Learning the Language

[Guest]

The right place for this topic is in it's own thread, so here we go:
 

I can't resist going back to language for a moment. I found this in a piece called "the nine tones of hell" in the Los Angeles review of books.

"To outsiders, it seems half a miracle that the native Cantonese have learned to speak properly at all. I spent months puzzled by that miracle when my parents plopped me into Cantonese school for the first time in Grade 2, the fall after we moved to Hong Kong from Toronto in 1996. Maybe they assumed that because they spoke Cantonese to each other in front of their kids, I would pick it up naturally. Nope. I burst into tears in front of the whole class on day one, frustrated and flummoxed by my inability to communicate. I got in trouble for falling asleep in class because I couldn’t understand the teacher.[/size]
While English or French speakers can make a guess at pronunciation thanks to romanization, I had no way of knowing how to pronounce the characters in my Chinese textbook unless I memorized what my teacher said out loud. A handheld electronic Longman dictionary complete with speakers and a stylus became my savior. I would trace new characters (assuming I could guess the strokes correctly) into the keypad, and a robotic pronunciation would bleat back at me."

[ChristianPFC]

Continuation of language discussion from retirement thread

www.gaythailand.com/forums/topic/11985-retirement/

 

I would not want to live anywhere without being able to read the language. For me as an introvert, reading is the most important means of information intake. I would rather be able to read and write in a language than to listen and speak if I had to choose.

 

As soon as I knew that I would be spending more time in Thailand, I took classes in Thai (2010/2011) and now (2018) the same for Taiwan/Chinese.

 

I agree with everything anddy said about learning Thai (grammar and writing/pronunciation quite straightforward).

 

I'm not good at tones, but tones are not crucial for understanding. I can understand romanized Thai, which has no tones. You can argue that I know most words because I have seen them written in Thai.

[kokopelli]

I once again asked by Thai friend, "should I  learn Thai" and his answer was NO.

 

I then asked why and he said " you just want to learn the bad words".

 

So, once again, I will not try to learn Thai.  ​ 

[paborn]

Christian,

I have never encountered, other than street signs, romanized Thai. How common is this?   Also, when you say that tones are not crucial are you saying that meaning can be inferred from context?

[anddy]

I'm not good at tones, but tones are not crucial for understanding. I can understand romanized Thai, which has no tones. You can argue that I know most words because I have seen them written in Thai.

 

 

Christian,

I have never encountered, other than street signs, romanized Thai. How common is this?   Also, when you say that tones are not crucial are you saying that meaning can be inferred from context?

 

I have trouble understanding romanized Thai, precisely because I don't know what the exact pronunciation (for some vowels proper approximation in English/romanized is not [possible) and tone is supposed to be. So if knowing the potential Thai candidates for a romanized word, it is possible to guess which one from the context, yes. Looks like Christian is better at guessing from context than me then lol. I leave it to Christian to give examples of where he finds them most, can't think of too many now...

 

To me Thai is sometimes are rather contextual language anyway. Indentically pronounced words (though spellings might differ) may have vastly different meanings (especially if the spellings are different, which often has it's reasons in the origins of a word from, say, Sanskrit or Khmer), so the actual meaning is only becomes evident from the context. The same phenomenon exists in our western languages, of course, but it seems to me there are many more such words in Thai. That's just a personal feeling, though, I have no evidence or statistics to back it up.

 

Simplest possible example from English: "can" - what does it mean? You can't tell without context.

"I can do this"

"a can of coke"

[paborn]

A good example Andy and, by the way, in many parts of the US the "can" also means toilet. 

[traveller123]

I once again asked by Thai friend, "should I  learn Thai" and his answer was NO.

 

I then asked why and he said " you just want to learn the bad words".

 

So, once again, I will not try to learn Thai.  ​ 

When I tried to learn a few words of Thai my partner told me "don't bother, nobody can understand you"

[ceejay]

Interesting that the 2 posters that mention partners say that they (the partners) were discouraging (or at best lukewarm) about having their farang partner learn Thai.

I could give other examples from personal experience - enough to make me wonder if something else is going on.

I suspect that often the Thai partner will see their contribution to the partnership as being to act as an intermediary between the farang and the Thai world, and they don't want to give that up.Maybe the reasoning is that if you learn Thai, you will need them less.

Also from personal observation, the resistance often becomes less after the relationship has lasted a few years. Perhaps that's because the Thai partners feel more secure in the relationship by then?

[bobsaigon]

When I tried to learn a few words of Thai my partner told me "don't bother, nobody can understand you"

 

And in Saigon, my long time partner was kind enough to inform me that he was probably the only person in the country who could understand when I produced a few words of Vietnamese.  Other people thought I was speaking French or Russian.     So nice to have a reality checker available full time.  

