I’m creating this channel out of my love for learning and sharing all things Thai. Right now, it’s a solo effort, and I’m not getting paid to do this. If you’d like to support me, you are welcome to do so here: buymeacoffee.com/realthailander
You are right about Thai people being very friendly! Speaking with natives can be the scariest part of learning a language, but Thai people have always been very kind to me, they always encourage me, make small talk, and try to teach me new words, and that makes it feel so much easier to go up and start a conversation with native speakers even if they are strangers
I'm glad to hear that you have such a good experience learning thai in the Thai environment. It's super nice to learn a language that encourages you to speak and try!
Hahaha i totally agree with you. I have been chatting with a Thai friend online. We haven't met each other in real life. Whenever i use Thai words with her, she would say that I know so many Thai words. But in actual fact, I think i know less than 30 words. I have been trying to talk to my Thai colleagues too!
I really want to learn Thai and listening to you gives me hope because I always hear people say it's a difficult language. I'll keep watching your channel to keep going 🤩🫶😘
I am happy to hear that! I have met many people who became so fluent of the language in not so much time out of love and passion. I think you will become one of them!
Living with a Thai girl who’s English has been the biggest priority I think has made me lazy to learn Thai properly, she’s almost always with me so I have my personal translater but i think she doesn’t try to teach me deliberately 😅🤣 you’re video has given me some motivation to learn some more 🙏 thank you 🙏
I am a native English speaker and I am upper intermediate in Spanish. I decided to learn Thai because after falling in love with the GL and BL shows I learned a little more of the Thai culture and that overall Thailand as a country seems to be pretty open minded. I am not a religious person at all but it was refreshing to learn that Buddhists are accepting of all people. The thai temples looks gorgeous. Most of all, I love to travel. But unfortunately I don't feel safe or respected in alot of the places I've visited because I am black. I hope Thai people are accepting of all. My plan is to visit Thailand. I have been to Europe, north, south and central America, and the Caribbean. The only region I have never visited is Asia and honestly that worries me because I have heard of so many bad stories about how Asian countries mistreats people of color. I've heard that Thailand, Indonesia and Singapore are the best. I hope that's true.
Hi! Thank you so much for watching the video and leaving such a thoughtful comment. I’m thrilled to hear that your love for GL and BL shows has inspired you to visit Thailand. That’s amazing! To be honest, I do believe there is still racism in the country, especially structural racism. For example, when it comes to teaching English, many jobs are often given to less qualified teachers simply because they’re white. Schools often justify this by saying it’s what parents prefer. Growing up, I noticed many instances of Thais mistreating people of color, and I heard stories about Black kids being bullied in school. That said, I’ve observed these incidents becoming less common over the years. Such behavior is increasingly rare, especially as people reach adulthood. I also agree with your point about Buddhism influencing how Thais tend to accept others, particularly through the concept of compassion. In my experience living here my whole life, Thai people might not always be the most politically correct, but they generally respect others’ personal space. Politeness and thoughtfulness usually outweigh superficial judgments. I’m sure you’ll have a wonderful time in Thailand! You might also want to check out some videos about the experiences of Black people living here-though I’m sure you’ve already looked into that. As a gay man living in Thailand, I can say that while I occasionally encounter homophobic remarks in the form of silly jokes, I’ve never faced anything serious or threatening to my well-being. Good luck with your plans! Let me know how your trip goes if you’d like-I’d love to hear about it. Hope everything is going smoothly!
Swiss guy, retired in Thailand. Last rainy season I stayed in the town Phayao for couple of months, at Anchisa Mansion. Among my neighbors, mainly Thais, where three Kenyan men, one from South Africa and one Indian, all teaching English language in public primary schools and a college. They all were very well accepted and quite happy.
Racism are everywhere man, but Thailand far less than many Asian countries. Especially in Bangkok we have all races here. Don’t be an ass or act superior. I hate some foreigners not because of their skin colours, but because of their rude behavior. As simple as that if you’re not a jerk, you’re welcome here. Don’t be afraid
My perspective about what is difficult about learning Thai changes the more fluent I get. First it was reading and then it became my strongest skill, then listening, then speaking. Then the fact that so many words do different things in different contexts. There are many things that make it difficult but the only solution is practice, you will eventually find something else to complain about being difficult once you pass the first hurdle 😂
Great perspective! I can relate with your points and agree with you especially the point about how our minds will always find something to complain about. Thank you for your nuanced comment.
Thank you for this video; it made learning Thai less intimidating. I tried to learn Thai when I lived in Bangkok, and the tones were the hardest. I struggled to hear and reproduce the tones, but I understood basic Thai when it was spoken to me based on the context/situation. I am looking forward to returning and continuing my learning.
Thank you for watching the video. I can definitely understand the struggle with the tones. It's the same with me with some sounds in English even after years of learning it. You got my sympathy. Let's aim for excellence and not perfection. Glad to hear you ae looking forward to returning and continuing learning!
Brilliant! We often put obstacles in front of us that make learning Thai difficult. You just have to go out and do it. I spoke my version of Thai for seven years without learning tones and I got along pretty well. But the important thing is being able to communicate.
Great effort!! Well done. I like the way you put it”we often put obstacles in front of us”. I guess that’s the point of learning everything- do you want to learn it enough that you would do it anyway given anticipated setbacks!
Thank you for making this video, I was starting to feel discouraged because Thai is tonal. I’ll get back to studying now. I don’t know how long you have studied English but I have to say your English is almost perfect. You use a wide variety of words & you sound elegant. The only thing that shows you are not a native English speaker is your Thai accent that comes & goes. Which is no problem- even with your accent you pronounce everything perfectly. I can tell you study hard. English is my first language so I have no idea how hard it is to learn, I can only imagine. ♥️
Really enjoyed your video and content. I speak very basic Thai and am currently trying to improve my Thai, this has been an interesting view from yourself and given me a little lift to keep learning.
Thai people are so very nice, but I have always been afraid to learn more than a few words because of the tonal language it is. You have made it very attractive to learn thank you.
I'm glad to hear that I have made it more attractive for you to learn. Yeah definitely, it may look impossible at first but as you continue learning and building sentences, you will learn that you can do it and that people can understand you too!
Very encouraging 👍it’s such a beautiful language 👍I’ve been learning Thai for 2 years now and enjoy it so much. I’m a slow learner because of my bad memory but the logic and simplicity in the grammar helps a lot.
I've been studying Thai for exactly 4 days and I am feeling discouraged. Can you point me to any tools that help you learn sentence structure? I keep finding so many contradictory sites that I'm losing hope. For now, I've been studying the basics like a child. Figured I'm not wasting my time if I can at learn learn numbers, days of the week and colors.
I agree. Thai people are really encouraging. Even when I first arrived to Thailand and I only spoke a few words they would often say “เก่งมาก” even if my Thai wasn’t that good! Hehe. Great video Jaem!
I've only dabbed a little into the Thai language and its grammar, but as a non-native English speaker my presumption is that it's likely harder for a Thai speaker to learn English than for an English speaker to learn Thai. Just as you pointed out with the tenses. English also have the issues with the different forms of plural and a written language that not always correlate with how the words should be spoken. If you can read Thai (and all the diacritical marks are included) then you'll know how to pronounce the sentences aswell. Learning the distinct tones for each word in the Thai language is really not that different from memorising a words pronunciation, which you'll have to do when learning most languages. The thing that I feel could prove most challenging right now when learning Thai is the lack of separation between words in the written language, but I guess it gets easier when I've learnt to recognise more words. Your English is great, you seem very knowledgeable and you have a nice way of expressing yourself! I'm looking forward to more Thai language videos from you!
