Learn Thai / How To Read Thai – Video of the Sample Sentence breakdown
Posted on | April 27, 2012 | No Comments
Here is the video Duangta and I recently recorded of us talking through the video slide show I posted on the site a couple of days ago.
I hope it is helpful and useful to you and furthers your language education in learning Thai and How To Read Thai.
The video is just under 20 minutes in length which, unfortunately, is too long for YouTube. Consequently, only the introduction and first two vowels are available to watch on YouTube below. If you want the remainder (the whole video), then put your email address in the box below the video and click submit. You’ll then be sent a link where you can download the video to watch offline.
Enter your email address in the field below and press submit. You will then be sent a link to download the complete video:
How To Read Thai – Sample Sentence Slide Show
Posted on | April 25, 2012 | No Comments
I managed to get this done quicker than I thought so if you want to download the sample sentence PowerPoint show then use the link below.
As I mentioned in the last post, Duangta and I will be posting the video of us talking about the slide show in a couple of days. We went through it again this afternoon and weren’t happy with it. We’ll be re-recording today or tomorrow.
Anyway, click on the link below to download the slide show. It’s been created in PowerPoint 2010 so I hope you can view it. If you need it in an older version then let me know.
Use this link: Click here to download the slide show
Learn Thai – slideshow (coming very soon)
Posted on | April 25, 2012 | No Comments
At long last I’ve finally pulled my finger out and done something abut this sample sentence. It’s been a busy few months, with work, with other writing projects and with finally starting my English degree (๔๗ปีแล้ว); consequently, that’s why its been a bit quiet around here of late.
I’ve created a Powerpoint slideshow of the sample sentence and how we’ve broken it down. This will be posted in a day or two as soon as it’s finalised and error-free. The slideshow follows the posts on the website but aren’t in as much detail as in the posts; I’d certainly recommend switching between the two to clarify and build on your knowledge.
In addition to the slideshow, Duangta and I are currently recording a video at the moment and we will also make this available to download soon. In the video you will hear all the correct pronunciation (from Duangta), and myself talking about the sentence.
Even though Duangta’s voice is far nicer to listen to that my drum-like sound, I’m doing all the commentary on the video as this is my website and, more importantly, this is how I actually do break down the sentences. I’m no expert (you’ve only got to listen to my pronunciation to understand that) and this is how it works for me. Native Thai’s learn how to do this as part of their growing up and at a young age; if you’re outside of the critical language learning age then, like myself, you have to learn in a different manner to retain the information.
I’m at the stage where I can now read Thai fairly quickly (as a result of these processes and rules), but I still struggle with new words and terms; however, I can still offer an educated guess. Other elements of the language, such as abbreviations, colloquialisms and slang are difficult, but it’s all progress, it’s all real.
Visitors
I started this website in May last year and at the moment, I’m getting about 200-250 visitors a month to the website. Approximately, 10-15% are return customers but the remainder are new (85%). Of those, about 40% come to the site as a result of entering the keywords ‘read thai’, or some other variation of that. I know its statistics but, to me, this indicates that people want to learn the language This indicates that people want to learn to read Thai.
First of all, if you’ve been a patient follower of this site and my posts, thank you. Secondly, do you think it is worthwhile amalgamating all of the posts into one long document and making that available on the website to download as a PDF? If this is something that you think is worthwhile and you’re interested in me doing, please let me know. It all takes time and if there’s little or no interest, there isn’t any point.
Further to that, I think I’ve come up with an original idea for a book about How To Read Thai and am putting together a structure and an outline for that. Do you think following the structure on this site is a good idea, i.e. does it work for you, or should I look for another approach? I would be very interested in your thoughts and comments.
I’ll post the sideshow in a day or so as soon as it is ready.
Want To Learn Thai Alphabet?