[spoon]

As i speak more than a language, so does many of the members here i bet, i can understand that those who only use one language will have trouble to learn a new one when they aged. and learning languages requires a lot of practical applications or you will never become fluent. I study 4 languages in high school and fluent in only two. No doubt that living in a place that didnt speak your mother's tongue helps a lot in learning the local language. And its fun to bad mouth the local in your language in front of them and they have no clue what we say. And i bet the thai also do that in front of farang as well, which could also be a reason why they dont have farang to learn their language lol

[ChristianPFC]

Unfortunately, many books about Thailand do not have Thai names in Thai script, only romanized names. As there are various systems, I might not find the place under that romanized name, and anyway there will be more information on the internet in Thai language than in English language.

 

Here a recent example:

Tham Si Chom Phu which I convert back to ถ้ำสีชมพู

Wat Tham Pha Ya Chang Phuek which I convert back to วัดถ้ำพญาช้างเผือก

Both I understand after a second of thinking, without tone marks. But I have been to hundreds, nay thousands of places, and reading both Thai and romanized names. For general conversation I have no example where I read romanized without tone marks and understand what is meant.

[Jasper]

It’s all about control.

If the farang can’t speak Thai, that makes him more vulnerable and dependable to the Thai boy.

 

I recently read the survey that Thai girls prefer farang s who cannot speak the language rather than farang that speaks the language fluently. I assume the same can be said about Thai boys.

[traveller123]

Agree with the latest comments.

A bit more background about myself.

I have been with my partner ten years (UK Civil Partnership, living in Isaan the last 6 years) and I don't doubt that he finds it very useful to speak to his friends and relatives on the phone or in person without me understanding the conversation.

It is good that I trust him completely or I would be paranoid

[a447a]

Perhaps one of the reasons Thai partners don't want their farang to learn Thai is because they fear they will be expected to be their full-time teacher, and they can't be bothered.

 

Another reason might be because they want to practise their English.

 

Also, some Thais want us to believe their language is so difficult and so "special" that farangs couldn't possibly be smart enough to become competent.

 

I also find the tones difficult to master and as a consequence, I get a lot of "arai na?" responses.

 

Like Thai, Japanese is also very contextual as there are so many homonyms and you need to see the Chinese characters. It's why you often see people "writing" the characters in the air or on their hands. Often they even have to "spell" the character in order to be understood. But that's a lot easier than trying to distinguish words by their tones.

[ChristianPFC]

You mean homophones, not homonyms.

 

The number of homophones in Thai is very limited.

I can only think of one common homophone na หน้า face and na น่า (prefix equivalent to English suffix -ing).

 

For Chinese you are right, is has many. I read in a book that the highest number are 177 different ways to write "yi 4th tone", each with a different meaning.

 

For Japanese, I can't judge.

[Nasherich]

I found the only way to master the tones and the sounds which are not found in Western languages is to have a paid teacher, in my case in the UK, to listen and correct.

 

I think others are right on here that Thais generally like the sense of control and also that they can chat to their friends without us really understanding what they're saying.

 

In fact, you have to be very fluent (in any language) to pick up on the coloquial interchange between native speakers so mostly they are safe anyway.

[spoon]

You mean homophones, not homonyms.

 

The number of homophones in Thai is very limited.

I can only think of one common homophone na หน้า face and na น่า (prefix equivalent to English suffix -ing).

 

For Chinese you are right, is has many. I read in a book that the highest number are 177 different ways to write "yi 4th tone", each with a different meaning.

 

For Japanese, I can't judge.

Thanks for pointing out about homonyms and homophones. I googled it and both of them are actually correct though both have different meaning.

 

Homonym is words that sounds similar and can have same or different spelling while homophone is a type of homonym, which must have same sound but different spelling.

The other part of the equation is homograph and heteronym, the former is same or different sound but same spelling, and the later is a type of homograph, that have different sound but same spelling.

 

Love it that each day i learned new things by reading the forum. Lol

[spoon]

I found the only way to master the tones and the sounds which are not found in Western languages is to have a paid teacher, in my case in the UK, to listen and correct.

 

I think others are right on here that Thais generally like the sense of control and also that they can chat to their friends without us really understanding what they're saying.

 

In fact, you have to be very fluent (in any language) to pick up on the coloquial interchange between native speakers so mostly they are safe anyway.