Almost a year with learning Thai and I’ve had the best interactions when speaking in Thai. People are always rooting me on and wanting me to continue my practice so I get better… you’re right some other languages don’t feel very inviting but Thai people usually always help me out
I'm learning thai and I find remembering the words a bit tricky since they're so diffeent from the western languages I've learned. I have my nong tee and he's very helpful and friendly buuutttt also found a few thais who are very distant and formal. One example: I said goodnight to a new guy I met in a very friendly way: goodnight na khrub "choop choop" (this means kisses as far as I know) and the guy literally lost it and said I chouldn't choop choop him because he wasn't my boyfrind and we weren't friends either and he decided to stop talking to me. it's just one example but it did happen. But all in all I'm doing my best to learn thai and this video recharged my batteries. Thank you. Cheers from Argentina.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Sitting in my apartment in Chiang Mai. I believe I now have the encouragement to fail forward. Did I forget to say 'Thank you"?
Thank you for watching. Great to hear from someone who is also a Chiang Mai resident! I love that you said “fail forward” a good reminder in doing or starting anything in life🙏
Very encouraging. Thank you. I have just bought 'Read Thai in 10 Days' because Reddit suggested that would be a good first step towards learning the Thai language (I'm a native English speaker)
Your English is awesome...and your talent n energy is great too. I am so glad to find ur channel. I like local Thai people to be successful on TH-cam..you may do travel and local culture videos ...all the success to my new Thia friend....✈️👍👍👍💯
After having spent 2 amazing weeks in Bangkok for the first time 5 weeks ago, I fell in love with a Thai lady, fell in the love with the warm and welcoming people of Thailand and I wish to live as a resident....that being said, I have all the incentive in the world to learn the language(also to make my next vacation easier)....but I've been using the uTALK app to get familiar with Thai, but I am having difficulty just remembering the phrases I've studied. Repeating phrases over and over, helps me get through the photo and word association games(but when I close out the app and try to recall phrases later on, I keep forgetting most of what I learned in the app. I have 9 more months to learn Thai before my next trip.....but I'm afraid that all I am going to be capable of, is to recite and recognize phrases on a basic level. Learning phrases is one thing....but assembling them all into a cohesive sentence, is quite another thing. I would imagine though, that you learning English was very difficult and took quite some time(essentially because American English is comprised on many different languages)....so your fluent English is very impressive, but Thai is my very first language I am trying to learn and it's very overwhelming right now.....but I won't give up on it.
Thanks for watching! I think you have the right attitude in learning Thai. It's about keeping it going! If it helps, I can tell you that it took me actually a long time to be able to speak English. I started learning when I was 12 but I couldn't actually speak it until my early 20s. I remember I got so excited being able to soeek two sentences when I was 18/19. I feel like when it comes to Thai or any other languages I think the hours you put in will eventually bear fruits, especially when you can surround yourself with people that you can practice with on a regular basis. One day you will wake up realising that you can actually speak and understand more that you had ever imagined!
I live in a Spanish-speaking country. I think what you said about trying to speak Spanish as a non-native speaker is true here. People switch to English. I love learning the Thai language and work towards learning it better every day. I think that the tones don't intimidate me. Reviewing the rules for the tones is something I should probably do more. I did learn them. I know the consonant classes, tone marks, and what the ห at the beginning of a word does, etc. But as I have heard new words with more frequency, I have learned them by the sound of how they are said and how they are written. I think some of my friends who were learning Thai with me in Thai classes got so focused on knowing the rules and not making a mistake on the tones that they were reluctant to speak. What was the hardest thing at the beginning for me was learning the letters. I think it took me five weeks to learn the consonants and vowels. Learning to read in Thai was hard at the beginning because there aren't spaces between words. I had to learn enough vocabulary and know how the vowels are placed before I could tell where one word ended and the next word began. Now, if people speak quickly, I can't follow all of the conversation. But I can read better than I could before now, and I can follow dialogue in videos even if I don't know all of the words. Singing along with Thais songs helps and reading tweets on Twitter(X) because the tweets are short and don't use the kind of Thai sentences in language-learning textbooks. Thank you for your video.
You're absolutely right. As an English-speaking foreigner, I think tones are important, but not always. You should know what the correct tone is because Thai people expect a certain sound and rhythm when you speak. And if you speak wrong then they have to listen again two or three times. (If I spoke to an English person and asked what their monthly saLAAry is, they wouldn't have a clue what I'm asking, even though it's their native language.) Same in Thai. In fast, lazy, colloquial speech, Thais tend to speak in a monotone (strange but true) - BUT they pronounce the tones for the words at the end of cadences or at the end of a sentence. What's easy about the Thai tones, however, is that they are the same as in English! We just use tones for conveying emotion or expressing the inbetween-the-lines meaning. Try it. Say this sentence in two different ways to get opposite meanings: "I didn't think it was so expensive." In the Rapid Method, I dispense with the musical tones as described in Thai language courses for foreigners because they don't work. No-one actually speaks like that. And if you try to enunciate the musical tones clearly, hardly anyone will understand what you're saying - even if you can speak Thai fluently! Please avoid using phonetic transliterations - it's kryptonite! Your pronounciations will be consistently wrong and Thais find it very difficult to know what you're saying also because you sound like someone with a bad cold, blocked nose or like the English policeman in 'Allo 'allo (th-cam.com/video/fYNXMWRdCx0/w-d-xo.html). Once you can read with the Rapid Method, you will know *exactly* how to pronounce a word accurately and with the correct tone. The Rapid Method is a minimalistic, simplified way to learn to read and pronounce Thai words. Even though it's simpler, in some ways it's more "correct" than the official, academic way of reading Thai (at least for foreigners). The only "difficulty" in speaking Thai correctly is developing a sense of when you can dispense with the tones and where to enunciate them. In fact, for Westerners, the "monotones" are hardest to pronounce because we rarely speak in a monotone in English. At first, the whole business of tones and pronounciation may seem a bit convoluted, but the saving grace is that THAI IS CONSISTENT. It's a perfectly phonetic language with very few exceptions - and these are usually only for imported words from English, Pali or Chinese. English, on the other hand, is so inconsistent that even native speakers pronounce the sounds differently and can't always make out what each other are saying. Once you've mastered the basics of reading and pronunciation, the rest is fairly easy, as explained in the video. Sentence structure is straightforward. You can leave out the pronouns most of the time as it's usually obvious from the context. If I say หิว (hew?) then that is a complete sentence meaning "I am hungry". To turn it into a question, just add the "question word" ไหม (my?) at the end. So หิวไหม (hew-my?) - you can dispense with the "question" tone for the first word here - means "Are you hungry?" "I" is implied in the first sentence because you're making a statement. "You" is implied in the second sentence because you're asking (someone) a question. In English, we have to change the word order, but in Thai all you do is tack on the question word at the end of a statement to turn it into a question. It's just as simple for tenses. Just add the relevant "tense" word to the sentence. And in most cases, just leave the sentence in the present if it's obvious that you're talking about the future or the present continuous tense. (See hose complicated it is in English!) "I go" in Thai is: ไป ("pie") - "go". "I'm going" is จะไป ("chu-pie", rhymes with "just") - "will go". "I went" is ไปแล้ว ("pie-laew?", ae rhymes with "el") - "go already". And "I'm in the process of going" is กำลังไป ("gumlung-pie") - "in-the-process-of go, although Thais seldom say this because the simple present "go" already implies that it's continuous.
