Learning Thai Can Be Easy and Enjoyable
September 13, 2019
Do you wish your Thai were better or that you could have a go at learning it? Being able to communicate in Thai will make your life in Bangkok a lot easier. Here are some ideas from an expert to help you learn the language.By Supattra Srimuangchang Learning a new language can be quite a struggle, especially when you have no idea where to start, and if you've heard negative rumors about how hard the new language is compared to your mother tongue. Living in Thailand and not being able to communicate with locals can be a nightmare at times. It's not a must to be able to communicate in Thai, but believe it or not, your life will be a lot easier if you can speak enough Thai to get by. Not only will you be able to understand the language, but you will get a deeper understanding of the culture, the people, and their way of life as well.The key to successfully studying and learning Thai is to enjoy it every single day.According to my research, Thai is considered an easy language to learn, and it's not just because I'm a Thai. I've also asked a lot of people that were studying Thai. They were foreigners whose mother tongue was not English and they had learned to speak both English and Thai.
Set goals
It might be difficult if you want to start learning Thai but have no clue how to begin. First, set your goals. Why do you want to learn the language? Do you want to be able to communicate or are you planning to live here for the rest of your life and want to know everything about Thailand, it's people, it's ways, and culture? Once you have set your goals, you have to take action. Whether you have short-term or long-term goals, you need to be patient and disciplined. You can't succeed overnight. Trying to set yourself goals in short periods is not a good idea. It only puts yourself under more pressure and slows down your progress.Try to enjoy it
Let me remind you that the key to successfully studying and learning Thai is to enjoy it every single day. There is no point in studying if you don't enjoy it. The world is not going to collapse if you can't speak Thai within a week or a month -- take your time and enjoy the journey.Excuses don't help you learn Thai
"What if I don't have time?" you may ask yourself. Everybody has 24 hours in a day. It depends on whether you spend it effectively or not. You can simply find free resources on YouTube. There are plenty of videos out there to choose from that can help you in your spare time, which covers a vast array of topics that you can choose from, with different teachers.First, set your goals. Why do you want to learn the language?Once you find a teacher that you like, I recommend that you continue to learn from only one person as each teacher has a different way to teach Thai.
Open your mouth - don't be shy
Listening and repeating what you hear is the most effective way to learn, and you don't have to pay a penny. Memorizing a ton of words, and a thousand phrases don't mean anything if you never open your mouth and say them out loud. A lot of Thai learners are quite shy and are not confident enough to speak to native speakers. "I'm afraid I'll use the wrong tone, and they will not understand me," they'll often say, or, "They might laugh at me if I mispronounce a word."The more mistakes you make, the more you'll learn.Does this sound familiar? We all have the same problem. This is the reason why a lot of Thai people cannot speak English. In general, Thais study English throughout primary and high school, but barely use it in real life. So please try to forget about making mistakes. Thai people find it adorable when foreigners speak Thai. We all have an accent, and nobody is going to judge you if you can't pronounce Thai tones correctly. As long as you understand the concept and remember enough words to get by, then that counts as being able to speak Thai. It is as simple as that.
Make mistakes and learn from them
I truly believe that when you make a mistake, and it's corrected for you, you'll automatically remember the correction and will not make the same mistake again. Thus, the more mistakes you make, the more you'll learn.Ask for help
Asking for help is a solid solution as Thais are always happy to help if they can. When you are having a conversation with a native speaker, they will generally understand what you are trying to say even if your grammar is off or if you use the wrong word here or there. It's just like when Thais are speaking to you in English with some grammar being off. In a one-on-one conversation with your teacher, he/she will correct you 100% of the time, but in a general conversation with a friend or someone on the street, this may only be true around 50% of the time.Practice, please practice!
Being a native Thai and having taught Thai to foreigners for years, I encourage you to speak out loud, make a lot of mistakes (as many as you can), but never stop practicing, and never stop learning. The most important thing: don't compare your first chapter to someone else's one-hundredth chapter. There are many people who have been living in Thailand for 20 years or so and are not able to even speak a single sentence, while some people who have only been here for two weeks can engage in small talk with Thais. I cannot describe the benefits of being able to speak Thai within this page, but there are plenty! Image by Max Lehmann from Pixabay.About the Author
Supattra is the founder of Learn Thai with Shelby. As a graphic designer and media creator, Supattra has a passion for representing her mother-tongue through multimedia in ways that are easy to understand. You can find her videos on her YouTube channel, "Learn Thai with Shelby," and if you need help with particular topics, you can connect with her via Facebook.The views expressed in the articles in this magazine are not necessarily those of BAMBI committee members and we assume no responsibility for them or their effects.BAMBI News welcomes volunteer contributors to our magazine. Please contact editor@bambiweb.org.