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leosmith
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6551 days ago
2365 posts - 3804 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Tagalog
| Message 1 of 14 03 December 2010 at 11:41pm | IP Logged |
I read a review of "Everyday Thai for Beginners" elsewhere. Although it had some useful information in it, it also
made some questionable claims. So I commented on it. I got a very passionate answer from the reviewer, which I
also found objectionable in some ways, so I posted another comment, etc, etc. The other place isn't a great place
to
hold a debate, and the audience for Thai is close to 0. As there are many points that involve language learning in
general, this forum seemed the ideal place to transfer it to. So here is the original review for the sake of
completeness, followed by the separate comments.
OP wrote:
I am an expert in accelerated approaches to learning complex subjects such as music and languages (math is
easy by comparison).
This book is the only book I recommend as a course for learning Thai. If you go to a Thai language school or
have a private teacher then insist on following THIS book, not the curriculum that they devised (which is more
often than not arduous and irrelevant).
The main feature of this book is that it uses Thai script throughout. I warn students and teachers to stay away
from learning Thai phonetically because 1) you end up with a curious dialect that only Thais who are familiar with
tourists can understand and 2) you limit yourself to 'language school Thai' because you cannot read the signs or
the menus or read books or magazines or newspapers.
And, equally important, the course itself is simple, well structured, and useful. The first unit is about "getting to
know each other". It's the first thing you'd want to do when meeting Thai people! The next unit is about "family",
a vital aspect of Thai culture. After that it's "everyday life", then "time" and the ubiquitous communications about
"food", followed by "getting around town" and eventually "running errands". The progression is just right for
being able to communicate and function in a useful, albeit fairly basic, way in Thailand.
The structure of each unit is logical, starting with a bit of vocabulary, followed by useful sentence patterns and
then a brief explanation of grammar - not too technical or linguistic, but just enough to understand the
mechanics of putting words together to form sentences. And then there are exercises to consolidate what you've
just learnt and, if you are studying in a class, some ideas for group activities.
It provides you with a good, solid basic foundation in a relatively interesting way. Everything is based on sentence
structures and typical phrases. So don't expect it to be a riveting read. That comes later (see below).
Although Everyday Thai for Beginners has a good (simple) introduction to get you reading Thai, it is based on the
traditional grammar rules - which unfortunately are fiendishly complicated.
I have developed a very quick and simplified alternative that gets you able to recognize words and understand
the tones within 12 hours (or 2 months at 10 minutes a day) - without any need for memorizing letters or
complicated rules.
Please google my self-study ebook Read Thai in a Day.
I also suggest that you work through the material at its4thai (but make sure you switch off the phonetics and
only read the Thai script).
Another useful resource is learn-thai-podcast. He's stolen the idea for reading-using-pictures from another
man (who developed the concept independently from me)... but the audio-visual material is not bad. Just pay for
one month's subscription ($25) and then download all the material before cancelling the subscription. The
material will last you a good six months.
If you are in Thailand then it's a good idea to attend the AUA courses (which are very cheap). BUT... insist on
joining a class one level lower than they recommend. Their theory is that you learn through tension, by stretching
your mind into the language just as a child learns. This doesn't apply for adults, who have a different mindset -
we accelerate our learning by using thinking and learning strategies. So just attend AUA classes for the sheer
enjoyment of experiencing Thai at a level that you easily understand. The classes are hugely entertaining and will
help you develop your 'ear' so that you get to understand what people are saying more and more.
Finally, Pimsleur isn't bad. Very boring, but effective. Only 30 minutes a day for 30 days (well... usually 60 days
because you end up not wanting to plough through a lesson after a while and you skip a day here and there). But
so long as you practice repeating the phrases out loud in a loud and exaggerated manner as often as you can -
you will be able to communicate fairly effectively albeit on a very basic level after you've completed the course.
Pimsleur is relatively expensive, but several companies now offer downloadable versions at a discount, around
$150.
Ultimately, you need to read extensively. (This is true even in your mother tongue. Indeed, if you want to
encourage high standards in education amongst children and young people then dispense with exams and tests
and curricula and simply encourage children to read whatever they enjoy for the sheer pleasure of it. Studies have
shown - e.g. Krashen - that this counts for nearly everything when it comes to measures of intelligence,
academic ability and success in life, not to mention the ability to write and communicate well.)
If you are in Thailand then READ THE SIGNS - they are everywhere. You will pick up so much vocabulary and
language patterns. Make a point of studying the menus when you go into a restaurant. And start to read simple
books that interest you. Perhaps start with the bilingual children's books (Winne the Pooh, Noddy, Thomas the
Tank Engine) and then progress to books with a simple and colloquial writing style.
I'm currently reading Sydney Remember by King? Muang! (which means "purple ginger"). It's written in a straight-
forward language style, only occasionally formal, but mostly using colloquial everyday Thai and common slang.