You touched nice topics! This is pretty encouraging to learn Thai:) I always thought that in order to feel like home you really need to learn the language
Hi! Thanks for your video!! I'm a Brazilian Portuguese native speaker and an ESL. I've decided to make Thai my third language (which is not the obvious path for someone from South America, but I'm not invested in Spanish at all). Now, I'm getting familiar with the tones and how it sounds, listening to a lot of T-pop and watching Thai dramas (of course, as lots of Thai students, I decided to learn because I've fallen in love with Thailand because of the BL dramas haha), and I am really excited to actually start my learning process. For me, the most interesting part about learning Thai is the chance to learn a completely new alphabet (since Portuguese and English share the same alphabet, just changing the pronunciation, wasn't a thing during my ESL learning process), which is quite exciting, and learn all this new pronunciation, sounds, tones and ways to use my tongue and mouth to make the sounds. I found your video really helpful, because, despite my excitement, I'm obviously scared about this journey, since in every place people say "Oh learning Thai is super hard, you'll never be able to use the right tones" and bla bla bla haha thanks a lot! I'll follow your channel from now on
Hi! Thank you so much for watching the video and for leaving this comment. It’s incredibly encouraging to receive feedback like yours! Oh yeah! I haven’t watched any BL series myself, but I’m becoming more and more curious about them. That’s amazing that you’re making Thai your third language! I truly believe that learning becomes much easier when you’re passionate about something. And it seems like you have a lot of passion for learning Thai. By enjoying BL series, you’ll naturally pick up the language with joy! Perhaps one day, if you have the chance, you could visit Thailand for a few months. From what I’ve seen, people who learn Thai the fastest are often those who stay with a Thai host family in a non-touristic area. Even a few weeks of an immersive experience like that can significantly speed up your learning. Also, I totally get what you mean about learning a language with a new alphabet. I remember feeling that same excitement when I started learning English. Keep learning and don’t let anyone discourage you by saying the language is difficult. Let's aim for excellence and not perfection! Thank you again for watching, and enjoy learning Thai, the BL series, and T-Pop!
Oh that's awesome, I'm preparing to come to Thailand and knowing that in the way you tought was very helpful, I make the same of English for Portuguese speakers, good luck mate all the best
Hey, I had a Quick Look at your channel and it looks awesome too. Thank you for watching and for the wishes. Hope you preparation for the Thailand trip is going well. And if you are planning to visit Chiang Mai. Do feel free to reach out!
As an Native English speaker I'm learning Thai because I want to study in Thailand and possibly live there, I found myself hitting the wall and coming to a dead end and feeling like I got no where with the language but I repicked it up and just started learning it slower, I can say "Sa baai dii mai Kha " quite well I'm not sure if I spelled it right. But that's the first phrase I got down quickly. Your video really helped thank you ❤❤
Thank you for watching. Glad to hear the video helps! I understand the feeling of hitting the wall in learning the language. I felt that too in English. And from time to time now I still feel like I have reach the plateau. Sometimes I thought I was fluent but then I just couldn't follow certain fast conversations between two native speakers. So you aren't alone. You spelt Sa baai dii mai kha correctly! If anything I think you can spell it in anyway in English. I assume you might want to learn the Thai script sometimes if you haven't done so already. I was told by people learning Thai that that's a game changer when it comes to improving your pronunciation. Have fun learning and coming to study in Thailand too!
I agree that most people have a mental block to learning second languages. I speak five including Thai. Japanese and Vietnamese included. I consider Thai to be very difficult. Grammar is easy as you say but the syntax is really quite different than any other language....There are some brutal examples. Pronunciation is very tough. When you get to my level of Thai, tones do start to become an issue...I still cannot differentiate far and near. No matter how hard I try, those words are lost to me and I have to revert to body language to make myself understood... Good video!
Well done for speaking so many languages! And I think you have raised a great point about the syntax being difficult. I struggle to explain to people most time when they ask me about the Thai syntax. My best explanation is always a long the line of Thai being a “feel” language rather than one that’s based on logic. But it does come across like a cop out of an answer
Also, I wanna say that i near or far are actually very difficult to differentiate! I have some words like that that i still struggle t hear differences in English too even after years of learning it. Thank you for watching and commenting!
You're really funny and motivating. Great to learn about the no conjugations lol that's funny I speak 4 languages and learning Japanese which has SO many conjugations and it's the first n most important thing to learn lol
Good video, trying to learn some thai rn before I travel there in a couple weeks. Tried to watch a Thai tv series today for the first time with Thai subtitles and it was super difficult though 😅 still a lot of work to be done
The easiest way is to live with some locals in different scenarios, I lived in a village in Chiang Mai and the locals laugh like hell when they hear my Thai as it's with the local dialect, but also pronounced very well, so I'm told anyway, great video, thanks for sharing.
This was really helpful. I’m traveling to Thailand next year and excited to learn the language basics. The alphabet seems so intimidating but if you have tricks would love to learn those, too.
Glad to hear it’s helpful! Yeah the alphabet is quite something. I personally think it’s easier to master the listening comprehension first before learning how to write. But that’s just my opinion and I heard people learn Thai successfullly by starting with writing first. My tip would be doing some research on best books for that matter and watch some videos on the most common Thai letters/ used in real life!
Another thing that frustrates is that in Thai, they do not aspirate the final consonant. So sometimes the sound gets lost and you don't understand what they are saying. I tried to tell my Thai friends I was going to call for a Grab, spoken like English Grab, and they did not have a clue what I was saying. I pointed to the app and they said oh, "Ga(p)". (the final p/b sound is formed in the mouth but no aspiration.) And they pronounce the "r" like an "l" and then proceeded to drop the "l" sound altogether. So Grab becomes "Ga(p)". It takes a bit of practice to get that. The other difficulty is that we do not have the "dt" sound like in Tao or Taksin, so my friends were constantly correcting me because I just cannot say that sound easily or naturally. And similar with the "bp" sound like "bpla". Or the other one I really cannot pronounce no matter how hard I try is "loei". We do not have that sound in English. I can approximate it, but it never comes out quite right. Classifiers are another challenge as well.
Thank you so much for your inputs! I agree with all these points and frustrations. I will have some thoughts about it and use them to produce more content. 🙏. As for the Dt sound in Taksin and the Bp sound, I do have a video for that that might help you out with the pronunciation. Here’s the link. I hope it’s helpful How to Pronounce Koh Phangan Correctly | One of the Most Mispronounced Island Names th-cam.com/video/2L8h36d6OYo/w-d-xo.html
Such great encouragement! I find the Sanskrit words challenging, but I must agree how forgiving the grammar is ❤ Btw Romain said he’d cheer you on if you learned French 😂
Thank you Jiiiii for watching it and for leaving this lovely comment. Great to have friend support! Oh, hahaha for real? That means a lot. Tell Romain I will think about it. 😁
Hi Aj. Jaem, Fantastic video! very inspirational with great examples in both Thai and English (btw your English is almost impeccable... puts mine to shame 😅. Actually we met a few weeks back at the Payap Uni LLL program on Behind the Thai Smile. I thought you were excellent and provided valuable insights for the foreign audience (ka-la-te-sa was a great example!) So pleased to see you have a YT channel too! ♥ Subscribed already 😃
Great video! I love learning Thai, I’ve been learning for about 9 months now, actually I’ve been to Thailand maybe 16-17 times but only got serious about improving (actually not even improving, just starting to learn!) this year. I agree some things about Thai are not as hard as people claim, other things still make me confused lol. I’ll be coming to Thailand again in March for a month and have been practicing reading so I’m excited to try read some road signs and supermarket labels and so on 😅 Anyway, I don’t know how far I’ll get with my Thai (I won’t give up though), if I get to the level of even 10% of your English ability, that would be amazing!
Hi, thanks for watching my video and leaving the comment! I am proud of you for learning the language. i know how scary it is to learn a new languauge and especially ones with their own scripts. I do think that there are a lot of things in Thai that require big learning curves but I believe that the more we keep going the better we get. If you have trobules reading roads signs and lables in the beginning. Never get discouraged. Thai fonts are complexed, even for Thais! Sometimes I thought I was seeing Hebrew. Good luck!! and keep me updated with your progress if you like!
This is extremely good, useful and healthy approach on learning thai. Perhaps I give it a second go of trying to learn Thai - speaking of, I hope you will start Thai courses in the channel? Please?
Absolutely right with the Thai people loving foreigners trying to speak/learn the language. I’m an Australian born Asian Vietnamese learning Thai and the Thai locals here love it.
Thank you for the honest advice here, relieved to hear that the grammar is chill, chill, chill. Video & composition is looking great, what camera are you filming with?