Posted on | March 22, 2012 | No Comments
I specified early on in this website that to get the most out of this site, you must know the Thai If you are a first time visitor to the site and you’re not 100% sure of all of the alphabet, then heading over to Learn Thai Alphabet.com may be a good move for you. Click on the image below:
Over at Learn Thai Alphabet.com…
RSS Feeds
Posted on | March 6, 2012 | No Comments
After many months since starting this website, I’d just noticed that the RSS feed link wasn’t actually pointing at this site! It was pointing at the website of the designer of the theme that I use. Nothing wrong with that it’s just if any of my reader’s had tried to subscribe then they wouldn’t have gotten anything from this site.
Of course, that wouldn’t have made much difference over the last month or so as I’ve been busy on other projects and ‘other’ stuff – not least of which is going to University to study. I’d like to add again to that last sentence but other than doing an IT-foundation course at degree level some years ago, this is the first time of studying and something that has always been on the list of my ‘life goals’. Somehow, work has always gotten in the way.
I do promise to try and post more on here in the future but despite my lack of posts, I do hope your own learn Thai studies, including reading Thai, are progressing. I’ve had a fair few downloads of the Learn The Days of The Week ebook I wrote and put on here as a free download but haven’t had any feedback or comments on that. If you have downloaded it and have read it, then I would genuinely be interested in your thoughts and whether or not it has actually benefited or helped you: if it has, please post a comment to let others know.
Tags: learn thai > read Thai > study Thai > Thai language > Thai script > University
Learn the Thai Days of the Week – DOWNLOAD FREE eBOOK
Posted on | January 14, 2012 | No Comments
I was talking with my friend John the other day and he was telling me how he couldn’t remember the Thai days of the week. He went on to say that he could remember most of the Thai names, but he just couldn’t actually remember which day was which and, in particular, when he can remember, always seems to get Friday and Saturday around the wrong way.
For me, this was something I used to struggle with until I did the ‘old’ story trick again and this helped me nail the names of the days of the week AND the order, all in one go. 20 minutes later…all done! He liked it, a lot. Of course he would, it meant he’d remember them all, in order, every time.
How do I do it? Well, rather than write it all down here, I decided to write up the very same story for you, as an ebook though (it’s a little large to fit in a WordPress post: plus the format and layout isn’t the best in WP).
Naturally, the written form takes longer than the spoken so I hope my words don’t wear you down too much 
Here is a snapshot thumbnail from the ebook (it’s only a small, 7 page ebook):
Like I say, it is free. So if you want to download a copy, then enter your details in the form in the sidebar on the right and click submit:
Thanks,
Russ
Tags: Days of the Week > Free eBook > learn thai > Thai Days of the Week
Young Love!
Posted on | January 8, 2012 | No Comments
Just had lunch at our favourite ส้มตำ (sôm-dtam) place around the corner from home and the table we sat at had been pushed together with another table.
After a few minutes, a young boy, aged about 4, sat down on the other side of the table and began to eat his pork and sticky rice. After a minute or so, his [girl] friend, aged about the same, walked up and sat down next to him.
As she sat down, he said, “แต่งตัวเหมือนควายตัวเมีย” (in a friendly manner).
We laughed (quietly), it translates as “You’re dressed like a female buffalo.”
- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - -
“แต่งตัวเหมือนควายตัวเมีย”
If we break this down into it’s component parts, in the first step, we get:
“แต่งตัว เหมือน ควาย ตัวเมีย”
Step 2 gives us:
“แต่ง-ตัว เหมือน ควาย ตัว-เมีย”
This is:
- แต่งตัว – dressed
- เหมือน – like, as, as if
- ควาย – buffalo
- ตัวเมีย – female (animal)
Ahhh, young love!
- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - -
A slightly belated Happy New Year to you all.
Tags: laugh > sanuk > speak Thai > spoken Thai
Sà-rà /i/ (สระ -ิ)
Posted on | December 13, 2011 | No Comments
As you can see, สระ -ิ is one of the vowels that is written above the consonant (well it should be: for some reason Firefox offsets it and places a dotted ‘o’ beneath it ).