And it's a fun story about a Thai girl who goes to live with her cousin in Sydney, finds work, meets lots of
different people and falls in love. It happens to us in reverse when we go to Thailand, but we can experience it
from a Thai perspective!
I like the book so much that I will be basing my online Thai language course on it - read a section, study the
vocabulary and language usage, memorize the vocabulary using a flashcard system like Anki, and then move on
to the next section...
I strongly recommend using Anki as a great way to internalize the vocabulary used in Everyday Thai for
Beginners (and any other material you study). I use an adapted form of Anki, which incorporates story-based
mnemonics to help you remember the words. I'll be making a special file available to download for Everyday Thai
for Beginners, and for Sydney Remember, in due course.
Watch this space! (Or download my ebook to get onto my mailing list...)
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Edited by leosmith on 03 December 2010 at 11:43pm
3 persons have voted this message useful
| leosmith
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6551 days ago
2365 posts - 3804 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Tagalog
| Message 2 of 14 03 December 2010 at 11:45pm | IP Logged |
(The best way to learn Thai is through reading)
I agree that reading is very important. But so are the other skills - listening, speaking and writing. Most people's
ultimate goal is conversation. And while I agree that all the skills reinforce eachother, reading reinforces
conversation for example, I think saying that the best way to learn is reading undervalues the other skills. It
sounds like you're trying to sell an ebook or something.
(I am an expert in accelerated approaches to learning complex subjects)
According to who?
(math is easy by comparison)
For me this is absolutely true. But many others would disagree. I think it depends on the person.
(I warn students and teachers to stay away from learning Thai phonetically)
What exactly do you mean by this? It almost sounds like you're recommending learning a language without using
sound. I wouldn't recommend that for a language with simple pronunciation, much less a difficult tonal one like
Thai. How will you ever learn to speak or understand?
(because 1) you end up with a curious dialect that only Thais who are familiar with tourists can understand)
Obviously not true, since many foreigners have learned Thai, and none of them did it without sound.
(and 2) you limit yourself to 'language school Thai' because you cannot read the signs or the menus or read
books or magazines or newspapers)
What a strange conclusion. If I use sound as part of my learning, I won't be able to read. False, of course.
(fiendishly complicated)
I've never heard anyone call Thai grammar rules difficult, much less fiendishly complicated. The rules are pretty
straight forward. The difficult thing about Thai is the fact that it's so idiomatic. Even more idiomatic than
Mandarin, and that's saying a lot.
(I have developed a very quick and simplified alternative that gets you able to recognize words and understand
the tones within 12 hours)
I googled it. It appears not to use sound, so I wouldn't recommend it. It also uses romanization. Aren't you
supposed to be against that?
(He's stolen the idea for reading-using-pictures from another man (who developed the concept independently
from me))
So you were the pioneer, or co-pioneer, of all language materials that made pictures out of letters? How old did
you say you were?
(Pimsleur isn't bad)
I love Pimsleur. Pimsleur uses sound.
Edited by leosmith on 03 December 2010 at 11:45pm
3 persons have voted this message useful
| leosmith
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6551 days ago
2365 posts - 3804 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Tagalog
| Message 3 of 14 03 December 2010 at 11:47pm | IP Logged |
OP wrote:
Well, despite the fact that you seem quite prejudiced and disparaging of my work, I will reply to your various
points 1) because you've obviously learnt a few languages, sometimes with good strategies and sometimes the
'long way round' and 2) because you echo the sentiments of quite a few otherwise ignorant people who express
an opinion without bothering to check up on their facts... :o
You question my expertise, you want credentials? I'm a self-proclaimed expert if you must know: "a person with
a high degree of knowledge or expertise in a subject". I've been studying and researching and developing
approaches to learning effectively (specifically mathematics, music and languages) since the mid 1970's. I was
well-known for taking failing students in (school) mathematics and training them to achieve at least B in their
exams. I worked on a scheme to teach uneducated teenagers to achieve university entrance level in one academic
year (covering the entire 5-year school curriculum in 8 months). So, yes, mathematics (at school level) is easy, if
one approaches it with the correct strategy. 'Real' mathematics (the science or the study of patterns) is probably
the most difficult subject there is, but that's another issue.
You've obviously misunderstood me, thinking that I believe `sound' not to be important. So perhaps I need to
qualify myself when I say "the best way to learn <insert language> is through reading". A book-only knowledge
is mostly useless. But if you use reading as a basis for understanding and vocabulary building, it dramatically
improves your ability to hear, and provides excellent material for being able to speak well.
Speaking is actually not really a 'language' skill, it's more of a 'muscle' skill. This is why Pimsleur is so great, and
I've adapted Pimsleur to incorporate my `Rapid' approach. Pimsleur as a language tool, however, is mostly
obsolete. People just don't talk like that anymore. I know this from firsthand experience: after rattling on in
Japanese to my friends in Tokyo, they looked at me slightly bemused. "You talk like my grandmother," they said.
