Journey to Thai

Thai Video Transcripts

2008-09-06T22:06:00.000-07:00

In June, Ricker started a great service for Thai students with a wiki called Thai Video Transcripts (TVT). Here's his blog post about it.

This is the introduction to the wiki from the front page.

TVT is a learning tool for students of the Thai language. There are nearly endless Thai videos on sites like YouTube and KosanaThai. On TVT, users work together to transcribe the text of these videos. This process will help you to improve your understanding of Thai as actually used by native speakers, and makes it simple to copy-and-paste unfamiliar words into websites like thai2english.com, thai-language.com, or thai.sealang.net.

This is a great resource for Thai language students.

Fonts

2008-08-31T21:09:00.000-07:00

During my recent visit to Thailand, reading became more automatic as I read signs everywhere around me. One challenge with reading signs is that there are many fonts.

This logo that obviously reads "USA" actually reads "Breeze" (บรีส). It's the Thai brand for a laundry detergent called Omo in other parts of the world.

The "Wow" in this movie title is part of the transliteration of the English title "Surf's Up" (เซิร์ฟอัพ). In the official transliteration, the two "W"s are different Thai characters, but it doesn't matter from the standpoint of pronunciation. The second character in the subtitle is an M-shaped thing. My wife had to tell me that it's a ตอ เต่า.

English-looking Thai characters in logos are very common, and I'm sure they are intentionally designed in that way.

I find myself wondering whether, as a child, I had to figure out the differences between English fonts.

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Technorati tags: second language acquisition, thai, thai language

Chulabook and Pocoyo

2008-08-23T06:00:00.000-07:00

Prior to leaving Bangkok, we visited the Chulalongkorn University bookstore near Siam Square. They have a lot of materials that are useful to Thai language students. They also have a website that sells books, VCDs, and other materials: http://www.chulabook.com/.

In addition to a few Thai comic books and books for children, we bought Thai language VCDs of Pocoyo (โพโคโย). We bought them for my son, but they are good language acquisition tools for an adult at an intermediate level. Each episode uses and repeats a few words of core vocabulary in a natural way. They're amusing and creative enough that I can watch them without getting bored. I've practiced listening and acquired a few words and phrases this way.

(DVDs have region codes, and many DVDs from Thailand don't work on players for other regions. This is not an issue for VCDs.)

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Technorati tags: second language acquisition, thai, thai language

ALG Level 1 Demonstration

2008-08-22T20:44:00.000-07:00

Rikker recently mentioned that there's now an Automatic Language Growth (ALG) video from AUA Thai Level 1. I looked it up, and it's quite good. It illustrates how to teach a second language from the very beginning without translating to the student's native language.

Note that, when the instructors ask questions in Thai, the students reply either with signs or in their native language. This permits a long silent period, during which the students don't speak the new language. Research by Stephen Krashen and others suggests that an initial silent period facilitates better acquisition.

I didn't have a chance to study in the ALG program at AUA from Level 1. By the time I first attended AUA, I had already studied Thai at the University of Oregon and at home. If I were beginning Thai now, I would choose the ALG program.

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Technorati tags: second language acquisition, thai, thai language

Leaving Bangkok

2008-08-19T17:33:00.000-07:00

My study at AUA is finished for now. I'll return to my brother-in-law's house in Chachoensao this morning, and I'll leave for the U.S. tomorrow. The Automatic Language Growth (ALG) approach used at AUA works very well. It's better than "one way" listening, such as listening to radio broadcasts, since the comprehensibility of the classroom content is monitored and adjusted by a live instructor. As always, I have a long way to go, but I can see progress relative to where I was two weeks ago. My comprehension and speaking have improved effortlessly just by listening to interesting content in class.

I understood much more of the spoken content at the AUA classes than I did when I was here two years ago. There were some classes where I understood almost all of the spoken content, which never happened during my previous experience. There were other classes, like the News class at noon, where I had difficulty following the instructor. It was clear that the Level 5-10 classes are taught at different levels of difficulty, depending on the subject, the instructor, and the students in attendance. Last time, I didn't pick up on the varying difficulty. All the classes seemed to be at the same level, namely Hard.

It's unfortunate that the ALG approach isn't used in more language schools, but I think it requires an agreement on basic principles by the teachers and students, and it doesn't lend itself well to an institution where evaluation and examination are central. Still, I think motivated students in other language courses can add a type of ALG approach on their own just by listening to natural content as often as possible.

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Technorati tags: second language acquisition, thai, thai language

Politeness

2008-08-08T22:43:00.000-07:00

Thai uses so-called linguistic particles to communicate secondary meanings in sentences. One such particle is klap. (The word is spelled ครับ -my transliteration is an approximation.) The particle klap is used at the end of sentences by men to convey politeness.

Recently, I've caught myself forgetting to use klap in some situations when it is called for. As a foreigner and visitor, I try to be polite -when I was here two years ago, a few people commented to my wife on how polite I was. I'd like to take this as a compliment on my behavior in general, but I think it was mainly a commentary on how often I would use the particle klap, which was basically after every sentence. My wife recently told me that I don't have to use it so often -it's not necessary to be extremely polite.

