Learning Thai … For What?

You may be a Thai-by-choice since years. But you’re living a blind existence in the Land of the Free. You have your life, work, are able to eat and enjoy, but don’t even master a few grammatically correct Thai sentences. Even though you’re proud of the some Thai expressions you master.

If you’re asked how long you live in Thailand and you answer “pee quaa krub,” you’ll most likely get a “oho, phut pasa thai keng maak!” Somehow you can even order your food in Thai. A smile or gesture may luckily speak more than a thousand words and somehow you feel privileged anyway.

But can that be it? To live in a country and not even being able to read a street sign? How about conversing about current affairs? Even reading a Thai newspaper? Or is it that Thais are that more intelligent to master their own language? Now give yourself a push. As the few farangs out there who master Thai are no heros, but respectful towards their hosts.

By Jay Ohdinger*, Learn Thai Podcast

Do you live, or plan to live in Thailand? Do you want to understand the Thai people better? Your Thai partner, friends and family? There are thousands of unique reasons to start learning Thai, but what is in it for you and how difficult is it to learn Thai?

Personally, learning Thai changed my life in Thailand. Thai people treat you with more respect and appreciate your efforts. You understand why some things are different in the land of smiles and you can venture off the beaten path without being worried to get lost in translation.

Cultures and not only the Thai culture define themselves through their language. Knowing the language of the country you live in gives you respect from locals and helps you to understand what drives them to act like they do.

Just understanding Thai television shows can give you lots of insight. Even Thai soap operas might give you insights and help you to understand the culture more. Yeah right … Thai soaps have a certain entertainment value even if you don’t speak the language.

For whatever reason you want to learn Thai (you maybe want to understand more than only soaps operas and your way through soapies) what can you expect? How hard can it be learning Thai?

The grammar is pretty straight forward and follows the same patterns that you will find over and over again. Thai is a language that has many modifying words that alter the meaning of sentences or single words.

Learning words is one of the major basic things you will have to do while learning Thai. Even though about 20% of all Thai words are borrowed from other languages (mainly English), you’ll have many, many words to learn.

The difficulty of learning the vocabulary is the uncommon sound of the language. Most foreigners don’t come from a tonal language like Thai. This brings us to one of the most difficult things while learning Thai. The pronunciation. You’ve seen Thai people grinning when you went for the other pronunciation of “ma.”

Native Thai speakers are used to hear differences. Western ears are just not trained for this. We lack listening skills in this area and improving them is one of the major tasks you will have to accomplish on your way to master the Thai language.

The Thai alphabet doesn’t make things easier. But as many people recommend, this is something that you can tackle a bit down the road after you have a basic understanding of the language.

Transliterations that are used in many books and many Thai courses guide you how to pronounce the words.

But … with so many school and systems out there, how does it make sense to learn Thai? Like learning any language it makes sense to try to learn in as many ways as possible. Listen to the sound of the language as much as possible.

Establish a learning routine and rehearse on a regular basis. Learning Thai is not different to learning a new sport. Steady training will give you good results fast.

So is it worth learning Thai? That’s up to you of course … If you’re tired though of the “same same” treatment and really want to be understood in Thailand, then there’s no other way out. In the end to understand and be understood is what good communication is all about. In Thailand and everywhere else.

Addendum: Also note the more elaborate stories over at New Mandala and Matt about this truly inspiring free Learn Thai Podcast.

* Jay Ohdinger is one of the founders of Learn Thai Podcast