And, interestingly enough, there were several words from Pimsleur that young native Japanese people don't
understand. A university graduate friend of mine explained that there are modern equivalents that I need to use.
(Do you say "I am feeling rather gay" when you are happy!?) As for Thai, Thai people seldom express themselves
in the way one learns to speak by following Pimsleur Thai. Nevertheless, it's a wonderful tool for developing a
good pronunciation and, more importantly, gain fluency (by which I mean being able to speak automatically
without thinking) through `muscle training'.
The strategy that I've developed and am refining is:
1) Read and master texts of increasing complexity (so that the texts always count as `comprehensible input', see
Krashen); be sure to choose texts that use a colloquial writing style - this is very important.
2) Internalize the vocabulary, memorize by rote if necessary or, preferably, use mnemonics and association
stories (cf. Heisig for Japanese, or Linkword for other languages) - the theory behind these two steps is that you
develop a context-based vocabulary, not an impractical `dictionary head'.
3) LISTEN to the text being read aloud by a native speaker, over and over again until a) you understand it nearly
100% and b) you know most of it by heart - the latter point is an important part of my strategy to learn `without
training wheels'. The more you can do without notes or dictionaries, the more you can communicate and think on
your feet.
4) READ ALOUD in a loud, distinct and exaggerated manner, getting faster and faster with each reading. This is
the muscle training I referred to earlier. All movements (even the complex movements of a pianist or ping pong
player) are directly controlled by the brain. [Interestingly, the frontal lobe is the seat of fine motor control as well
as language.] When you practice the physical movements of speaking, it is like mastering various intricate dance
steps or scales & riffs in music. When you then wish to express an intention, this gets translated subconsciously
into a series of well-rehearsed muscle movements. In this sense, speaking is like playing jazz or any
improvisational music.
The ability to listen (and understand) is, I believe, the most important and most difficult skill. Speaking is a minor
skill: it's a muscular expression of a deeper knowledge of the language. Both listening and speaking develop
from the intellectual understanding of how meaning is represented in a language. And this comes from reading!
I can demonstrate the value of this approach in my research already (albeit still not in the form of a robust
study). You probably have already experienced the paradoxical phenomenon where you can't really HEAR what
someone is saying unless you already KNOW what he or she is saying. It even happens to us in English as native
speakers. Having a foundation in reading (which is largely visual) is the most efficient way to gain fluency in
listening (the aural expression of this knowledge) and then speaking (which is the recollection and physical
expression of patterns that have become internalized intellectually).
It seems as though you've learnt many languages phonetically in the past. I'm not sure about Japanese (which is
perhaps already a phonetic language that is easily expressed in romanji). But more so in Thai than in most other
languages, if you learn using phonetics then you end up speaking with a curiously `farang' (westerner) dialect.
And it's almost impossible to unlearn this. The other problem with a phonetic approach, of course, is that you
cannot read Thai (or any other non-roman language), so one of the major avenues of learning is completely
closed off to you. If you can read then at least you can start picking up the language on your own by reading
street signs, notices, menus, simple articles and stories, etc. In Japanese also, I picked up an amazing insight into
the language just by reading the kanji place names on the Tokyo metro.
Learning to read Thai script is not difficult (if you follow my `Rapid' method, that is: I teach people to do so
within 16 hours in my two-day workshops). Thai script is thankfully consistent (unlike English), so when you can
read Thai you develop a very accurate sense of how to pronounce it correctly. Learning to read Thai the Thai way
is fiendishly complicated. People who learn to read this way usually take 3-6 months and, even then, find it slow
going when plowing through text.
You are also right in saying that although Thai grammar is straightforward, the idiomatic usage is highly
complex. I don't think any language is easy when it comes to expressing nuances; but Thais in particularly enjoy
the play on words that the language affords them. And thanks to Shakespeare, and others like George Bernard
Shaw, English is also an almost exclusively idiomatic language. (But then, that's where extensive reading comes
in pretty useful...!)
What about the "difficult" tones, you say? Well, we use the same tones in English - and once I show people how
to match the Thai tones to the English ones - westerners find that they can speak well naturally!
Finally, I never claimed to be the pioneer of this approach. Rudolf Steiner developed a very similar approach for
teaching German children to read over 100 years ago. Heisig and others have done the same for Japanese. The
Chinese themselves developed this approach thousands of years ago (albeit their teaching methods, through
repetitive writing, are woefully inefficient). Like all good ideas, I stumbled upon this approach independently and
then found that many others before me have developed and refined these ideas already. The difference perhaps is
that I am building a unified language learning strategy that aims to help you to achieve fluency in the quickest
and easiest way possible.