Unfortunately, I think I've now gone too far the other way. There have been several recent occasions where I was speaking with someone I didn't know well, and they were using politeness particles with me. Being more interested in the content of the conversation, I forgot to use them in return.

I suppose all this will sort itself out by being aware of it. On one hand, it's embarrassing to forget my manners on several occasions. On the other hand, I think it's a symptom of greater comfort and comprehension in Thai.

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Technorati tags: second language acquisition, thai, thai language

More Time at AUA

2008-08-08T21:58:00.001-07:00

My family and I will be in Bangkok for a few days, which gives me a chance to attend Automatic Language Growth (ALG) classes at AUA Ratchadamri.

As I mentioned previously, some of the Level 5-10 classes at AUA seem closer to Level 5, and some closer to Level 10. I've surveyed most of the weekday classes, and I've found a number that seem close to my level (i.e., i+1). Most of the time, I'm just interested in the content, and the language takes care of itself. The instructors do an excellent job of tracking who is understanding what, keeping the material comprehensible, challenging, and fun.

The time at AUA is very good for my Thai language skill. Speaking, listening, reading, and vocabulary are becoming more comfortable without effort.

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Technorati tags: second language acquisition, thai, thai language

Accents

2008-08-02T17:52:00.000-07:00

Prior to leaving on this trip, my wife told me that I should spend time listening to different accents.

Yesterday, my sister-in-law was asking me how many spoons I take in my coffee (ใส่กี่ช้อนค่ะ). It's an easy phrase, but I couldn't understand at first. Later, I asked my wife if there are more individual accents in Thai than in English. She said yes, because regional dialects contribute their own accents to the central dialect.

My brother-in-law's family is from the south of Thailand. They relocated to the central region recently because of the separatist insurgency in the south. They have a southern accent, which is a challenge to my ear, even for simple vocabulary. My wife is also from the south, but she lived in the central region for much of her life, so she does not have as strong an accent.

Thai has four major dialects, with the central dialect serving as a common language between them. The dialects are mutually unintelligible, but, from a practical standpoint, the central dialect is intelligible to everybody, because schools everywhere teach the central dialect. Thai people traveling to and from the central region create a rich mix of accents that are a challenge for foreigners learning Thai.*

Most of my listening practice has been the VOA news, which is spoken almost exclusively in a clear, central accent. Since VOA focuses on international news, it's not common that they interview Thai people with regional accents. The teachers at AUA also speak without strong regional accents.

I can understand now that getting familiar with different accents is part of becoming comfortable with the language.

*Corrections and clarifications are most welcome.

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Technorati tags: second language acquisition, thai, thai language

A Passage to Bangkok

2008-07-30T22:20:00.000-07:00

My family is staying in Chachoensao, about 80 kilometers northeast of Bangkok, visiting my wife's brother and his family. I think I'm one of very few foreigners in this area.

My son has been attending Thai kindergarten for several weeks with his cousin. He has improved his Thai in a very natural way. My sister-in-law says, "He's better than his father. He doesn't have to think about what he's saying."

To work on my own natural language acquisition, I took a commuter train into Bangkok yesterday and took some classes at AUA. As before, I found the classes, teachers, and approach to be excellent. The subject of one class was the market for stolen goods in Thailand and how to avoid purchasing them. Other classes were on the daily news, a romantic novel, and a Thai movie about ghosts.

When I was at AUA two years ago, a lot of the vocabulary was lost on me, but I was able to understand the gist of classes through nonverbal cues and visual aids. Initially, I wondered whether the classes were too advanced for me, but, after my discussions with the advisor and other students, I gathered that my experience was expected, and that my vocabulary would grow naturally just by paying attention to the classroom experience. Another student told me that, whenever he and his wife started a level, they didn't understand much. Over the course of about 200 hours of class time, the verbal content became more and more clear. Finally, it became much too easy, and they were ready for a new level. My vocabulary did grow a great deal during my previous experience at AUA, but, unfortunately, I had to return home after only 32 hours of class time.

In the two years since my previous experience at AUA, I've continued on my own by listening to a little over 200 hours of Thai content, in movies, news broadcasts, television, and other audio. I've also been exposed to some Thai at home, as my wife uses it with our son, and I've chatted in Thai with friends on the internet. The time I spent has increased my classroom comprehension. I noticed that I wasn't relying as heavily on nonverbal content to understand the classroom experience. I could read the Thai script that was written on the whiteboard, and I had recourse to a much larger vocabulary.

At AUA, Levels 1-4 are taught separately, but Levels 5-10, where I study, are all taught at the same time. I think this might be because there are fewer intermediate and advanced students -I'm guessing that many students reach basic proficiency at Level 5 and are satisfied or move on to other methods. Some of the classes yesterday seemed closer to Level 5 and others closer to Level 10. The class on avoiding stolen goods was nearly perfect for me. There was some new vocabulary, but I could follow most of the verbal content without getting lost. The class on the romantic novel was also close to my level. I found the class about the day's news difficult to follow, and the class about the Thai movie was on the easy side.

I'm hoping to spend more time at AUA later in August before returning to the United States.