Thanks for the encouragement - after a visit where I thought: Is Thai proficiency even needed in some spots in Thailand? (I jokingly said to my Thai tutor: Why did I even bother to get better when I can very well find my way in English around the Nimman area?) / I agree that there's a lot of flexibility in Thai, which is perhaps also the reason why it changes and develops so fast. Would be an interesting question what the future of the Thai language could be. (For example I see a trend that Thai TV stars start to pronounce the R sound in a certain way to sound more "inter" or something? Will that influence how Thais in general say the R sound? - But maybe that'll sound too pretentious haha.)
Oh yes. I enjoy your observation. Thai does seem to change really fast indeed. I have noticed the Westernised R sound as well. Have you noticed that some Thais start to use I and you now when they speak Thai to eliminate the awkwardness that comes with age hierarchy! I also agree with you about surviving in Nimman without Thai. But I guess it’s still more fun to know it cuz you get more out of the people!
Great video. I agree with a lot of what you said but its also important to remember that Thai is considered one of the more difficult languages to learn for native English speakers by FSI (group 4 out of 5). I say that not to discourage people but to be realistic. Also its probably fair to call it a greater achievement to learn Thai than something easier like Spanish or French.
Thanks for watching and for your comment! I agree with you 100% on the language being on the harder side for English native speakers. I often tell my Thai friends who become good in English/ or western languages as well, that they should be proud of themselves for mastering languages quite different from their own.
I find it easy to learn to speak Thai, it is the reading that really bugs me! Started of with a difficult one....who sells chicken eggs....a lot of patient laughter as I tried ;-)
Learning and speaking 200 words in stonecoal Thai opened doors for me. If you try the language and respect culture the Thai will not let you down in making contact is my experience. There will be food, drinks, conversation and learing some more language and culture. Beware of the fun and new experiences!
This is a great perspective on learning thai. I have been living in thailand for around 10 years my level is so bad i think for me is low confidence to speak and i do not spend enough time to listen. but my writing and reading is pretty good. is there anyway of overcomming the fear of speaking?
เก่งมากครับ เขียนไทยได้เยอะเลย! ผมชอบความพยายามของคุณมาก I like your effort! There are a few minor things that can be improved. First, the use of (.)-the full stop doesn't exist in Thai. Also, you probably mean อยากเรียน instead of ยากเรียน.
I have been living in Thailand for two years now and have had many Thai lessons. But when I say a sentence in Thai I get English as an answer or they look at me stupidly: that is not English so I do not understand. In this way it is difficult to start speaking, I actually do not dare anymore.
I would have felt the same. That sounds a bit rude and quite discouraging indeed. I have heard about similar experience. Thanks for pointing that out I will have to think deeper about this.
I somewhat agree, and I always tell people that ask me that Thai is spoken simplistically and written complexly. Other than that I've learned that Thai has almost as many idiosyncracies as English, for example สระแกว และ สระบุรี the beginning of each word is spelled the same, but pronounced differently. If I omitted any tone marks please forgive me, my spelling in Thai is atrocious.
oh yes! สระแก้ว and สระบุรี. And words like these are confusing. Thanks for watching. And no, don't worry baout leaving out the tone marks. I think that's already quite impressive you know the difference between those two cities!
Wa-Dee Khrup, can you please leave a summary at the end of the Video or in the Description, if the presenter talks too much i "Nod Off" Americans and some English people talk tooooo much. Khop Khun Khrup.😁🙏🙏🙏🤟
Yes I think that could be quite some challenge indeed. I am not too sure on which one to recommend exactly. I have heard of the app called Ling. And some friends of mine do enjoy using it
Some words are very difficult to pronounce. In the North, there are many dialects, the Tribal languages and many Myanmar groups. Maybe about 20-25 different languages being spoken here.
Very true. I moved to live in the North of Thailand myself ten years ago and I have noticed exactly what you were referring to here. Thanks for watching!
It seems to me that tones are *dropped in music, - singing, e.g. in Thai pop songs. It would be impossible to sing the words in their 5 tones, as singing to maintain the musical notes is the aim. So, I presume the meaning of the Thai sung, must be understood by the context of the words. If that is so, I wonder whether that could be the same in spoken Thai? Not that I am suggesting that would be practical.
I'm one of those Dutch people who automatically switch to English even if you can speak Dutch quite well. I don't even know why I do this, it just happens.
I am Dutch living in the US and on the rare occasions I meet a Dutch person here, often times we automatically switch to English even though we both speak Dutch , probably because we are in a business setting and its easier for me. 😊
Thai grammar could not be simpler. Thai words never change. You just combine worlds. It's what is called an "analytical" language. It's a 100% analytical and a huge relief. English has less conjugation than continental European languages, but more than you think and a terrible number of irregular verbs do, does, did, done etc. Totally random.
I’m creating this channel out of my love for learning and sharing all things Thai. Right now, it’s a solo effort, and I’m not getting paid to do this. If you’d like to support me, you are welcome to do so here: buymeacoffee.com/realthailander
You are right about Thai people being very friendly! Speaking with natives can be the scariest part of learning a language, but Thai people have always been very kind to me, they always encourage me, make small talk, and try to teach me new words, and that makes it feel so much easier to go up and start a conversation with native speakers even if they are strangers
I'm glad to hear that you have such a good experience learning thai in the Thai environment. It's super nice to learn a language that encourages you to speak and try!
Hahaha i totally agree with you. I have been chatting with a Thai friend online. We haven't met each other in real life. Whenever i use Thai words with her, she would say that I know so many Thai words. But in actual fact, I think i know less than 30 words. I have been trying to talk to my Thai colleagues too!
I really want to learn Thai and listening to you gives me hope because I always hear people say it's a difficult language. I'll keep watching your channel to keep going 🤩🫶😘
I am happy to hear that! I have met many people who became so fluent of the language in not so much time out of love and passion. I think you will become one of them!
Thais are the friendliest people I ever met. And yes, learning Thai with native speakers is the easiest way. The encouragement is awesome. 🙏🏻♥️
Thank you. And i am so happy to hear about your good experience in learning Thai and living in the country
Living with a Thai girl who’s English has been the biggest priority I think has made me lazy to learn Thai properly, she’s almost always with me so I have my personal translater but i think she doesn’t try to teach me deliberately 😅🤣 you’re video has given me some motivation to learn some more 🙏 thank you 🙏
I am a native English speaker and I am upper intermediate in Spanish. I decided to learn Thai because after falling in love with the GL and BL shows I learned a little more of the Thai culture and that overall Thailand as a country seems to be pretty open minded. I am not a religious person at all but it was refreshing to learn that Buddhists are accepting of all people. The thai temples looks gorgeous. Most of all, I love to travel. But unfortunately I don't feel safe or respected in alot of the places I've visited because I am black. I hope Thai people are accepting of all. My plan is to visit Thailand. I have been to Europe, north, south and central America, and the Caribbean. The only region I have never visited is Asia and honestly that worries me because I have heard of so many bad stories about how Asian countries mistreats people of color. I've heard that Thailand, Indonesia and Singapore are the best. I hope that's true.
Hi! Thank you so much for watching the video and leaving such a thoughtful comment. I’m thrilled to hear that your love for GL and BL shows has inspired you to visit Thailand. That’s amazing!
To be honest, I do believe there is still racism in the country, especially structural racism. For example, when it comes to teaching English, many jobs are often given to less qualified teachers simply because they’re white. Schools often justify this by saying it’s what parents prefer. Growing up, I noticed many instances of Thais mistreating people of color, and I heard stories about Black kids being bullied in school.
That said, I’ve observed these incidents becoming less common over the years. Such behavior is increasingly rare, especially as people reach adulthood.
I also agree with your point about Buddhism influencing how Thais tend to accept others, particularly through the concept of compassion. In my experience living here my whole life, Thai people might not always be the most politically correct, but they generally respect others’ personal space. Politeness and thoughtfulness usually outweigh superficial judgments.
I’m sure you’ll have a wonderful time in Thailand! You might also want to check out some videos about the experiences of Black people living here-though I’m sure you’ve already looked into that.
As a gay man living in Thailand, I can say that while I occasionally encounter homophobic remarks in the form of silly jokes, I’ve never faced anything serious or threatening to my well-being.