You are right again in pointing out that many similar approaches (such as the podcast course referred to above)
are sight-only. The `Rapid' method goes far beyond that. And, if you can't already read (and speak) Thai then I
welcome you to try it out for yourself and then give your - more studied - opinion based on firsthand experience.
If you google "Read Thai in a Weekend" you should come across several articles I've written that elaborates on
this approach and gives more details about my workshops. I've also outlined an effective strategy above that will
dramatically accelerate your ability to become fluent... in any language.
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1 person has voted this message useful
| leosmith
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6551 days ago
2365 posts - 3804 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Tagalog
| Message 4 of 14 03 December 2010 at 11:48pm | IP Logged |
(you seem quite prejudiced and disparaging of my work)
I feel that you are making promises you can't keep, like so many others trying to sell their products. Otherwise I
would have just politely contradicted your false statements.
(you echo the sentiments of quite a few otherwise ignorant people who express an opinion without bothering to
check up on their facts)
I'm ignorant about many things, and I certainly misunderstood some of your poorly stated "facts". But I'm not the
one making promises and selling products. You should be concerned with your own lack of knowledge. I strongly
suggest you open your mind and spend several hundred hours at sites like
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/default.asp
http://forum.koohii.com/
http://www.languageimpact.com/articles/gt/nonbegnr.htm
http://www.pseal.org/archives/sla/gurt_1999_07.pdf
http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/forum/43-thai-language/
http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/
http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/forum/2-learning-ch inese/
(I'm a self-proclaimed expert)
Thank you for your honesty.
(I was well-known for taking failing students in (school) mathematics and training them to achieve at least B in
their exams.)
Your credentials are commendable, but don't necessarily translate over to languages.
(But if you use reading as a basis for understanding and vocabulary building, it dramatically improves your ability
to hear, and provides excellent material for being able to speak well.)
Totally agree. Thanks for clearing it up.
(Speaking is actually not really a 'language' skill)
Totally disagree. The 4 basic skills are reading, writing, listening and speaking. You can make up your own
definitions, but this one is widely accepted.
(Pimsleur as a language tool, however, is mostly obsolete. People just don't talk like that anymore.)
This is false. Pimsleur contains a higher percentage of formal material than many people find desirable, but I
challenge you to post one single word or phrase that is obsolete.
(it's a wonderful tool for developing a good pronunciation and, more importantly, gain fluency (by which I mean
being able to speak automatically without thinking) through `muscle training'.)
Well said, although you left out how important the time limit is.
(Read and master texts of increasing complexity)
Absolutely. I just want to point out the obvious - that for many languages it's very difficult to assemble such a
collection of texts. You need a lot of it, especially with difficult languages like Japanese and Mandarin, and I know
of no suitable single source of graded readers for Japanese or Thai. Mandarin has the Chinese Breeze series,
which is a goldmine. Highly studied European languages have tons of these, and the pinnacle of language
learning materials is of course the venerable French In Action.
(develop a context-based vocabulary, not an impractical `dictionary head')
For me, this is true, but I want to point out that there are some incredible polyglots who start by quickly
memorizing thousands of words.
(LISTEN to the text being read aloud by a native speaker)
Again, great advice, but it's very hard to get graduated materials with recordings in many languages.
(The ability to listen (and understand) is, I believe, the most important)
False.
(Speaking is a minor skill)
False.
(And this comes from reading!)
False, because they don't entirely come from reading. Also, this conflicts with your theory that listening is more
important. Why not just say that reading is an important part of language learning and shouldn't be neglected? I
don't understand your need to make it the champion skill.
(Having a foundation in reading (which is largely visual) is the most efficient way to gain fluency in listening)
False, because it has to be used in conjunction with listening, hence listening is the most important skill to
master listening. Why not just say that reading plus listening is a much faster way to improve one's listening skills
than just listening alone?
(It seems as though you've learnt many languages phonetically in the past.)
This is what confused me before, and you're doing it again. Please look up "phonetically" in the dictionary. You
are accusing me of learning languages by using sounds. Of course I use sounds. Even learners who aren't
interested in conversation normally use some sounds when they learn a language. Correct me if I'm wrong, but
what you want to accuse me of is learning languages without any form of text. Sorry to disappoint you, but I have
never done this.
(which is perhaps already a phonetic language that is easily expressed in romanji)
(if you learn using phonetics then you end up speaking with a curiously `farang' (westerner) dialect)
Now you're confusing me again. Using Romanization or some other substitute script will not give someone bad
pronunciation. It's the absence of all text that will. There are many other reasons to learn the real script rather
than romanization, so you don't even need to make this false bad pronunciation argument.