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Technorati tags: second language acquisition, thai, thai language

East and West by Yang Liu

2008-02-16T07:57:00.000-08:00

Update: Andrew Hennigan recently posted information about these images.

I found this interesting.

The images were designed by Yang Liu (sometimes spelled Liu Young), who was born in China and educated in Germany and England. Visit Yang Liu's website at yangliudesign.com.

(Images posted with permission.)

Westerners Asians

Expressing Opinions

Punctuality

Handling Problems

Technorati: thai culture, chinese culture, asian culture

LingQ

2008-01-03T02:47:00.000-08:00

Update: Moving this to an earlier date so that posts relevant to Thai language show up on the homepage.

Steve Kaufmann is a polyglot and blogger who speaks nine languages fluently. He runs a language education website called LingQ.

I recently signed up for the free membership at LingQ and tried the system for French, a language I enjoy at an intermediate level in my daily life. LingQ is well-designed and well-engineered, and I can see that it's an efficient system for acquiring languages rapidly. Since I'm focused on Thai, I'm not actively trying to improve my French at this time, but the availability of this resource has made me consider taking up French again. Prices for more complete memberships are also very reasonable.

LingQ currently supports English, French, Russian, Spanish, German, Portuguese, Italian, and Swedish, with beta programs for Mandarin and Japanese. I can't wait until Thai is added to the list.

Debating the Bear

2007-06-06T22:41:00.000-07:00

What are the best Thai language sources for international news?

Kikiat has a great page linking to newspaper websites from Thailand. I've been reading the international news at Naew Na (แนวหน้า), dictionary in hand, and I'm finally at the point where I can make sense out of many articles. This is a big improvement over a year ago, when I could barely read Thai at all.

News about the U.S. is by far the easiest to understand, because I'm often already familiar with the situations and events. News about Thailand and Southeast Asia is very difficult, since there's a presumed knowledge of people, places, and political parties that are less prevalent in the American media. I look forward to the day that I can easily follow news about Thailand, especially since Thai politics are so interesting at this point in history.

Today, Naew Na has a headline about George Bush "arguing with the bear" in advance of the G-8 summit. My wife had to explain that the bear refers to Russia. In hindsite, the meaning is obvious; even the U.S. media used to represent the Soviet Union by a bear. The symbol is less common in the U.S. media since the end of the Cold War, and it would be unusual for it to appear in a U.S. headline.

I wonder whether the U.S. media uses similar idioms in their headlines, but I don't notice, since I understand the meaning.

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Technorati tags: thailand, thai news, thai language

SpokenThai.Com

2007-05-09T21:11:00.000-07:00

The site spokenthai.com has free Thai audio and video with transcripts.

Wow. Very nice.

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Technorati tags: second language acquisition, thai, thai language

Compliments

2007-05-06T21:20:00.000-07:00

This is quite an interesting thought from Stuart Jay Raj, a polyglot who has appeared on Thai television demonstrating his remarkable abilities.

My grandfather used to tell me “When you’re learning a language, you want to try your best to avoid having speakers of that language complimenting you. If people are complimenting you on how well you’re speaking ‘their’ language, it means that you still haven’t arrived”. That’s not to say that you want them insulting you! What he meant was that, if you’re speaking a language proficiently enough to a native speaker, the thought of complimenting you won’t even cross their mind.

This is somewhat unintuitive, but it makes a lot of sense to me.

I do think that there are exceptions. For example, I love to talk about language study and acquisition. At such times, I often compliment people who speak English as a second language with native or near-native proficiency and accent.

Mr. Raj alludes to another mitigating situation in the same post. In some cases, a speaker's physical features may make it unlikely that they are a native speaker. Obviously, this does not apply to ESL students, since native English speakers have all sorts of features. However, I would suspect that a farang speaking Thai with native proficiency could still expect curiosity and a few compliments.

In any case, I think this is great food for thought.

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Technorati tags: second language acquisition, thai, thai language

Read My Book

2007-05-06T16:10:00.000-07:00

I think children are the best language study partners. They are creative, non-judgmental geniuses at effortless language acquisition.

We speak Thai as much as possible to my son at home, and he attends a French immersion preschool. Recently, I've been teaching him to play Uno. We rotate languages, playing a game in English, followed by a game in Thai, followed by a game in French, and so on. Most of the conversation revolves around numbers and colors, and it's a fun way to practice.

Yesterday, he picked up a few Uno cards and assembled them in a particular way, calling them his "book". He asked me if I could "read the book to him". I went through the cards one at a time, reading out "red 2", "yellow 5" and so on. I tried once in French and once in Thai. He was satisfied, and I received an unexpected practice session with colors and numbers. I realize now that I'm still much more proficient in French than Thai.

Playing Uno in different languages always reminds me of AJ's AUA Observation Journal, in which he describes playing Uno in Thai language class at AUA.

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Technorati tags: second language acquisition, thai, thai language

ALG Principles

2007-05-05T22:56:00.000-07:00

I recently noticed this summary of the Automatic Language Growth (ALG) philosophy on the ALG website.

