Skip to main content

How I learn Thai

The “hobby” I spend the most time on is learning the Thai language.

I have plenty of motivation: my wife is Thai; we have chosen to settle in Bangkok as our long-term home; my in-laws are Thai; most of my work colleagues and clients are Thai. My goal is to be able to converse like a native speaker. Will I ever achieve that? Who knows. But I will keep trying.

In this post, I would like to highlight the learning method I have been using since the start of the pandemic. I think it might be useful for others, in their language learning endeavours.

First, a little background on my time learning the language.

I was first assigned to work in Bangkok about 18 years ago, for three years. At that time I has a weekly session with a tutor, and gained a basic level of speaking proficiency. I did not learn to read and write Thai at that time.

That basic level of capability stayed with me, more or less, until we moved back to Bangkok in 2019. I then started sessions again with a tutor, with the aim of learning the entire Thai alphabet (which is considerably longer than the English alphabet), so I could start down the path of reading and writing Thai. This took the best part of a year.

By the time the pandemic hit and we were all working from home, I was ready to switch gears and try something new. After some searching, I settled on ThaiPod 101. 

It is an online training platform, with learning paths based on ability level. Each lesson has a dialogue, vocabulary, common phrases and a central grammar lesson. The lesson gives you opportunities to read, write, listen and speak. Speaking and hearing the language you are learning is hugely valuable, especially lockdowns limit real interactions. My vocab has expanded into somewhat more complex conversations, I understand more of what is said, and I can read!

The company behind ThaiPod101 is called Innovative Language Learning. They offer 34 languages. I assume they all follow the same basic format as Thai. I have listed them below.

What’s the cost? I’m signed up on the Premium Plan, which costs me $25 per month. For what I get out of it, that’s money well spent. There is a free tier, with very limited functionality. That brings me on to the one thing that irks me about the service – a continual torrent of emails urging me to sign up for Premium Plus.

If you are starting a language completely from scratch, would I recommend diving straight into an online platform like ThaiPod101? Probably not. I don’t know how you would get started on a new language, without the human interaction of a tutor, either in a class or 1:1. But in the right circumstances, platforms like this can help you make rapid progress on your language learning.

Afrikaans, Arabic, Bulgarian, Cantonese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Filipino, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Bahasa Indonesia, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Turkish, Urdu, Vietnamese

 

Labels:
Location: Jomtien Beach, Chon Buri, Thailand

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Misinformation Pt 2 - Lying By Design

In this post, I will break down a commonly circulated piece of misinformation, to demonstrate one of the common structures for how misinformation is designed.  Here's the story – In one school district in Western Australia (or in Germany, or some other country), the Muslim parents of a small number of children are demanding schools change the lunch menu to offer only halal food. The school district is predominantly white and non-Muslim, but this minority is forcing its religious practices on the entire community.  Every time this story surfaces, it is very quickly knocked down as being untrue. Usually by the very school district that is named. Many times, there are no Muslims in the school district and there is no lunch program in place!  Writers from Shakespeare to Hollywood have followed common plot structures. The misinformation industry is no different. Here is how it works –  There is a group of bad people, who don't share our values (in this case Muslims) They ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Misinformation Pt 3 - Immunizing against Misinformation

In the first two posts about Misinformation, I suggested there are three good questions to ask when we encounter misinformation. The first two are: 1. Who created this lie? 2. What is their motivation for creating the lie? This now brings us to the third question: 3. What role do I play when I spread the lie? When you repost misinformation, you are effectively furthering the goals of the individual or group who originated the lie. In the worst case, this could be a State-backed group, with the goal of creating division and conflict within your country. So, the role you are playing is supporting a foreign entity against your country. When I put it like that, it sounds a lot like treason, doesn't it? I'm being overly provocative, but hopefully you get the point. To make a small personal effort to combat this sort of misinformation, I now call it out very directly. Some of my Facebook friends probably find it uncomfortable. Some of them might think I'm a sanctimonious jerk. Bu...
Post a Comment
Read more

Misinformation Pt 1 - An origin story

I plan to write a short series on “misinformation”, because I believe it is one of the major challenges we now face as a society. And I also believe that as individuals there are practical steps we can take to combat it. In this first post, I want to focus attention on where misinformation comes from. I rarely hear anyone ask the questions: Who wrote this lie? What was their motivation? Let’s start with some definitions, to be clear what we are talking about. The terms “misinformation” and “disinformation” tend to be used interchangeably. Misinformation is false information spread either knowingly or unknowingly . Disinformation is false information, spread with the knowledge it is false.   I will use the term “misinformation” because most people I see reposting false information are not aware it is false. They are not the original creators of the misinformation.   In most cases, two minutes of online research would have confirmed the information was false, and there a...
Post a Comment
Read more