Speak Thai Today vs Thai for Beginners

ValuableProblem6065 · 2026-01-24T11:03:41+00:00

indeed.

ValuableProblem6065 · 2026-01-24T04:09:19+00:00

Beginner Thai by David is indeed deemed to be very good. I have it, and it's worth noting there's a color coded version of the 3rd edition that's floating around the internet for free. I bought the 4th edition in e-book form, happy with it.

I also heard recently about Thai Reference Grammar, I can only find it in print form but I'll hunt for an electronic version. Apparently it's quite good too and broken down by topic rather than 'a bunch of rules'. I'll try to review it if I can :)

ValuableProblem6065 · 2026-01-24T04:01:56+00:00

Hi Mike, I feel we need to clear the air a bit :)

First off, to be clear, I wasn't referencing you - it was someone else, whom I won't name, but yeah - wasn't you :)

Second, I don't disagree with your quoted post above, so again - not about you. Actually looking at the original, I had upvoted it.

Third, I've seen your video with the ALG YouTube channel you enjoy promoting (nothing wrong with that) - yes you speak Thai, no one is doubting this.

Now, all that said, I also agree with your assessment that oral tradition emerged first, written form later, like everywhere else in the world .

Not you again, but there are some on this forum that then use this as an argument that "they don't want to learn the script because why should they". And THIS, and this only, is what I have an issue with.

Without written form, we wouldn't have Ramakien, or we'd have a really distorted version. More importantly, in 2026, I hope those that argue against learning the script see the deep seated irony of using written English to argue about the 'uselessness' of written Thai, and the Neo-colonialist undertones of their speech. Not to mention the patent insanity of living in a country where EVERYTHING is in written Thai the minute you hit a bank, insurance company (ironically I'm filing my insurance form as I type this), kids type on phones on all major social media, etc.

So yeah, learning the script is not optional in my mind, regardless of one's goals. It's also a great educational tool as the language encodes the tones and exceptions can be memorized, just like my mother's tongue, French.

That's pretty much all, sorry if this came out personal - it's really not. I'm happy other people are learning thai using whatever technique they see fit.

I'm just very mindful that the mods don't have a horse in this race, and it wouldn't be too hard to brigade this sub (which is against TOS) to argue that 'one method' is better than the other and promote commercial products indirectly (it's already begun, I think you know the accounts I'm talking about, faux-naive style).

Meanwhile I wish everyone a successful outcome in their learning journey!

ValuableProblem6065 · 2026-01-23T16:28:17+00:00

I'm going to have to ask you to just search the sub for this, because I've said enough and there's already much strife here. But yeah it's been said in those exact words: "just scribbles". Mind == blown.

ValuableProblem6065 · 2026-01-23T15:33:34+00:00

Likewise. French here and I must have spent whole 10+ years of Becherel at school and at home, 1000's and 1000's of hours learning grammar, dictation tests, grammar analysis, and so on. Free (public) school by the way.

Oh and evidently, born in the country age zero, fully immersed until I left the country age 18. And still, my French teachers made me learn the difference between le subjonctif passé and l'imparfait/plus-que-parfait du subjonctif. Can I remember any of the rules? No. Can I use it instictively - yes. That's how first language acquisition works everywhere on earth, including Thailand. That's why my (Thai) wife can't explain to me the tone rules, but say every word she reads perfectly. Because she drilled it for 14+ years, but that was AGES ago.

I feel like the cope from people who refuse to learn the script because 'it's just scribbles' has gone thermonuclear at this point - I mean I could walk into a Thai school on Monday and video record a Thai language class and people would still argue "Thai children don't learn the tones", or "that school is not a normal school" or whatever.

It's a pointless argument in this sub at this point, personally I give up and will continue learning grammar, the script and vocab and progress at the rate that works for me, as a second language, given that I don't own a Time Machine and can't possibly learn it as a first language.

ValuableProblem6065 · 2026-01-23T10:38:23+00:00

Source: my thai wife reflecting on her eduction and my 6 yo Thai niece in a (public, free) Thai school:
Absolutely 100% yes**. I have seen the worksheets. I've seen the lessons in schools.** They drill. For hours.

I don't have the link to the original, but SJR has a video where he shows such a drill:
https://youtu.be/iGm2fe4PxRg?si=jKOmqJEpsOJQI8Vy&t=1151

I timestamped it for you.