Good luck with your plans! Let me know how your trip goes if you’d like-I’d love to hear about it. Hope everything is going smoothly!
Swiss guy, retired in Thailand. Last rainy season I stayed in the town Phayao for couple of months, at Anchisa Mansion. Among my neighbors, mainly Thais, where three Kenyan men, one from South Africa and one Indian, all teaching English language in public primary schools and a college. They all were very well accepted and quite happy.
Racism are everywhere man, but Thailand far less than many Asian countries. Especially in Bangkok we have all races here. Don’t be an ass or act superior. I hate some foreigners not because of their skin colours, but because of their rude behavior. As simple as that if you’re not a jerk, you’re welcome here. Don’t be afraid
I live in the Caribbean, and I'm learning Thai. Have you visited, or do you live here, if it's okay to ask?
I visited Thailand for a month. The friendliest people I've ever met. I'm learning Thai and moving there asap. Period.
My perspective about what is difficult about learning Thai changes the more fluent I get. First it was reading and then it became my strongest skill, then listening, then speaking. Then the fact that so many words do different things in different contexts. There are many things that make it difficult but the only solution is practice, you will eventually find something else to complain about being difficult once you pass the first hurdle 😂
Great perspective! I can relate with your points and agree with you especially the point about how our minds will always find something to complain about. Thank you for your nuanced comment.
Thank you for this video; it made learning Thai less intimidating. I tried to learn Thai when I lived in Bangkok, and the tones were the hardest. I struggled to hear and reproduce the tones, but I understood basic Thai when it was spoken to me based on the context/situation. I am looking forward to returning and continuing my learning.
Thank you for watching the video. I can definitely understand the struggle with the tones. It's the same with me with some sounds in English even after years of learning it. You got my sympathy. Let's aim for excellence and not perfection. Glad to hear you ae looking forward to returning and continuing learning!
Great video, I really liked hearing a native Thai speaker’s perspective on learning Thai. Good examples and now I am even more motivated in learning 😊
Brilliant! We often put obstacles in front of us that make learning Thai difficult. You just have to go out and do it. I spoke my version of Thai for seven years without learning tones and I got along pretty well. But the important thing is being able to communicate.
Great effort!! Well done. I like the way you put it”we often put obstacles in front of us”. I guess that’s the point of learning everything- do you want to learn it enough that you would do it anyway given anticipated setbacks!
This is a very encouraging video as a native English speaker starting to learn Thai in Bangkok. Please keep making more videos! 🙏🏻
Thank you. I am so happy to hear. This is encoruaging!
Thank you for making this video, I was starting to feel discouraged because Thai is tonal. I’ll get back to studying now. I don’t know how long you have studied English but I have to say your English is almost perfect. You use a wide variety of words & you sound elegant. The only thing that shows you are not a native English speaker is your Thai accent that comes & goes. Which is no problem- even with your accent you pronounce everything perfectly. I can tell you study hard. English is my first language so I have no idea how hard it is to learn, I can only imagine. ♥️
:O fresh comment
Really enjoyed your video and content. I speak very basic Thai and am currently trying to improve my Thai, this has been an interesting view from yourself and given me a little lift to keep learning.
Thank you so much for watching and leaving this comment. Happy that the video helped give you a little lift to keep learning!
Thai people are so very nice, but I have always been afraid to learn more than a few words because of the tonal language it is. You have made it very attractive to learn thank you.
I'm glad to hear that I have made it more attractive for you to learn. Yeah definitely, it may look impossible at first but as you continue learning and building sentences, you will learn that you can do it and that people can understand you too!
@@RealThailanderthank You 😀
@ 🤗
Thanks for motivation! I started learning Thai recently. What got me interested in the language were Thai people online.
That was very helpful, well done.
Very encouraging 👍it’s such a beautiful language 👍I’ve been learning Thai for 2 years now and enjoy it so much. I’m a slow learner because of my bad memory but the logic and simplicity in the grammar helps a lot.
Great to hear that. Keep it going!
I've been studying Thai for exactly 4 days and I am feeling discouraged. Can you point me to any tools that help you learn sentence structure? I keep finding so many contradictory sites that I'm losing hope. For now, I've been studying the basics like a child. Figured I'm not wasting my time if I can at learn learn numbers, days of the week and colors.
I agree. Thai people are really encouraging. Even when I first arrived to Thailand and I only spoke a few words they would often say “เก่งมาก” even if my Thai wasn’t that good! Hehe. Great video Jaem!
Thank you for watching and the comment, Poncho!
Thank you for this helpful video! I want to learn Thai but feel intimidated. You were very encouraging. 😊
Thank you! I am very happy to hear that this video encourages you!
I've only dabbed a little into the Thai language and its grammar, but as a non-native English speaker my presumption is that it's likely harder for a Thai speaker to learn English than for an English speaker to learn Thai. Just as you pointed out with the tenses. English also have the issues with the different forms of plural and a written language that not always correlate with how the words should be spoken. If you can read Thai (and all the diacritical marks are included) then you'll know how to pronounce the sentences aswell.
Learning the distinct tones for each word in the Thai language is really not that different from memorising a words pronunciation, which you'll have to do when learning most languages.
The thing that I feel could prove most challenging right now when learning Thai is the lack of separation between words in the written language, but I guess it gets easier when I've learnt to recognise more words.
Your English is great, you seem very knowledgeable and you have a nice way of expressing yourself! I'm looking forward to more Thai language videos from you!
Almost a year with learning Thai and I’ve had the best interactions when speaking in Thai. People are always rooting me on and wanting me to continue my practice so I get better… you’re right some other languages don’t feel very inviting but Thai people usually always help me out
Excellent points, all. Thank you.
Thank you! It’s encouraging to hear.
I'm learning thai and I find remembering the words a bit tricky since they're so diffeent from the western languages I've learned. I have my nong tee and he's very helpful and friendly buuutttt also found a few thais who are very distant and formal. One example: I said goodnight to a new guy I met in a very friendly way: goodnight na khrub "choop choop" (this means kisses as far as I know) and the guy literally lost it and said I chouldn't choop choop him because he wasn't my boyfrind and we weren't friends either and he decided to stop talking to me. it's just one example but it did happen. But all in all I'm doing my best to learn thai and this video recharged my batteries. Thank you. Cheers from Argentina.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Sitting in my apartment in Chiang Mai. I believe I now have the encouragement to fail forward. Did I forget to say 'Thank you"?
Thank you for watching. Great to hear from someone who is also a Chiang Mai resident! I love that you said “fail forward” a good reminder in doing or starting anything in life🙏
I've been in Thailand for rive years now, and Real Thailander has given me more insights into Thai culture than anyone else. Thank you!
Thank you so much for your comment! you made me smile. Giving insight into Thai culture is one of my main reasons for starting this channel!
Very encouraging. Thank you. I have just bought 'Read Thai in 10 Days' because Reddit suggested that would be a good first step towards learning the Thai language (I'm a native English speaker)
Your English is awesome...and your talent n energy is great too.
I am so glad to find ur channel.
I like local Thai people to be successful on TH-cam..you may do travel and local culture videos ...all the success to my new Thia friend....✈️👍👍👍💯
Thank you for such an encouraging comment!
Hi! I love Thailand and I’m learning the Tai language. With your video you gave me a great motivation to move forward. Thank you very much!
Im happy to hear that. Thank you for watching!
⭐️ A really good video. Entertaining, friendly and very sympathetic. I like to listen here. All the best ! ✌️⭐️ 0:01
Thank you so much!😊
After having spent 2 amazing weeks in Bangkok for the first time 5 weeks ago, I fell in love with a Thai lady, fell in the love with the warm and welcoming people of Thailand and I wish to live as a resident....that being said, I have all the incentive in the world to learn the language(also to make my next vacation easier)....but I've been using the uTALK app to get familiar with Thai, but I am having difficulty just remembering the phrases I've studied. Repeating phrases over and over, helps me get through the photo and word association games(but when I close out the app and try to recall phrases later on, I keep forgetting most of what I learned in the app. I have 9 more months to learn Thai before my next trip.....but I'm afraid that all I am going to be capable of, is to recite and recognize phrases on a basic level. Learning phrases is one thing....but assembling them all into a cohesive sentence, is quite another thing. I would imagine though, that you learning English was very difficult and took quite some time(essentially because American English is comprised on many different languages)....so your fluent English is very impressive, but Thai is my very first language I am trying to learn and it's very overwhelming right now.....but I won't give up on it.