ALG Principles

1. Our point of reference is the native speaker, not other students.

2. Children are the best examples of how to learn another language.

3. The adult ability to translate, memorize, and practice can never produce as good results as naturally learning a language. Trying only makes things worse.

4. Practice cannot help, and in fact it damages one's ability to learn naturally.

5. The ability to speak comes from one's ability to understand. Therefore, understanding is what must be sought after, not practice speaking.

6. Understandable and interesting experiences are the key to learning another language.

I try to follow this approach in my own study. I do sometimes compromise to compensate for the lack of a teacher, for example, by looking up translations. But I dedicate most of my study time to comprehensible input. Once I have a certain level of comprehension, I minimize translation and memorization and try to understand directly. I've been pleasantly surprised by how well it works.

It's interesting that, although these principles are supported by research, they are not taken into account by most language programs. I wonder whether part of the inertia has to do with the practice of assigning grades based on homework and exams, which is difficult to reconcile with a natural approach.

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Technorati tags: second language acquisition

Post Removed

2007-05-01T19:00:00.000-07:00

Update 7.23.2010: I'm removing a few posts that are no longer interesting to me. You can reach the homepage here.

Thanks for your interest!

Galaxy 25

2007-04-29T11:01:00.000-07:00

I think television is a good resource for language study. It combines natural audio input with images that aid comprehension. In the United States, many locations have a Spanish television channel. Here in Seattle, we even have a Chinese language channel. But there is no Thai channel.

My wife and I have talked off and on about buying a satellite receiver for Thai TV. Yesterday, we finally had one installed. Our dish is pointed at the Galaxy 25 satellite, which is apparently in geosynchronous orbit somewhere over Texas. Everything is free now that we have the dish; there's no monthly charge. We get several Thai channels and a Lao channel that sometimes broadcasts in Thai.

I haven't had a chance to watch much yet, but I watched the news last night, and I'm satisfied so far. This will be a good supplement to my listening and vocabulary practice. The time difference may be a bit of an inconvenience, since evening in Seattle is mid-morning in Thailand. But so far, so good.

Even if you don't live in Thailand or have a satellite receiver, you can watch Thai TV for free at the Mog Software website:

http://mister-kwai.com/thai/thai-tv.html

(By the way, if you're familiar with Thai satellite TV, the Galaxy 25 has been called Telstar 5 and Intelsat America's 5 at different times.)

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Technorati tags: second language acquisition, thai, thai language

Classifier Practice Page

2007-04-28T10:13:00.000-07:00

This is a nice page. It's a list of common classifiers. The link labeled "choose a drill and practice these flashcards" navigates to online exercises for practice.

Word List Generation

2007-04-25T21:29:00.000-07:00

I wonder whether there is any software that can generate a frequency-ordered word list from a piece of Thai text. That is, I'd like a tool that would let me paste a few pages of text, obtaining a list of words in decreasing order of frequency.

There are a lot of those tools available for English and other languages which use space to delimit words, but a quick web search didn't turn anything up which can be used for Thai.

I would like to use such a tool for vocabulary practice, so that I can study the most frequent words in a transcript first. That seems more efficient than studying unknown words in the order they appear.

I do have a way to obtain a frequency-ordered word list from Thai text, but it involves several different applications and copy-paste operations, so it's not very easy or efficient. I'd like to be able to do it with the press of a button.

Efficiency

2007-04-22T12:12:00.000-07:00

Last week, someone asked me, "How do you find time to study Thai?" I had never thought about it, but I am a software professional with a demanding job and a family, so it's a reasonable question.

I like to learn about second language acquisition theory. By reading and trying different ideas, I've picked up a few techniques that allow me to progress without a huge time investment. If I spent more time per week, my progress would be faster, but I'm satisfied with my current rate of acquisition.

These are some of the techniques that work for me.

1. Listening practice: Most days, I download the current mp3 from VOA Thai and listen in my car on the way to and from work. This gives me an easy 1/2 hour per day of listening practice.

I sometimes watch Thai DVDs and VCDs at home, and we're planning to get a satellite receiver soon so that we can watch Thai television.

2. Vocabulary: For efficiency, it's hard to beat JMemorize. It's like flash cards on steroids, and it's free. I learned about JMemorize from Edwin, and it has been a great addition to my toolkit.

3. Reading and Writing: For a Thai student at my level, text instant messaging is an excellent way to practice. I joined a few free language exchange sites like Mixxer. Through those sites, I met a number of Thai people who want to trade English and Thai practice, and I text chat with them on Windows Live Messenger or Skype. I learned to type, and my ability to read and write has improved by leaps and bounds.

4. Speaking: I don't practice speaking at all. I've come to the conclusion that it doesn't really help. The best way for me to improve speech is by listening to interesting and understandable material in Thai. I have greatly improved my pronunciation, grammar, and fluency just by listening to and understanding a lot of spoken Thai. Thai people often validate this improvement. Maybe, at some point in the future, I'll change this approach, but intensive listening on its own is really working for now.

Though I don't practice speaking, I do like to voice chat in Thai on Skype from time to time. I talk with my Thai family (by marriage) and with friends I've met through language exchange sites. It's a great way to check my progress, it's fun, and it's a great motivator.