(Learning to read Thai script is not difficult (if you follow my `Rapid' method, that is: I teach people to do so
within 16 hours in my two-day workshops)
This is actually our main point of disagreement. I feel you are being deceptive. Someone who looks at this will
think that by the end of your class they will be able to take an article out of a newspaper and read it with correct
pronunciation. There is no way a beginner is going to be able to do this after 16 hours. Perhaps they'll be able to
read simple materials that you develop for them, but native materials, no way. This is not the kana. It's the
hardest script there is for a native English speaker (Chinese characters and hieroglyphics are not considered
scripts). Much easier than Mandarin, but much harder than Cyrillic. So please modify your claim and be one of the
few producers of a language product that doesn't rely on deception.
(Learning to read Thai the Thai way)
What does that mean? Learn it as a child for many years in school?
(What about the "difficult" tones, you say?)
I didn't say anything - you just wanted to give a ridiculous sales pitch again.
(westerners find that they can speak well naturally!)
What does that mean?
(I never claimed to be the pioneer of this approach.)
You said you developed the concept, without further explanation.
(I stumbled upon this approach independently and then found that many others before me have developed and
refined these ideas already.)
What a fortunate coincidence.
(And, if you can't already read (and speak) Thai then I welcome you to try it out for yourself and then give your -
more studied - opinion based on firsthand experience.)
I can read Thai. I'm in the US. Give me a free pass and I'll critic your e-book for you, but I will give you my honest
opinion, so it may be to your benefit not to.
1 person has voted this message useful
| leosmith
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6551 days ago
2365 posts - 3804 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Tagalog
| Message 5 of 14 03 December 2010 at 11:49pm | IP Logged |
OP wrote:
What a long response, and still quite disparaging, and now with bitter sarcasm thrown in as well! I'm not really
sure why... And I'm not sure this is a discussion appropriate for a review of Everyday Thai. You should be
reviewing Read Thai a Day instead! :)
You can continue to bash me and my research if you like, I can't stop you. You're not a potential customer of
mine anyway as you've already learnt several languages and have already settled on your preferred approach. The
fact that you can already read (and presumably speak) Thai means that my methods are irrelevant to you. You
may even find my method bizarre - and it WON'T WORK ON YOU, because you have already learnt to read Thai
`the Thai way'. It's almost impossible to unlearn something that has already become established in your mind.
My method uses concepts that Thais have never heard about and do not really understand. My Thai consonants
are either boys, girls or ladyboys, and they each have a unique personality.
However, for anyone else wanting to learn Thai the quickest, easiest and most enjoyable way, please do try my
suggested approach above. If you do decide to *risk* purchasing or subscribing to my courses, please be aware
that there is a full money-back guarantee if you are not satisfied with the results. If you suspect - as R. Flaherty
seems to do - that I am being deceptive then you have nothing to lose except some of your time.
For a start, I already invited you to look at my ebook, but you haven't bothered to do so yet. You can
download it and try it out for free.
So in answer to your continued criticisms:
1. I DO make promises that I can keep. Many marketeers (especially in the US) do lie by omission or hype up their
product, so that's understandable you are suspicious. But you are jumping to conclusions. I have given many
workshops in Thailand where I teach foreigners to read Thai in a weekend. Many participants are so enthralled at
being able to read that they persuade their friends to attend also. And some business organizations (e.g. British
Chamber of Commerce) and schools have sponsored and organized weekend workshops to encourage their
members/staff/teachers to learn to read Thai based on the experience of some of their other members...
I know about the sites you mentioned. Most of them are excellent, especially koohii for learning Japanese kanji
the 'Heisig' way. I contribute to discussions about Thai language on thaivisa also, by the way...
I stand on my assertion that speaking is not really a `language skill', contrary to what is "widely accepted". If you
follow the "widely accepted" approach to learning a language at a language school or by following a self-study
course, it will usually take around 3-5 years to gain fluency (depending on how many hours you study every day);
and it will be hard work!
The approach that I am developing in my research will accelerate this significantly, perhaps only requiring a total
of around 300 hours concentrated 'exposure' as opposed to 900-1200 hours the "widely accepted" way. I will be
testing this next year with my Thai Fluency course, so I may be wrong (but only wrong in the total number of
hours required, not the fact that one can learn a language in a much quicker and easier way).
I am basing the first part of my Thai Fluency course on Everyday Thai for Beginners. I see this as a prerequisite
and provides the necessary foundation for jumping straight into fluency training. So for those of you interested
in learning Thai, get the book and then contact me about how to use it efficiently to gain a solid foundation in
Thai.
The reason why 'speaking' is not a language skill is that the knowledge of how to compose sentences and
express meaning happens in the brain as a cognitive activity.
Whereas speaking is a purely muscular activity - which of course also happens in the brain - in the fine motor
control area(s). But the muscle movements required to make sounds is no longer about language. It's more like
dancing or playing a musical instrument or a fine motor control sport like pingpong. Granted, there are overlaps
between music and dance and sport and language, so one could quibble about this.