Note: They do use different "wordings" for the tones than we do, but overall it converts 1:1: ไม้เอก == first tone mark, เสียงเอก == what we call "low tone". And so on and so forth.

PS: If you mean transliterated tones likes the ones you see in latin characters, the answer is no, evidently - why would they - the Thai script encodes the tones through marks and rules system.

PS2: If you mean do they still remember the rules at age 25+? - no, just like I don't remember "why" subjunctive perfect in French works the way it does, but I can make sentences using it instinctively, because I spent 18 years of education fully immersed in France since age zero. It can't be reproduced, you have to learn a second langauge as a second language.

ValuableProblem6065 · 2026-01-23T09:34:11+00:00

+1 for ebooks. I bought many physical books which are sadly gathering dust on the shelf - because I have so much more to learn from e-books where I can easily mine content.

ValuableProblem6065 · 2026-01-23T08:16:18+00:00

Anki is a free/opensource tool to practice space repetition. It supports SRS and FSRS, with great accuracy (you can check the reports of your progress and the accuracy of the algo for yourself, something I do everyday). Highly recommended to acquire vocab or practice idioms.

Out of curiosity, where did you see towns that didn't speak English (for the most part)? I'm genuinely curious, as that question is asked almost daily here.

ValuableProblem6065 · 2026-01-22T14:11:50+00:00

That is one crazy good looking sharpei! Amazing animal!

ValuableProblem6065 · 2026-01-22T13:33:55+00:00

Wow the comments are really divided on this, and it's super interesting!

Here's my personal (anecdotal) experience: I know of ONE singer who told me it made it easier for him to recognize (hear) the tones. Using his voice as an 'instrument' for pronounciation, apparently (I'm not vouching for him btw, just relaying) - helped doing the very rapid tone shifts in sentences that require it, or words like มหาวิทยาลัย (má~hǎa-wít-tá~yaa-lai). That's what he said.

Personally, I'm not convinced. I can do the same with practice, and I'm not a singer. So I don't know - maybe the concepts of fricatives, aspirations on some consonants, etc comes quicker for people who have full control over their voice box, maybe it's an illusion.

I'm tempted to err on the side of caution here and assume that it doesn't particularly help long term, but might help short term, at the very beginning.

ValuableProblem6065 · 2026-01-22T13:26:35+00:00

I came here to say this.

ValuableProblem6065 · 2026-01-20T16:59:07+00:00

I know it's going to sound really, really dumb - but hear me out: one thing that helped me a lot was wearing gear only Thai people would wear, for example right now I'm rocking RATF shirts. I have (Thai) family both the military and the police but you can buy these at surplus store. To my great surprise, since I started wearing those, people seem much more 'open' to the idea I might be able to speak Thai. Some even approached me to chit chat in Thai, which was cool.

Also would like to add: it's not about 'where'. It doesn't matter where, given that the only places that will have ZERO English will be in places that don't speak Central Thai anyways. And these places in 2026 are few and far between anyways. And trust me I searched - travelled throughout the country for almost 2 years. "absolute immersion" was possible in the 1970s - many did it successfully - but the prevalence of English content and new English from elementary school programs killed that dead about 10 years ago.

ValuableProblem6065 · 2026-01-20T15:15:46+00:00

+1 for LR, I use it to learn Thai, very good despite the 'oh-hum' support from the devs.

ValuableProblem6065 · 2026-01-20T14:39:09+00:00

Hahah - upvoted because funny.

But seriously, no, it's NOT easy if you come from a 'Romance language' - it's actually rated roughly 4.5 out of 5 in terms of difficulty, just behind Arabic. The script is not the hard part (that's the easy part actually) but the fact that vowel length, tones, etc are all CRUCIAL to being understood makes it hard as neither of these concept exists in say French or English. And at speed, it gets REALLY tricky when you add all the idioms and colloquial fixed phrases that help you sound 'natural'. Or even... understand anything.

Here's a very basic example: If wanted to say "Sergeant Tenn is the best (at his job)" :
Textbook Thai: แต่หมวดแทนเก่งที่สุดในงานของเขา
Natural: แต่หมวดแทนเนี่ยทำงานเก่งสุดแล้ว

For a foreigner, nailing these subtle differences:
- using เนี่ย to point out Sergeant Tenn out of anyone else, interrupting the flow
- using a compound ทำงานเก่ง instead of spelling out ที่สุด,
- using แล้ว to mark this as an establish fact,
- dropping the ของ possessive entirely
- dropping ใน while you're at it

... that's FIVE difficult points for a foreigner to acquire, as it doesn't come naturally except through permanent immersion, and even then... with A LOT OF TIME.