What are your tips and tricks for efficient acquisition?

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Technorati tags: second language acquisition

Happy New Year

2007-04-14T10:05:00.000-07:00

This weekend is Songkran, the Thai Water Festival and New Year. Thai people get together with family and friends during Songkran, engaging in water fights and other traditions.

I was in Thailand for Songkran last year, so it's been about a year since I studied Thai at AUA. My short time there really changed my understanding of language study.

Here in Seattle, it's a little too cold for a water fight, but Happy New Year anyway!

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Technorati tags: thai culture

Thai Core Vocabulary

2007-04-08T23:55:00.000-07:00

There are a lot of good internet resources for Thai core vocabulary and phrases. The following sites teach months, days of the week, colors, numbers, telling time, and other essential vocabulary. All of them provide both audio clips and Thai script. They also have more advanced lessons.

LearningThai.com: Learn To Speak

Thai-Language.com: Reference Pages

LangHub.com

If you know of another good site for Thai language students, please feel free to leave a link in the comments.

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Technorati tags: second language acquisition, thai, thai language

Post Removed

2007-04-08T19:01:00.000-07:00

Update 7.23.2010: I'm removing a few posts that are no longer interesting to me. You can reach the homepage here.

Thanks for your interest!

Thai Word of the Week: Subject

2007-04-01T07:44:00.000-07:00

My Thai word for this week is วิชา, meaning "subject".

Thai2English.com entry for วิชา
VOA sound clip of a sentence using วิชา
Transcript of VOA clip

Note that the transcript can easily be copy-pasted to thai2english.com, obtaining a word-by-word translation.

Other interesting words in this clip are:

ฐานะ, meaning "position"
ภารกิจ, meaning "duty"
รับมอบหมาย, meaning "to be entrusted"
กำหนด, meaning "to specify"
มาโดยตลอด, meaning "always".

Corrections and clarifications are always appreciated.
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Technorati tags: second language acquisition, thai, thai language

Thai Word of the Week: Consider

2007-03-25T08:20:00.000-07:00

My Thai word for this week is พิจารณา, meaning "to consider".

Thai2English.com entry for พิจารณา
VOA sound clip of a sentence using พิจารณา
Transcript of VOA clip
Original complete story on VOA, with transcript and MP3

Note that the transcript can easily be copy-pasted to thai2english.com, obtaining a word-by-word translation.

Other interesting words in this clip are:
ตัดสิน, meaning "to decide"
เท่าใด, meaning "however much"

Corrections and clarifications are always appreciated.

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Technorati tags: second language acquisition, thai, thai language

No Thai Word This Week

2007-03-18T15:16:00.000-07:00

Last week's "word of the week" mp3 was unusually long, and more words were unknown to me than usual. Consequently, I haven't had a chance to assimilate the clip at more than a superficial level. Rather than introducing something new, I'm continuing with last week's clip.

I'm finding systematic study of a news clip to be a pretty good way to build vocabulary. Most of the vocabulary is repeated and reinforced in different contexts as I listen to the daily news.

Thai Word of the Week: Expert

2007-03-11T14:08:00.000-07:00

My Thai word for this week is ผู้เชี่ยวชาญ, meaning "expert".

Thai2English.com entry for เชี่ยวชาญ
Thai-language.com entry for ผู้เชี่ยวชาญ
VOA sound clip using ผู้เชี่ยวชาญ
Transcript of VOA clip
Original complete story on VOA, with transcript and mp3

Note that the transcript can easily be copy-pasted to thai2english.com, obtaining a word-by-word translation.

Other interesting words in this clip are:
ด้าน, meaning "field (of study)"
กฎหมาย, meaning "law"
หอสมุด, meaning "library"
แถลง, meaning "to express"
คณะ, meaning "group"
อนุกรรมการ (อะ-นุ-กัม-การ-), meaning "subcommittee"
วุฒิสภา, meaning "senate"
ทัศนะ, meaning "point of view"
ทั่วไป, meaning "general"
แสวงหา (สะ-แหวง-หา-), meaning "to seek"
เกียรติยศ (เกียต-ยศ-), meaning "prestige"
ความรุ่งโรจน์ (ความ-รุ่ง-โรจ-), meaning "glory"
เข้าสู่, meaning "to enter"
ความสูญเสีย, meaning "waste"
การคลัง, meaning "finance"
ชาติ (ชาต-), meaning "nation"
จึง, meaning "therefore"
ป้องกัน, meaning "to defend"
โจม, meaning "to pounce"
อย่างกะทันหัน, meaning "immediately"
ตั้ง, meaning "to start"
ข้อสังเกต, meaning "remark"
ความคลุมเครือ, meaning "ambiguity"
ยาม, meaning "time"
ควร, meaning "should"

Corrections and clarifications are always appreciated.

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Thai characters don't render correctly? Click here...

Technorati tags: second language acquisition, thai, thai language

Thai Word of the Week: Historian

2007-03-04T11:16:00.000-08:00

My Thai word for this week is นักประวัติศาสตร์ (นัก-ประ-หวัด-ติ-สาด-), meaning "historian".