Nevertheless, if you remove the unnecessary emphasis on "speaking" and "writing" when learning a language,
you will learn much more efficiently and more quickly as a result.
At least, these are my findings so far...
And just to preempt your next question: "So how does one learn to speak?", it is important to train your mouth
and tongue to speak by practicing the movements repetitively, in an exaggerated way, focusing first on accuracy
and then on speed... until it becomes automatic. Like dancing or playing a musical instrument.
It is true that there are many people with only a `book knowledge' of a foreign language. (The Japanese mostly
have a book knowledge of English, but can't speak it.) But that's because these people have not undergone the
muscle training needed to develop fluency of speech. Despite their impressive linguistic knowledge, they can't
speak. Ergo: speaking is not a `linguistic' skill.
As for writing, well truly a waste of time if ever there was one. Few if any language teachers agree with me on
this, so I won't argue this point with you either.
Pimsleur. Two small examples of `granny speak': 1) from the Japanese course, there is not one single example of
the plain negative form, which virtually everybody uses nowadays, even in business and relatively polite speech;
2) "laa gohn" in Thai means "farewell" (not "goodbye" by the way), and no Thai person I know ever says this when
they're on the point of leaving.
You've mentioned at least twice the fact that there isn't suitable material for following my suggested strategy.
Well, that doesn't make it invalid, so I don't understand why you are arguing so vehemently against my findings. I
am in the process of developing appropriate material, and I would hope that other language product publishers
do the same for languages like Chinese or Japanese. There's certainly a wealth of good material already available,
it perhaps just has to be compiled in a more efficient manner.
You seem to disagree quite adamantly about my assertions regarding reading and listening and speaking. I can
understand that it's the prevailing practice to focus on speaking and listening first, along with writing and then
perhaps some reading. You seem to be quite sure of yourself, so perhaps you can point me to some research
findings that back it up. In my experience as a language learner and developer of language learning courses, the
prevailing approach is fairly arduous and time-consuming. Even the big name brands have got it wrong, some of
them thinking that showing photographs is sufficiently `visual' to create a meaningful association with new
words. Please look up research conducted or reviewed by Stephen Krashen. He and others have shown quite
conclusively that "comprehensible input" in the form of "extensive recreational reading" is the probably the most
significant indicator, not only of fluency and mastery in a language (including one's own mother tongue) but also
a predictor of general academic success in school and university.
What I call the `phonetic' approach to learning a language is where you learn a language through sound alone
and do not make use of the natural script of the language. It doesn't really have much impact on Latin-based
languages (because we all share the same script), but it does impact tremendously with languages like Russian,
Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Hebrew, Arabic and Thai.
Romanization DOES in fact give people a bad pronunciation. It certainly does in Thai because there is no accurate
way of representing many of the sounds using Romanization, and few people actually learn the International
Phonetic Alphabet (why should they? if you're going to bother to learn a phonetic system then why not just learn
the native system!?).
But more importantly, learning any language through Romanization cuts off a huge learning resource that
surrounds you: street signs, notices, menus, place names, books, magazines, newspapers, etc.
So learn to read first before you do anything, whatever the language. Even Pinyin or Romaji should only be used
as a very temporary stepping stone until you get to grips with the `native' language script.
You're certainly convinced that I'm being deceptive. I suppose that's understandable. Many people simply can't
believe that it's possible to learn to read (Thai) in only 16 hours. Which is why I'm bothering to answer you
publically. Your disbelief is typical. The world isn't flat: it's actually round!
Yes, at the end of the weekend, participants to my workshop can take a newspaper and start reading it with the
correct pronunciation (including the tones)! Indeed, the final afternoon is spent practicing reading simple texts
(see my website: I've already published the texts we use as practicing material in the course description).
I don't recommend jumping straight into newspapers however, but I have one participant who came to my course
precisely so that he could do so. In some respects, newspapers are actually easier to read than other genuine
texts. The reasons are that 1) although the vocabulary is quite advanced, the same words and concepts are used
over and over again, 2) the same stories are written about over and over again, with very similar sentence
patterns and expressions, and 3) newspapers deliberately used a limited vocabulary set based on their readers'
level of education. American tabloids usually use a vocabulary of around 600 words, British tabloids use around
800-1200 words and broadsheets stick to the most common 2,000-3,000 words. Only serious newspapers, like
The Economist, might go beyond that and exploit the full range of around 5,000 words in its articles.
What I do make quite clear, however, is that YOU WILL NOT NECESSARILY UNDERSTAND what you are reading.
That comes with the next phase in the language learning strategy, which I've already outlined above.
It still comes as a surprise to me when I meet a skeptic who says it's impossible to learn to read in a day or two
and then expects the moon! If you expect to be able to have full comprehension as well then you are right, it is
impossible. Being able to recognize and pronounce words correctly is not the same as being able to understand
the language.