Thanks for watching! I think you have the right attitude in learning Thai. It's about keeping it going! If it helps, I can tell you that it took me actually a long time to be able to speak English. I started learning when I was 12 but I couldn't actually speak it until my early 20s. I remember I got so excited being able to soeek two sentences when I was 18/19. I feel like when it comes to Thai or any other languages I think the hours you put in will eventually bear fruits, especially when you can surround yourself with people that you can practice with on a regular basis. One day you will wake up realising that you can actually speak and understand more that you had ever imagined!
I live in a Spanish-speaking country. I think what you said about trying to speak Spanish as a non-native speaker is true here. People switch to English. I love learning the Thai language and work towards learning it better every day. I think that the tones don't intimidate me. Reviewing the rules for the tones is something I should probably do more. I did learn them. I know the consonant classes, tone marks, and what the ห at the beginning of a word does, etc. But as I have heard new words with more frequency, I have learned them by the sound of how they are said and how they are written. I think some of my friends who were learning Thai with me in Thai classes got so focused on knowing the rules and not making a mistake on the tones that they were reluctant to speak. What was the hardest thing at the beginning for me was learning the letters. I think it took me five weeks to learn the consonants and vowels. Learning to read in Thai was hard at the beginning because there aren't spaces between words. I had to learn enough vocabulary and know how the vowels are placed before I could tell where one word ended and the next word began. Now, if people speak quickly, I can't follow all of the conversation. But I can read better than I could before now, and I can follow dialogue in videos even if I don't know all of the words. Singing along with Thais songs helps and reading tweets on Twitter(X) because the tweets are short and don't use the kind of Thai sentences in language-learning textbooks. Thank you for your video.
Great video. I am motivated after all these years clunking along in Thai. Your English is amazing.
Happy to hear that this helps you feel motivated, even just for a bit!
I have just subscribed & shared. What a great video. And what great English you speak! TY - looking forward to more
Thank you so much!
I can attest-my tones are all over the place but I am generally well understood! Great video
You're absolutely right. As an English-speaking foreigner, I think tones are important, but not always. You should know what the correct tone is because Thai people expect a certain sound and rhythm when you speak. And if you speak wrong then they have to listen again two or three times. (If I spoke to an English person and asked what their monthly saLAAry is, they wouldn't have a clue what I'm asking, even though it's their native language.)
Same in Thai. In fast, lazy, colloquial speech, Thais tend to speak in a monotone (strange but true) - BUT they pronounce the tones for the words at the end of cadences or at the end of a sentence.
What's easy about the Thai tones, however, is that they are the same as in English! We just use tones for conveying emotion or expressing the inbetween-the-lines meaning.
Try it. Say this sentence in two different ways to get opposite meanings: "I didn't think it was so expensive."
In the Rapid Method, I dispense with the musical tones as described in Thai language courses for foreigners because they don't work. No-one actually speaks like that. And if you try to enunciate the musical tones clearly, hardly anyone will understand what you're saying - even if you can speak Thai fluently!
Please avoid using phonetic transliterations - it's kryptonite! Your pronounciations will be consistently wrong and Thais find it very difficult to know what you're saying also because you sound like someone with a bad cold, blocked nose or like the English policeman in 'Allo 'allo (th-cam.com/video/fYNXMWRdCx0/w-d-xo.html).
Once you can read with the Rapid Method, you will know *exactly* how to pronounce a word accurately and with the correct tone. The Rapid Method is a minimalistic, simplified way to learn to read and pronounce Thai words. Even though it's simpler, in some ways it's more "correct" than the official, academic way of reading Thai (at least for foreigners).
The only "difficulty" in speaking Thai correctly is developing a sense of when you can dispense with the tones and where to enunciate them. In fact, for Westerners, the "monotones" are hardest to pronounce because we rarely speak in a monotone in English.
At first, the whole business of tones and pronounciation may seem a bit convoluted, but the saving grace is that THAI IS CONSISTENT. It's a perfectly phonetic language with very few exceptions - and these are usually only for imported words from English, Pali or Chinese. English, on the other hand, is so inconsistent that even native speakers pronounce the sounds differently and can't always make out what each other are saying.
Once you've mastered the basics of reading and pronunciation, the rest is fairly easy, as explained in the video. Sentence structure is straightforward. You can leave out the pronouns most of the time as it's usually obvious from the context. If I say หิว (hew?) then that is a complete sentence meaning "I am hungry". To turn it into a question, just add the "question word" ไหม (my?) at the end. So หิวไหม (hew-my?) - you can dispense with the "question" tone for the first word here - means "Are you hungry?"
"I" is implied in the first sentence because you're making a statement. "You" is implied in the second sentence because you're asking (someone) a question. In English, we have to change the word order, but in Thai all you do is tack on the question word at the end of a statement to turn it into a question.
It's just as simple for tenses. Just add the relevant "tense" word to the sentence. And in most cases, just leave the sentence in the present if it's obvious that you're talking about the future or the present continuous tense. (See hose complicated it is in English!)
"I go" in Thai is: ไป ("pie") - "go". "I'm going" is จะไป ("chu-pie", rhymes with "just") - "will go". "I went" is ไปแล้ว ("pie-laew?", ae rhymes with "el") - "go already". And "I'm in the process of going" is กำลังไป ("gumlung-pie") - "in-the-process-of go, although Thais seldom say this because the simple present "go" already implies that it's continuous.
Thank you a very thoughtful comment. I very much enjoyed reading it.
Dude, you have star potential - such engaging videos, I love them - hungry for more! ....Subscribed
Thank you so much! More’s coming!
You touched nice topics! This is pretty encouraging to learn Thai:) I always thought that in order to feel like home you really need to learn the language
Exactly! and thanks for watching
Hi! Thanks for your video!! I'm a Brazilian Portuguese native speaker and an ESL. I've decided to make Thai my third language (which is not the obvious path for someone from South America, but I'm not invested in Spanish at all). Now, I'm getting familiar with the tones and how it sounds, listening to a lot of T-pop and watching Thai dramas (of course, as lots of Thai students, I decided to learn because I've fallen in love with Thailand because of the BL dramas haha), and I am really excited to actually start my learning process. For me, the most interesting part about learning Thai is the chance to learn a completely new alphabet (since Portuguese and English share the same alphabet, just changing the pronunciation, wasn't a thing during my ESL learning process), which is quite exciting, and learn all this new pronunciation, sounds, tones and ways to use my tongue and mouth to make the sounds. I found your video really helpful, because, despite my excitement, I'm obviously scared about this journey, since in every place people say "Oh learning Thai is super hard, you'll never be able to use the right tones" and bla bla bla haha thanks a lot! I'll follow your channel from now on
Hi! Thank you so much for watching the video and for leaving this comment. It’s incredibly encouraging to receive feedback like yours!
Oh yeah! I haven’t watched any BL series myself, but I’m becoming more and more curious about them. That’s amazing that you’re making Thai your third language! I truly believe that learning becomes much easier when you’re passionate about something. And it seems like you have a lot of passion for learning Thai. By enjoying BL series, you’ll naturally pick up the language with joy!
Perhaps one day, if you have the chance, you could visit Thailand for a few months. From what I’ve seen, people who learn Thai the fastest are often those who stay with a Thai host family in a non-touristic area. Even a few weeks of an immersive experience like that can significantly speed up your learning.
Also, I totally get what you mean about learning a language with a new alphabet. I remember feeling that same excitement when I started learning English.
Keep learning and don’t let anyone discourage you by saying the language is difficult. Let's aim for excellence and not perfection! Thank you again for watching, and enjoy learning Thai, the BL series, and T-Pop!