Thai2English.com entry for นักประวัติศาสตร์
Thai-Language.com entry for ประวัติศาสตร์
VOA sound clip of a sentence using นักประวัติศาสตร์
Transcript of VOA clip
Original story on VOA, with transcript and mp3

The clip paraphrases a historian, who says that the framers of the U.S. constitution intended to assign most of the authority in matters of war to the congress. Note that the transcript can easily be copy-pasted to thai2english.com, obtaining a word-by-word translation.

Other interesting words in this clip are:
บรรดา (บัน-ดา-), meaning "totality"
ก่อ, meaning "to construct"
ร่าง, meaning "draft"
สร้าง, meaning "to create"
รู้เท่า, meaning "to be perceptive"
การณ์, meaning "event"
แน่ชัด, meaning "obvious"
มอบอำนาจ, meaning "to authorize"

Corrections and clarifications are always appreciated.

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Thai characters don't render correctly? Click here...

Technorati tags: second language acquisition, thai, thai language

Thai Word of the Week: Signal

2007-02-25T10:02:00.000-08:00

My Thai word for this week is ส่งสัญญาณ (ส่ง-สัน-ยาน-), meaning "to signal". Component words are ส่ง, meaning "to send" and สัญญาณ (สัน-ยาน-), meaning "signal".

Thai2English.com entry for ส่งสัญญาณ
Thai-Language.com entry for ส่งสัญญาณ
VOA sound clip of a sentence using ส่งสัญญาณ
Transcript of VOA clip
The original story on VOA, with transcript and mp3

The clip discusses the debate in the U.S. congress over restricting funding for President Bush's unpopular "troop surge" proposal. Note that the transcript can easily be copy-pasted to thai2english.com, obtaining a word-by-word translation.

Other interesting words in this clip are:

คัดค้าน, meaning "to disagree"
ตัดทอน, meaning "to cut off"
ดังกล่าว, meaning "aforementioned"
สื่อ, meaning "to communicate"
ความหมาย, meaning "meaning".
สู้รบ, meaning "to combat"
เหล่า, the classifier for "group"
ปฏิบัติภารกิจ (ปะ-ติ-บัต-พา-ระ-กิด-), meaning "to do one's duty"
อีกต่อไป, meaning "anymore"

Corrections and clarifications are always appreciated.
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Thai characters don't render correctly? Click here.

Technorati tags: second language acquisition, thai, thai language

Is Translation Harmful?

2007-02-18T16:56:00.000-08:00

Steve Kaufmann recently posted some interesting comments about bilingual dictionaries.

When I use a dictionary it is always a bilingual dictionary. I want to see the meaning in English, or a language that I know well. This creates an immediate link to what I already know. It is only a hint at the meaning of this word. I will need to see the new word many times before I know it. But I need the bilingual dictionary.

For some reason, there are language teachers who insist that bilingual dictionaries are bad and should be avoided...

I personally use bilingual dictionaries, but I think there are certain pitfalls to avoid. The main problem is precisely that a translation is, as Steve puts it, "only a hint". The meaning does not have an exact translation. This is especially true when languages are very different, like English and Thai.

An example is the Thai word ออก, pronounced something like the first syllable of "awkward". It is usually translated as "out" or "exit", but in some phrases, it clearly has a different meaning. For example, the phrase "to think out" (คิดออก) means "to be able to think", "to solve", or "to recall". There is a similar usage in the English expression "to figure something out", but I suspect the similarity is more coincidental than significant.

Steve's comment, "I will need to see the new word many times before I know it" seems astute. Translation can be used to increase comprehension, but repeated exposure to the word in a comprehensible context is necessary to acquire it.

Students at AUA acquire vocabulary by direct experience, without use of translation. I think this is a great method that completely avoids the pitfalls of translation. However, it requires a live teacher that can gauge understanding and tailor presentations to that level.

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Technorati tags: second language acquisition, thai, thai language

Thai Word Of the Week: Oppose

2007-02-18T11:13:00.000-08:00

My Thai word for this week is ทัดทาน, meaning "to prohibit", or "to oppose".

VOA sound clip of a sentence using ทัดทาน
Transcript of VOA clip
The original story on VOA, with transcript and mp3

The sound clip discusses the possibility that the U.S. congress may cut off military funding in opposition to President Bush's "troop surge" proposal in Iraq.

Other interesting words in this clip are:
เชื่อ, meaning "to believe in"
เพิ่ม, meaning "to increase"
การระงับ, meaning "suppression" or "discontinuance"

Note that the transcript can easily be copy-pasted to thai2english.com, obtaining a word-by-word translation.

Corrections and clarifications are appreciated.

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Thai characters don't render correctly? Click here.

Technorati tags: second language acquisition, thai, thai language

Thai Word of the Week: Authority

2007-02-11T07:20:00.000-08:00

My Thai word for this week is อำนาจ, meaning "authority".

Thai2English.com entry for อำนาจ
Thai-Language.com entry for อำนาจ
VOA sound clip of a sentence using อำนาจ
Transcript of VOA clip
The original story on VOA, with transcript and mp3.

The sound clip explains the constitutional balance of power between the U.S. president and congress in matters of war.