You are very right about colloquial/slang between natives, especially the young generation. Even a native speaker from older generation cant understand some of the new words being created and used differently. Malay and indonesian language have evolved a lot throughout the history that one of my Indonesian friends said to me once, she couldnt understand malay as we talked to fast, even when we speak languages that are pretty much from similar origin, not as similar as english/american, but not as far as cantonese/mandarin.

[anddy]

The number of homophones in Thai is very limited.

I can only think of one common homophone na หน้า face and na น่า (prefix equivalent to English suffix -ing).

not correct, there are gazillions of homophones in Thai, both of the type with identical spelling and with different spelling.

 

just to name a few simple ones:

kâa: ค่า (price, cost) ข้า (subject, servant)  ฆ่า (to kill)

sii: สี (color;; paint; to mill [think Silom=Windmill) ศรี (noble)

kii: ขี้ (shit) คี่ (odd [number])

sat (or sut if based on english ponunciation): สัตว์ (animal) สัตย์ (honesty, loyalty)

 

There are many many more, inlcluding more from your example nâa หน้า : face; page (in a book); season

[anddy]

In fact, you have to be very fluent (in any language) to pick up on the coloquial interchange between native speakers 

totally agree! Even happens to me sometimes with American or English speakers, even though my own English is 100% fluent (not saying perfect, vocabulary probably lacks tens of thousands of words lol)

[kokopelli]

 

Also from personal observation, the resistance often becomes less after the relationship has lasted a few years. Perhaps that's because the Thai partners feel more secure in the relationship by then?

I first asked my Thai friend about learning Thai 16 years ago, and again two days ago; the reply was the same, No!

Which relieved me since I don't want to try to learn, yet, another language.  

[fedssocr]

I found the only way to master the tones and the sounds which are not found in Western languages is to have a paid teacher, in my case in the UK, to listen and correct.

 

 

My attempt to learn some Thai was limited to a couple of sessions at our local adult education department which offered Thai a decade ago or so. It was enough for me to learn some useful words and phrases, but there's no way I could carry on a real conversation. Each session met once a week for 10 weeks so certainly not ideal. She would make me repeat the word until I managed to get the tones close to correct somehow but I could never really tell what I was doing correctly or wrong. 

 

I am glad I learned as much as I did and once I get on the ground there it is interesting how much comes back to me. But since I don't use it all the time it's rusty. But knowing numbers, days, directions and some basic phrase structures does help.

 

I recently purchased the Travis translator device. Thai is among the languages it has onboard but I'll need to test that out with some one who actually speaks Thai.

[paborn]

 

 

I recently purchased the Travis translator device. Thai is among the languages it has onboard but I'll need to test that out with some one who actually speaks Thai.

Please update us when you do. I looked at this on Amazon but the reviews were terrible.

[anddy]

She would make me repeat the word until I managed to get the tones close to correct somehow but I could never really tell what I was doing correctly or wrong. 

that's because she was unable to tell you how exactly to produce the sound in your mouth and throat. That can be more important than just demonstrating how it should sound. That goes for tones and vowels alien to English and even consonants such as their version of "r". Tones, for example, have nothing to do with "tone of voice", but are throat positions, the tone follows automatically from that. Incidentally, I learned that piece of wisdom not from school, but from a youtube video by Stuart Jay Raj, who is incredible with languages.

 

 

 

I recently purchased the Travis translator device. Thai is among the languages it has onboard but I'll need to test that out with some one who actually speaks Thai.

google translate is really bad for Thai sentences (single words can be ok, though that's always unreliable as it will be out of context), somehow Thai doesn't lend itself to automated translation. Would be interesting if that travis device is any better

[ChristianPFC]

not correct, there are gazillions of homophones in Thai, both of the type with identical spelling and with different spelling.

 

just to name a few simple ones:

kâa: ค่า (price, cost) ข้า (subject, servant)  ฆ่า (to kill)

sii: สี (color;; paint; to mill [think Silom=Windmill) ศรี (noble)

kii: ขี้ (shit) คี่ (odd [number])

sat (or sut if based on english ponunciation): สัตว์ (animal) สัตย์ (honesty, loyalty)

 

There are many many more, inlcluding more from your example nâa หน้า : face; page (in a book); season

 

All correct examples. But I stand by my statement: there are few homophones in Thai. Estimated less than 10 that occur in common conversation. (Similar for German)

 

English has much more homophones than Thai. There are so many, I once bought a book that just lists homophones of the English language. (Similar for French)

 

Chinese is full of homophones. I guess there is no word that has no homophones. That is because there are only about 400 possible syllables in Chinese, and each can have 4 tones, making 1600 possible sounds. For most sounds/words, there are various different spellings and meanings.