect their teacher to make learning fun without them having to do anything.

If you were teaching someone how to read English you might start with C-A-T and explain what sound the different letters make.

Knowing there just had to be a better way, I started hounding the different bookstores in Bangkok. I once read about an autistic person with such a memory and he was indeed able to learn new languages in a matter of hours. Do you want to learn to speak Thai quickly?

That was it! It’s possible to learn the most important features of the Thai script in a few weeks but still, it’s considered to be one of the most difficult alphabets in the world. Yes, some Thai words are read from middle to left then top to bottom.

When you come out, look me up and I’ll pass over some helpful bits to get you started. You did it yourself. Being able to hold conversations in Thai can definitely be a life-changer.

There are more vowels than English but Thai vowels are much more consistent than English vowels.

Noticing them being used by native speakers and being able to tell them apart.

The only English word I can think of that contains 'kh' is 'khaki'.

หักหน้า hàk nâa, หัก to break + หน้า face = to make someone lose face Saying สวัสดี, ขอบคุณ, and ไม่เป็นไร is enough for them. Remember 'i i i i i' Therefore, the two Thai characters we have so far make a 'di' sound in English, as in the 'di' in 'dip', 'dim', etc. If you have taken the first steps on the road to learning Thai, don't think it will be easy or very enjoyable for a while. Initial: g (as in 'gate', not as in 'giraffe') My husband is a writer (crime and mystery) and he can speak and read Thai, but writing is a bit difficult. Words are relatively short, there are many compound words, the grammar is easy, but on the other hand, the tones and pronunciation can be quite tricky. Learn to read some basic Thai. To put it another way, I wanted to leave Thailand being able to confidently use the basics rather than simply pile on new stuff for the sake of it, and not know any of it well.

All they needed was THE big secret, but this was being deliberately withheld from them.

Besides the normal vowels you also have double vowels in Thai.