Other interesting words in this clip are:

ตาม, meaning "according to"
รัฐธรรมนูญ (รัด-ทะ-ธัม-มะ-นูน-), meaning "constitution"
รัฐสภา (รัด-ทะ-สะ-หภา-),meaning "congress"
ประกาศสงคราม, meaning "to declare war"
อนุมัติ (อะ-นุ-มัต-), meaning "to approve" or "to allow"
ทุน, meaning "fund"
ปฏิบัติการ, (ปะ-ติ-บัต-การ-), meaning "to take action"
ผู้บัญชาการ, meaning "commander in chief"
กองทัพ, meaning "army"
รับผิดชอบ, meaning "to be responsible"
ดำเนินการ, meaning "to carry out" or "to perform"

Note that the transcript can easily be copy-pasted to thai2english.com, obtaining a word-by-word translation.

Corrections or clarifications are always appreciated.

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Technorati tags: second language acquisition, thai, thai language

Reading and Writing Thai

2007-02-06T23:29:00.000-08:00

People sometimes happen upon this blog searching for resources for reading Thai script. I am no expert, but I would recommend the free lessons at learningthai.com.

http://www.learningthai.com/thai_alphabet.html

The links marked "Thai Reader" are especially good.

Some books teach Thai reading and writing. The AUA books entitled Reading and Writing are the best I've seen, but they are hard to find. They also assume a small core vocabulary and familiarity with the old AUA transliteration system. The book and CD Thai for Beginners by Benjawan Poomsan Becker is a good introduction if you can't find the AUA books or don't have the prerequisites.

To learn Thai script, most people get help from a teacher or a tutor. Some colleges and universities teach Thai reading and writing, and some cities have a Thai Buddhist temple that offers instruction.

Opinions differ about whether it's best to acquire spoken Thai before learning to read and write. On one hand, a student who begins reading right away runs a risk of developing bad habits, like reading with incorrect tones or no tones at all. On the other hand, students who delay reading often substitute some kind of transliteration, which is inefficient and can lead to an undesirable dependency.

When I studied Thai at the University of Oregon, we began by focusing on basic vocabulary. During that time, we used a transliteration system which distinguished all the features of Thai phonemes, such as tone, vowel length, and plain stop consonants. Instruction in basic vocabulary went on for about 8 weeks, then we learned the Thai writing system.

Students in the ALG program at AUA in Bangkok acquire quite a large core vocabulary by pure listening, with no support from a transliteration system, then proceed to learn to read and write. This seems like the best approach, but it's hard to do if you can't attend AUA.

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Technorati tags: thai language, thai alphabet, thai script

Thai Word of the Week: Provoke

2007-02-04T04:25:00.000-08:00

My Thai word for this week is กระตุ้น (กระ-ตุ้น-), meaning "to provoke" or "to stimulate".

Thai2English.com entry for กระตุ้น
Thai-Language.com entry for กระตุ้น
VOA sound clip of a sentence using กระตุ้น
Transcript of the sentence
The original story on VOA, with transcript and mp3

The VOA clip is a translation of comments by Celinda Lake, a strategist for the Democratic political party in the United States. It uses กระตุ้น in describing the controversy surrounding the Iraq war. Note that the transcript can easily be copy-pasted to thai2english.com, obtaining a word-by-word translation.

Other interesting words in this clip are:
ต้องการ (ต้อง-กาน-), meaning "to request" or "to demand"
เปลี่ยนแปลง (เปลี่ยน-แปลง-), meaning "to change"
อย่างชัดเจน (หย่าง-ชัด-เจน-) , meaning "clearly"
จน (จน-), meaning "until"
ระทึกใจ (ระ-ทึก-ใจ), meaning "excited".
ระมัดระวัง ( ระ-มัด-ระ-วัง- ), meaning "to be careful"
วิธี (วิ-ธี-) , meaning "means", "way", or "process"
เสียจน (เสีย-จน-), meaning "so much that"

As always, corrections and clarifications are appreciated.

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Technorati tags: second language acquisition, thai, thai language

Character Encoding

2007-02-01T22:13:00.000-08:00

Does the Thai script on this page show up correctly in your browser?

คุณสามารถอ่านประโยคนี้ได้ไหมครับ

If it does not properly render, that can probably be remedied by selecting UTF-8 character encoding.

Internet Explorer 6+:
1. Right click on the page (but not on a link).
2. From the context menu, open the Encoding submenu.
3. Note the current setting, in case you ever need to change it back.
4. Choose Encoding | Unicode (UTF-8).

Firefox 1.5:
1. Open the View Menu.
2. Open the Character Encodings submenu.
3. Note the current setting, in case you ever need to change it back.
4. Choose Character Encodings | More Encodings | Unicode | Unicode (UTF-8).

If you know of any other tips and tricks, please feel free to post them here in a comment.

By the way, this page does not render properly for me if I select a Thai character encoding instead of UTF-8.

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Technorati tags: thai language, thai script, character encoding, internet explorer, firefox

Removed

2007-01-31T23:05:00.000-08:00

Update 7.23.2010: I'm removing a few posts that are no longer interesting to me. You can reach the homepage here.