Learning is easy. Remembering the words is the hardest part, I keep forgetting new words lol
Subscribed 👍🏻 You sound quite optimistic to me. I like that 😊
Oh that's awesome, I'm preparing to come to Thailand and knowing that in the way you tought was very helpful, I make the same of English for Portuguese speakers, good luck mate all the best
Hey, I had a Quick Look at your channel and it looks awesome too. Thank you for watching and for the wishes. Hope you preparation for the Thailand trip is going well. And if you are planning to visit Chiang Mai. Do feel free to reach out!
As an Native English speaker I'm learning Thai because I want to study in Thailand and possibly live there, I found myself hitting the wall and coming to a dead end and feeling like I got no where with the language but I repicked it up and just started learning it slower, I can say "Sa baai dii mai Kha " quite well I'm not sure if I spelled it right. But that's the first phrase I got down quickly. Your video really helped thank you ❤❤
Thank you for watching. Glad to hear the video helps! I understand the feeling of hitting the wall in learning the language. I felt that too in English. And from time to time now I still feel like I have reach the plateau. Sometimes I thought I was fluent but then I just couldn't follow certain fast conversations between two native speakers. So you aren't alone. You spelt Sa baai dii mai kha correctly! If anything I think you can spell it in anyway in English. I assume you might want to learn the Thai script sometimes if you haven't done so already. I was told by people learning Thai that that's a game changer when it comes to improving your pronunciation. Have fun learning and coming to study in Thailand too!
I agree that most people have a mental block to learning second languages. I speak five including Thai. Japanese and Vietnamese included. I consider Thai to be very difficult. Grammar is easy as you say but the syntax is really quite different than any other language....There are some brutal examples. Pronunciation is very tough. When you get to my level of Thai, tones do start to become an issue...I still cannot differentiate far and near. No matter how hard I try, those words are lost to me and I have to revert to body language to make myself understood... Good video!
Well done for speaking so many languages! And I think you have raised a great point about the syntax being difficult. I struggle to explain to people most time when they ask me about the Thai syntax. My best explanation is always a long the line of Thai being a “feel” language rather than one that’s based on logic. But it does come across like a cop out of an answer
Also, I wanna say that i near or far are actually very difficult to differentiate! I have some words like that that i still struggle t hear differences in English too even after years of learning it. Thank you for watching and commenting!
Thank you na ka for this pleasant and encouraging video😍
You're welcome khrap. Very happy to hear it's encouraging.
Brilliant wrap up krub. I totally support this!
khop khun maak khrap!!
You're really funny and motivating. Great to learn about the no conjugations lol that's funny I speak 4 languages and learning Japanese which has SO many conjugations and it's the first n most important thing to learn lol
No conjugation makes it a lot convenient to learn I think. And wow I don't know that there're many conjugations in Japanese! thanks for watching!
Good video, trying to learn some thai rn before I travel there in a couple weeks. Tried to watch a Thai tv series today for the first time with Thai subtitles and it was super difficult though 😅 still a lot of work to be done
I admire your effort for learning the language before arrival. Keep it going!
Totally spot on and I personally agree with all your points 👍🙏
The easiest way is to live with some locals in different scenarios, I lived in a village in Chiang Mai and the locals laugh like hell when they hear my Thai as it's with the local dialect, but also pronounced very well, so I'm told anyway, great video, thanks for sharing.
Thank you for this. Very well done.
I needed this video because, when I saw the Thai tones, I was so worried that people wouldn't understand me😂❤
Glad this video could be useful!! Yeah, don't be discouraged. You can do it.
Thank you for this video! I find it really motivating!!
This was really helpful. I’m traveling to Thailand next year and excited to learn the language basics. The alphabet seems so intimidating but if you have tricks would love to learn those, too.
Glad to hear it’s helpful! Yeah the alphabet is quite something. I personally think it’s easier to master the listening comprehension first before learning how to write. But that’s just my opinion and I heard people learn Thai successfullly by starting with writing first. My tip would be doing some research on best books for that matter and watch some videos on the most common Thai letters/ used in real life!
Fantastic videos and content thankyou, do you teach or do any classes? 🙏🏻
Another thing that frustrates is that in Thai, they do not aspirate the final consonant. So sometimes the sound gets lost and you don't understand what they are saying. I tried to tell my Thai friends I was going to call for a Grab, spoken like English Grab, and they did not have a clue what I was saying. I pointed to the app and they said oh, "Ga(p)". (the final p/b sound is formed in the mouth but no aspiration.) And they pronounce the "r" like an "l" and then proceeded to drop the "l" sound altogether. So Grab becomes "Ga(p)". It takes a bit of practice to get that. The other difficulty is that we do not have the "dt" sound like in Tao or Taksin, so my friends were constantly correcting me because I just cannot say that sound easily or naturally. And similar with the "bp" sound like "bpla". Or the other one I really cannot pronounce no matter how hard I try is "loei". We do not have that sound in English. I can approximate it, but it never comes out quite right. Classifiers are another challenge as well.
Thank you so much for your inputs! I agree with all these points and frustrations. I will have some thoughts about it and use them to produce more content. 🙏. As for the Dt sound in Taksin and the Bp sound, I do have a video for that that might help you out with the pronunciation. Here’s the link. I hope it’s helpful
How to Pronounce Koh Phangan Correctly | One of the Most Mispronounced Island Names
th-cam.com/video/2L8h36d6OYo/w-d-xo.html
Such great encouragement! I find the Sanskrit words challenging, but I must agree how forgiving the grammar is ❤
Btw Romain said he’d cheer you on if you learned French 😂
Thank you Jiiiii for watching it and for leaving this lovely comment. Great to have friend support! Oh, hahaha for real? That means a lot. Tell Romain I will think about it. 😁
Hi Aj. Jaem, Fantastic video! very inspirational with great examples in both Thai and English (btw your English is almost impeccable... puts mine to shame 😅. Actually we met a few weeks back at the Payap Uni LLL program on Behind the Thai Smile. I thought you were excellent and provided valuable insights for the foreign audience (ka-la-te-sa was a great example!) So pleased to see you have a YT channel too! ♥ Subscribed already 😃
Hi K. Zeph! What a delight to hear from you. Thank you so much for watching and your kind words! It was a pleasure seeing you at the LLL program 😊
This was a great video - i subbed !!
Great to hear and thank you so much!
I wish I had known this earlier! You are so encouraging! Khob khun!
It's very sweet, he's giving the secrets, and very good tips.
Thank you so much!
@RealThailander It's a good point about how the extra words give context to inform about which word is being used. I'm going to remember these tips.
Genius! Please make more along this line
Thank you! Very informative and you're a pleasant man to listen to❤ I subscribed
Thank you - your english is lovely! You speak so well and sound like maybe you studied in Britain? Loooking forward to more content!
Thank you so much! New content is coming out soon. And yes I did spend one year in the UK. You're absolutely right!
Great video! I love learning Thai, I’ve been learning for about 9 months now, actually I’ve been to Thailand maybe 16-17 times but only got serious about improving (actually not even improving, just starting to learn!) this year. I agree some things about Thai are not as hard as people claim, other things still make me confused lol.
I’ll be coming to Thailand again in March for a month and have been practicing reading so I’m excited to try read some road signs and supermarket labels and so on 😅
Anyway, I don’t know how far I’ll get with my Thai (I won’t give up though), if I get to the level of even 10% of your English ability, that would be amazing!
Hi, thanks for watching my video and leaving the comment! I am proud of you for learning the language. i know how scary it is to learn a new languauge and especially ones with their own scripts.
I do think that there are a lot of things in Thai that require big learning curves but I believe that the more we keep going the better we get.
If you have trobules reading roads signs and lables in the beginning. Never get discouraged. Thai fonts are complexed, even for Thais! Sometimes I thought I was seeing Hebrew.
Good luck!! and keep me updated with your progress if you like!
This is extremely good, useful and healthy approach on learning thai. Perhaps I give it a second go of trying to learn Thai - speaking of, I hope you will start Thai courses in the channel? Please?