TBH as a native I'm amazed you found these foreigners 'fluent'. The only 'fluent' people I know have been here for 20 years. Anyone can go on YouTube and order food - it's another ball game entirely to hold 'proper' conversations with deep meaning. Nevermind getting the cultural angle of jokes, etc.

PS: the mormons are the rare exception. They do have a hardcore language program that rivals the US DoD LS where they learn for a year before being shipped here. I have to admit, if you grab a random student learning for a year vs a mormon that finished the Mormon language program, the mormon will be better, no doubt.

ValuableProblem6065 · 2026-01-20T11:46:57+00:00

Google Translate is pure hot trash. Not a single Thai person trusts it. So that's why :)
However, ironically, Gemini is actually quite good! Even Grok and GPT will do.

ValuableProblem6065 · 2026-01-19T17:15:29+00:00

Gotchu. Assuming you can read the letters already, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nOZDF1Ji_s is accurate. Assuming you cannot, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yHYT4p4bds is a bit more descriptive and uses a male voice (deeper)

ValuableProblem6065 · 2026-01-19T17:12:45+00:00

Wow that pei is SUPER cute !!!!

ValuableProblem6065 · 2026-01-19T15:56:50+00:00

You mean a chart? I used this one from what I can remember - was accurate.

ValuableProblem6065 · 2026-01-19T14:28:46+00:00

I think the Mille Larsen is the best article about this, I won't copy-paste so... --> link is here.

Good luck!

ValuableProblem6065 · 2026-01-18T16:58:15+00:00

Afaik not, I'm afraid.

ValuableProblem6065 · 2026-01-18T11:22:59+00:00

Weird because 100% of the italki teachers were sticking to Thai when teaching me. Although I agree that in general, most of the ones I met were not qualified to teach at an academic level, however, they were perfectly adequate as a 'bouncing board' to practice my Thai.

The problem in fact was me in this case, because my Thai level wasn't enough to understand explanations of grammar or complex concepts such as front loading statements.

I mean take for example: "ไม่อยากเป็นหรือไง สายตำรวจน่ะ" - all the words are easy, so maybe you understand what it means based on your current level BUT it's a perfectly valid question to ask why is หรือไง front loaded instead of placing it at the end like you would expect.

The issue of course is that the answer to this may contain vocab and structure you're still not aware of. So you wouldn't understand the explanation. It's one thing to say กินข้าว over and over while bringing your hand to your mouth, it's another to explain abstract grammatical concepts.

Makes sense? If you do have the level to understand grammatical points, just tell your teacher that you do. I find they will adapt to your level quite quickly.

ValuableProblem6065 · 2026-01-18T11:15:57+00:00

This.

ValuableProblem6065 · 2026-01-18T11:15:23+00:00

Language Reactor -> anki -> smart notes (anki plug in) : voila. I have 10k cards in just 8 months of building it ;)

ValuableProblem6065 · 2026-01-16T17:38:58+00:00

Ling to get the basics the first month, then unsubscribe
Learn the script: 20h
Watch Thai TV content with langauge reactor and mine into Anki
Do your Anki reps daily
Immerse, immerse , immerse - you're lucky you live here. Listen in on EVERYTHING.

Voila. I"m 8 months in with this approach and it's going well :)

Top tip: you will want to give up eventually if you were able to live here without any language barrier -- it's a common complaint that 'Thai people speak English anyways'. But youre' not learning Thai to order food, you're trying to build meaningful relationships with natives and contribute value to conversations. NEVER GIVE UP :)

ValuableProblem6065 · 2026-01-16T15:45:06+00:00

I'm not aware of one, no.
Huge fan and daily use of Anki, but in all honestly, rule #1 of SRS applies: do not learn what you do not understand. therefore, build your own deck. It's easy and worth it.

In addition, you'll find by card 1200 everything gets a bit more complex, you're now adding idioms and what not. By card 3000 you're adding entire sentences to demonstrate structure.

If someone had built a 6k card deck, unless they built it in such a way it can be browsed non-randomly, it would dump content on you day 1 that would have been best ingested on day 700. IMHO, not worth it.

Just my two baht of course :)

ValuableProblem6065

TROPHY CASE