But it's the most efficient way to start on your journey to being able to communicate fluently. That's my claim,
and I stand by it!
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Edited by leosmith on 03 December 2010 at 11:53pm
1 person has voted this message useful
| leosmith
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6551 days ago
2365 posts - 3804 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Tagalog
| Message 6 of 14 03 December 2010 at 11:51pm | IP Logged |
Last time you said (Learning to read Thai the Thai way)
So I asked (What does that mean? Learn it as a child for many years in school?)
This time you said (you have already learnt to read Thai `the Thai way') and I still don't know what you mean.
(I already invited you to look at my ebook, but you haven't bothered to do so yet. You can download it and try it
out for free.) You didn't mention that it was free. I'll review it at my earliest convenience, which will probably be
Christmas holidays.
(I know about the sites you mentioned.) I included those links because you appear to be out of touch on what's
going on in the language learning world these days. I suggest you check out all of them, especially the learn
every language forum.
(I stand on my assertion that speaking is not really a `language skill', contrary to what is "widely accepted".)
Output skills are quite different from input skills, as has been well established. You going around telling
everybody speech isn't a skill makes you sound uninformed, and annoys those of us who are somewhat familiar
with the linguistic terms.
(If you follow the "widely accepted" approach to learning a language at a language school or by following a self-
study course, it will usually take around 3-5 years to gain fluency (depending on how many hours you study
every day); and it will be hard work!)
What is the "widely accepted" approach? How do you define fluency? It is deceptive to try to convince people that
learning a language is easy.
(The approach that I am developing in my research will accelerate this significantly, perhaps only requiring a total
of around 300 hours concentrated 'exposure' as opposed to 900-1200 hours the "widely accepted" way.) What is
supposed to be achieved in 300 hours?
(if you remove the unnecessary emphasis on "speaking" and "writing" when learning a language, you will learn
much more efficiently and more quickly as a result.) What do you consider unnecessary? Pimsleur uses speaking,
and Heisig uses writing, for examples.
("So how does one learn to speak?", it is important to train your mouth and tongue to speak by practicing the
movements repetitively, in an exaggerated way, focusing first on accuracy and then on speed... until it becomes
automatic. Like dancing or playing a musical instrument.) This is probably the most incomplete description of
how to learn to speak I've ever seen. You've said almost nothing concrete here.
(As for writing, well truly a waste of time if ever there was one.) Lots of kids on the internet will agree with you on
that. But writing is one of the 4 basic skills, and reinforces the others. It is more efficient to include a writing
component in a language learning program than to exclude it completely, even if the final goal of the student
doesn't include writing.
I said (I challenge you to post one single word or phrase that is obsolete) you gave (1) from the Japanese course,
there is not one single example of the plain negative form, which virtually everybody uses nowadays, even in
business and relatively polite speech; 2) "laa gohn" in Thai means "farewell" (not "goodbye" by the way), and no
Thai person I know ever says this when they're on the point of leaving.) (1) has nothing to do with obsolete (2) I
don't hear it often, but I do hear it, from Thais, as they leave. Definitely not obsolete.
(You've mentioned at least twice the fact that there isn't suitable material for following my suggested strategy.
Well, that doesn't make it invalid) I didn't say there aren't suitable materials, I said they are quite hard to
assemble. I didn't say your strategy is invalid; it's a damn good strategy. Create this material for Thai, and I'll buy
you a beer.
(I can understand that it's the prevailing practice to focus on speaking and listening first) According to who?
There many, many methods out there. As I said earlier, you are out of touch. Krashen is a small, albeit very
important, piece of the puzzle that is language learning. Spend at least 100 hours reading at those sites I posted,
and I guarantee your confusion will disappear. I'm not going to site anything else unless you are very specific.
(Romanization DOES in fact give people a bad pronunciation.) This is only true if you don't give your students
clear instructions as to how to pronounce it. As I said in my last post, there are many reasons to use the true
script, but pronunciation isn't one of them.
(So learn to read first before you do anything, whatever the language. Even Pinyin or Romaji should only be used
as a very temporary stepping stone until you get to grips with the `native' language script.) You just made
another one of your global statements, and then you contradicted yourself. Why not just tell people to learn the
script as soon as practical?
(at the end of the weekend, participants to my workshop can take a newspaper and start reading it with the
correct pronunciation) This is my biggest contention with you. I would be impressed, and very pleased, if you can
take raw beginners and teach them all the characters and all the rules in such a way that they will actually stick
by the end of 16 hours. This would necessarily involve the reading of simple words and sentences. And I have
never said that you claim they will understand what they are reading in that time. But you go beyond the claim of
simple sentences, and say they can read native material (a newspaper for example) with correct pronunciation by
the end of your class. This is impossible, for reasons you are well aware of. Would you like me to spell them out
for you, or would you like to change your claim?