Thank you so much for watching it and for your kind comments. I will definitely have some thought about starting a thai course on this channel.
very good information thank you krub
Thank you. Khop khun khrap!
สาธุๆๆโยม Jaem 😁🙏ขอบคุณครับ . I am learning Thai and found this very encouraging. 😁
ขอบคุณมากครับหลวงพี่ (word for brother used with monks) สาธุๆๆ
Absolutely right with the Thai people loving foreigners trying to speak/learn the language. I’m an Australian born Asian Vietnamese learning Thai and the Thai locals here love it.
I'm happy to hear that!
Thank you for the honest advice here, relieved to hear that the grammar is chill, chill, chill. Video & composition is looking great, what camera are you filming with?
Thank you so much for watching. Yes the grammae is definitely CHILL! I used my Nikon d750 to film this.
Thanks for the encouragement - after a visit where I thought: Is Thai proficiency even needed in some spots in Thailand? (I jokingly said to my Thai tutor: Why did I even bother to get better when I can very well find my way in English around the Nimman area?) / I agree that there's a lot of flexibility in Thai, which is perhaps also the reason why it changes and develops so fast. Would be an interesting question what the future of the Thai language could be. (For example I see a trend that Thai TV stars start to pronounce the R sound in a certain way to sound more "inter" or something? Will that influence how Thais in general say the R sound? - But maybe that'll sound too pretentious haha.)
Oh yes. I enjoy your observation. Thai does seem to change really fast indeed. I have noticed the Westernised R sound as well. Have you noticed that some Thais start to use I and you now when they speak Thai to eliminate the awkwardness that comes with age hierarchy! I also agree with you about surviving in Nimman without Thai. But I guess it’s still more fun to know it cuz you get more out of the people!
Excellent assessment
Thanks for this encouragement. I really need it.. 😂
happy to hear that!
Love this. Thank you ka! ❤
Thank you for watching 🙏!
Great video. I agree with a lot of what you said but its also important to remember that Thai is considered one of the more difficult languages to learn for native English speakers by FSI (group 4 out of 5). I say that not to discourage people but to be realistic. Also its probably fair to call it a greater achievement to learn Thai than something easier like Spanish or French.
Thanks for watching and for your comment! I agree with you 100% on the language being on the harder side for English native speakers. I often tell my Thai friends who become good in English/ or western languages as well, that they should be proud of themselves for mastering languages quite different from their own.
Def inspiring for me, thanks for the reminder 💎💎💎
Thumbs Up 👍
Great video
I'm trying to learn at the minute and I'm struggling not going to lie lol
Thanks for this great video. Definitely encouraged to learn Thai now! 😊
Thanks for watching. And supper happy to hear that
Do you do Thai classes /or one to one🙏🏻
I find it easy to learn to speak Thai, it is the reading that really bugs me! Started of with a difficult one....who sells chicken eggs....a lot of patient laughter as I tried ;-)
Learning and speaking 200 words in stonecoal Thai opened doors for me. If you try the language and respect culture the Thai will not let you down in making contact is my experience.
There will be food, drinks, conversation and learing some more language and culture. Beware of the fun and new experiences!
Even with Thai officials, they became so warm and friendly, when I spoke a little bit of Thai.
Very nice. Happy to hear that!
@RealThailander Yes, they even advised me to continue speaking whatever amount of Thai I can manage with other officials.
Great Video very informative Thankyou ,do you teach Thai ? 🙏🏻
Great video and great points.
Except for the last one. A lot of sounds are not clear at all. Not just L-R but also K-G , B-P, C-S and a few others.
Right! there are just many sounds that aren't so clear in Thai. Many times it puzzles me why!
great and fresh vid!
This is a great perspective on learning thai. I have been living in thailand for around 10 years my level is so bad i think for me is low confidence to speak and i do not spend enough time to listen. but my writing and reading is pretty good. is there anyway of overcomming the fear of speaking?
หวัดดีครับ! ผมชื่อล็อกกี้ครับและผมเป็นคนออสเตรเลียแต่ผมไปประเทศไทยสองครั้ง! ผมเรียนภาษาไทยมาสี่ปีแต่ผมพูดภาษาไทยได้นิดหน่อยเท่านั้น. ประเทศไทยสวยมาก. ขอบคุณมากครับ. 🙏💖
สวัสดีครับล็อกกี้ เก่งมากครับที่เรียนไทยและพูดไทยได้ แถมเขียนได้ด้วย ฝึกต่อไปเรื่อยๆนะครับ ผมเป็นกำลังใจให้
@ ขอบคุณๆ คุณใจดีมาก. ภาษาไทยยากมากแต่ผมยังอยากเรียน! (I don’t know if that’s completely correct 😅) 😊
เก่งมากครับ เขียนไทยได้เยอะเลย! ผมชอบความพยายามของคุณมาก I like your effort! There are a few minor things that can be improved. First, the use of (.)-the full stop doesn't exist in Thai. Also, you probably mean อยากเรียน instead of ยากเรียน.
@@RealThailander Yeahhh ยากเรียน was a typo. Thankyou for the tips - still a long way to go. 🙏
I feel like Grover could help illustrate the near, far difference 😀
I have been living in Thailand for two years now and have had many Thai lessons. But when I say a sentence in Thai I get English as an answer or they look at me stupidly: that is not English so I do not understand. In this way it is difficult to start speaking, I actually do not dare anymore.
I would have felt the same. That sounds a bit rude and quite discouraging indeed. I have heard about similar experience. Thanks for pointing that out I will have to think deeper about this.
I somewhat agree, and I always tell people that ask me that Thai is spoken simplistically and written complexly. Other than that I've learned that Thai has almost as many idiosyncracies as English, for example สระแกว และ สระบุรี the beginning of each word is spelled the same, but pronounced differently. If I omitted any tone marks please forgive me, my spelling in Thai is atrocious.
oh yes! สระแก้ว and สระบุรี. And words like these are confusing. Thanks for watching. And no, don't worry baout leaving out the tone marks. I think that's already quite impressive you know the difference between those two cities!
Wa-Dee Khrup, can you please leave a summary at the end of the Video or in the Description, if the presenter talks too much i "Nod Off" Americans and some English people talk tooooo much. Khop Khun Khrup.😁🙏🙏🙏🤟
I will keep that in mind for the next video khrap. Really appreciate your suggestion!
but i think write n read thai is so difficultif u have some apps to learn thai language??
Yes I think that could be quite some challenge indeed. I am not too sure on which one to recommend exactly. I have heard of the app called Ling. And some friends of mine do enjoy using it
Some words are very difficult to pronounce.
In the North, there are many dialects, the Tribal languages and many Myanmar groups.
Maybe about 20-25 different languages being spoken here.
Very true. I moved to live in the North of Thailand myself ten years ago and I have noticed exactly what you were referring to here. Thanks for watching!
Also the inconsistency of the “R” and the “L” is real 😅
It seems to me that tones are *dropped in music, - singing, e.g. in Thai pop songs. It would be impossible to sing the words in their 5 tones, as singing to maintain the musical notes is the aim. So, I presume the meaning of the Thai sung, must be understood by the context of the words. If that is so, I wonder whether that could be the same in spoken Thai? Not that I am suggesting that would be practical.
สวัสดีแจม! นี่คือเพื่อนของคุณจากอินโดนีเซีย
I'm one of those Dutch people who automatically switch to English even if you can speak Dutch quite well. I don't even know why I do this, it just happens.
I am Dutch living in the US and on the rare occasions I meet a Dutch person here, often times we automatically switch to English even though we both speak Dutch , probably because we are in a business setting and its easier for me. 😊
I’m learning Thai and Isaan!
Very well done learning both of them together!
Thai grammar could not be simpler. Thai words never change. You just combine worlds. It's what is called an "analytical" language. It's a 100% analytical and a huge relief. English has less conjugation than continental European languages, but more than you think and a terrible number of irregular verbs do, does, did, done etc. Totally random.