Firefox does this:
It should be this:
This vowel is always written above the consonant, it never changes.
สระ -ิ is a short vowel for tone rule purposes and it gives us the /i/ as in /pit/ sound. (Its longer vowel cousin is สระ -ี (sà-rà /ii/)).
Examples:
- คิด (kít – to think, consider or calculate; or it can mean to charge a price) (remember the pronunciation, this word doesn’t sound like a Welsh vegetable!)
- มิด (mít – entirely)
- ติด (dtìt – to catch, be infected; to stick, attach; to be addicted to, crazy about; or to be stuck, jammed)
Two syllables/words:
- ติดกับ (dtìt gàp – adjoin, close to, connect)
- คิดว่า (kít wâa – to think that)
Real-life example
Continuing on we’ve identified all of the sentence now, except the part shown in red:
นักเรียนนำรูปภาพของการเต้นระบำชาวเกาะไปติดบนกระดานดำ
Here we see the vowel สระ -ิ above the consonant, ต เต่า (dtɔɔ dtào).
Is ติ a word? Yes it is.
What does it mean? It is a verb and means to blame, criticise or warn. Is this the right word for our sentence? Unlikely.
Let’s look at the next consonant.
Is ติด a word? Yes it is. What does it mean?
It means to catch, be infected, to stick, attach hold on! Stick, attach, our sentence is about photographs and a blackboard. Mmmm, could be!
What about the next word, it consists of two consonants, บ & น and is pronounced bon.
It’s a preposition and it means on or above. By jove Carruthers, I think we’re almost there!
So, where are we actually?
นักเรียน นำ รูป ภาพ ของ การ เต้น ระบำ ชาวเกาะ ไป ติด บน กระดานดำ
Students take pictures of dancing islanders go stick on blackboard
When you see นำ…ไป this means take….to
In our example above, we have:
นักเรียน นำ…ไป ติดบน กระดานดำ
Students take…to stick on blackboard.
The ellipsis (…), naturally, takes the place of
[รูป ภาพ ของ การ เต้น ระบำ ชาวเกาะ]
[pictures of islanders dancing]
Before we go and look at our last remaining word, we should just go back and look at the previous word we just touched at the end, บน.
As we mentioned, it consists of just two consonants. These are บ ใบไม้ (Bɔɔ Bai-mái) and น หนู (Nɔɔ Nǔu). The word is pronounced bon.
The question is, where does the vowel come from?
You’ve maybe figured it out, in addition to the written vowels, in Thai language there are also two unwritten vowels: an ‘o’ and an ‘a’.
We’ll cover unwritten vowels and their rules in the next How to Read Thai post
Tags: education > monthopthongs > read Thai > short vowel > vowel sounds
Website is Back :-)
Posted on | December 12, 2011 | No Comments
Well, what a day that was.
I logged into my cPanel to do some admin ‘stuff’ today and was informed that the version of WordPress I was using was out of date. If you don’t know what that is, WordPress is the template/layout for this website. When they recommend that you upgrade it’s a good idea to take heed as there can be security loopholes and other possible errors which may mean your site gets compromised.
Anyway, I used the automated tool in the cPanel and found that it completely messed up all the Thai script on this site!!
I took a screen-shot (for the hosting company’s support guys mainly) and you can see what the problem is:
…and the unmashed version:
and this is how it should (and does now) read.
Thankfully, the hosting company managed to restore from the pre-upgrade backup but it was a few hours of worry and concern of how I’m going to have to redo all the posts. Anyway, no need now…a big thanks also to Russ [Clarke] for your assistance.
Today is the Final Day for the Learning Thai, Your Great Adventure Major Discount
Posted on | December 11, 2011 | No Comments
The title says it all really. Tomorrow the price goes back up to:
- 28 US$
- £16
- 800 THB
I hope you don’t miss it!
keep looking »