(It still comes as a surprise to me when I meet a skeptic who says it's impossible to learn to read in a day or two
and then expects the moon!) I don't expect anything except honesty about the level that will be reached. Don't
tell people they'll be able to read native material with correct pronunciation after 16 hours if in reality they'll only
be able to read simplified texts.
1 person has voted this message useful
| leosmith
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6551 days ago
2365 posts - 3804 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Tagalog
| Message 7 of 14 03 December 2010 at 11:56pm | IP Logged |
OP wrote:
This nit-picking is getting a little tedious. And what you are saying isn't particularly useful to people wanting
to learn Thai. I'm happy to have a discussion with you in person or at some language forum - as you seem to
have some experience in studying languages and the approaches to learning languages - and if you are
genuinely interested in finding or developing effective approaches to learning a language very quickly and with
minimal effort. I am doing cutting-edge research in Methodologies for the Effective Learning of Languages and
Complex Subjects; and I will be publishing my findings early in 2012. It seems obvious to me (but not to people
like you, or the developers of some very large and expensive language learning programs) that it's much more
effective for beginner and intermediate learners, for instance, to focus on the colloquial, everyday usage of a
language - even if it is `wrong' - and to not bother with writing at all. I don't see it as a basic skill. Indeed, I see
it as an extremely advanced skill that should only be attempted AFTER one has read extensively. You also keep
nit-picking about Romanization. Many people (and many language schools and self-study courses) use
Romanization to dispense with the need to read. They often DON'T use it as a temporary stepping-stone: they
study the language almost exclusively using Romanization. It's a HUGE mistake. Nearly everybody I know who
has learnt Thai (or certain other languages) using a `phonetic' approach with Romanization - even if they have a
native teacher - speaks in a kind of `farang' (Westerner) dialect, with an incorrect pronunciation that has become
permanently entrenched.
I think most people who've tried to learn a language will understand what I am saying. I'm not really sure what it
is you don't understand. I'm just setting out the basic principles that I've found to be effective and expressing the
difficulties that most people have when trying to learn a new language. There are very few cohesive and
comprehensive programs that are quick and effective! I am equally skeptical when I read the claims made by
language schools or self-study programs. I'm always on the lookout for effective approaches and will
recommend them and learn from them when I find them.
As I am doing for Everyday Thai for Beginners, and the recommended resources I outlined above!... :) Khun
Wiworn has made the correct decision in her book and her courses to teach her students to read Thai first before
embarking on studying the language. I've found also that it is the most effective way to learn Thai. Why quibble
about that? It works! And people like Khun Wiworn and myself can demonstrate the effectiveness of this
approach in practice. If you've bothered to visit my website then you will have noticed that you can test out the
`Rapid' method yourself - there's a youtube video where you will learn 13 of the top letters in ten minutes, which
will enable you to read a simple exercise in a follow-on video.
Below is the final reading exercise, an authentic text, that my workshop participants are able to read accurately
(and understand) together after about Hour 14. It's a short text and it does take most people a good 15 minutes
to read...
Miracles we can do in two days! The Impossible takes a bit longer... :)
[To view this correctly, please select View Thai Encoding in your browser - not Unicode/UTF-8, nor Western
European encoding.]
Sydney Remember โดย ขิงม่วง
เช้าตรู่วันอาทิตย์ ขณะนี้ฉันอยู่ที่ซิคน ีย์ ประเทศออสเตรเลีย
"อากาศเย็นสบายดีจังเ �ย" ฉันคิดอยู่ในใจขณะออก จากสนามบิน
ฉันบอกกับคนขับรถแท็ก ซีว่า จะไป Bondi Junction
"หวัดดีพี่อุ้ม" แจงพูดและช่วยฉันถือก ระเป๋าเดินทางเข้าบ้า น
แจงเป็นลูกของลุง ซึ่งก็ถือว่าเราเป็นล ูกพี่ลูกน้องกัน
แต่เราเพิ่งจะมารู้จั กกันได้ไม่นานก่อนที่ ฉันจะมาซืดนีย์
เราจึงไม่ค่อยสนิทกัน สักเท่าไร
แจงเป็นผู้หญิงทีหน้า ตาสวย ผิวขาว สูง หุ่นดี
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Edited by leosmith on 03 December 2010 at 11:58pm
1 person has voted this message useful
| leosmith
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6551 days ago
2365 posts - 3804 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Tagalog
| Message 8 of 14 04 December 2010 at 12:28am | IP Logged |
That's all so far. I just had a tooth pulled, and won't be sharp for a couple days. Please feel free to respond to
anything in this thread - that's why I brought it here. Non-Thai related comments are also welcome.
1 person has voted this message useful
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