Thanks for your interest!

Thai Word of the Week

2007-01-29T21:46:00.000-08:00

A couple of the language blogs I follow have recently posted about "overlearning" (see AJ's post and Jeremy's posts). "Overlearning", as I understand it, is reviewing material beyond the point where it is understood, in order to acquire it at a much deeper level. I had not heard of this previously, but it sounds like a good idea.

I want to experiment with posting a weekly vocabulary word to this blog. I'll also post an audio clip and transcript of a sentence from a news broadcast that uses the word. This gives me the chance to overlearn the word by listening intensively to a native speaker saying the word in context. As part of my Thai study for the week, I'll spend at least a cumulative half-hour repeatedly listening to the clip.

By the way, if you have any other references on overlearning itself, I'd be interested to read them.

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Technorati tags: thai language

Taking a Forced Break

2007-01-24T22:17:00.000-08:00

Oops.

I dropped my Ipod, and it stopped working. I've tried toggling the hold button and resetting.

It's dead, Jim.

Update: I replaced the busted Ipod, so I'm ready to go again. Be nice to your microelectronics, and they will be nice to you!

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Technorati tags: ipod

Is This Heaven? No, It's the Internet

2007-01-20T21:19:00.000-08:00

Here are my top nine* reasons the internet rocks as a tool for the study of a second language.

9. Online lessons.

8. Availability of research, theory, and personal accounts about what approaches work best.

7. Online shopping, through which it's possible to acquire media, books, and other items to facilitate study.

6. Support, motivation, and other help from online language forums.

5. Ditto for the blogosphere.

4. Tools like WordLearner.com and Audacity.

3. Online dictionaries.

2. Skype-based language exchanges.

1. Availability of streaming media, mp3s, and text.

*Listing the top 10 reasons would have been more conventional, but I think I have 9 good ones here.

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Technorati tags: second language acquisition

Thai Websites for Children

2007-01-19T21:21:00.000-08:00

My son loves the activities and games at pbskids.org and nickjr.com.

Are there any sites like this for children in Thai or French?

Update: Over on ThailandQA.com, a forum member recommended these sites. I haven't spent much time with them, but they look pretty good.

http://www.ffc.or.th/tales/ (Stories)
http://www.kidsquare.com/story (Flash cartoon)

A friend also suggested these sites:
http://www.freewebs.com/karavathai/kids%20project.htm
http://www.plawan.com/game/

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Technorati tags: second language acquisition, french language, thai language, bilingual children, children, parenting

KanTalk

2007-01-18T21:19:00.000-08:00

AJ mentioned a new language exchange site called KanTalk on his blog. I registered, and it looks pretty good.

http://www.kantalk.com

I've been chatting on Skype once a week with a couple of Thai people I met through Mixxer, which has been great.

I believe the research that shows the benefit of an initial silent period in a second language. More generally, I don't think conversation practice contributes to fluency. Spending time listening is the best way to develop speaking ability.

However, if a student has acquired enough of a language to speak without having to think about it, and conversation is done in a relaxed way, it can build confidence and give a checkpoint for progress. And, of course, conversation is fun. For most of us, it's one of the reasons we study a second language.

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Technorati tags: second language acquisition, thai, thai language

Eight Random Things

2007-01-18T07:39:00.000-08:00

[Update: I moved this from 8/18/07 to some random date in the recent past, so that it doesn't show up as the first post of my blog while I slack off from posting.]

Well, obviously I've been very remiss in my blogging lately. Fortunately, I was recently tagged with an internet meme, a request to post eight random things about myself by Tower of Confusion and Aspiring Polyglot.

Here are the rules:

1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged need to write in their own blog about their eight things and include these rules in the post.
4. At the end of your post, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
5. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

Here are 8 random facts about myself:

1. I'm a die-hard Spider Man fan, and I have been all my life. I broke a bone playing Spider Man as a kid, and it was worth it.

2. I never tie my shoes. I tie them once when I buy them. After that, I just slip them on and off. It's uncivilized and bad for the shoes. I know. But everyone has to have a vice, and this is one of mine.

3. Among other countries, I've spent time in Belgium (over a year total), India (4 months total), Thailand (2 months total), and Norway (4 minutes total).

4. In college, I spent a summer serving legal papers requiring people to appear in court, then running away. I don't recommend it. It's a hard job that doesn't pay very well.

5. I used to play guitar and sing in a garage band named Hardline Salvage. My favorite song was "Kansas City Blues".

6. I'm 1.9 meters tall (6 feet 4 inches), but I don't play basketball well. It's too
hard to make the ball go in the hole. I enjoy table tennis.

7. I met Devo at a record signing, then saw them in concert.

8. I also saw Sun Ra in concert.

Now I am supposed to tag 8 blogs. I don't have 8 blogs that haven't already been tagged, but I tag these three:

Thai 101
Japanese For Life
Khun Ying

Experimentation

2007-01-16T21:47:00.000-08:00

I have listened to about 91 hours of news at this time. Recent words include "contest" (ประกวด) and "category" (ประเภท).

VOA recently started making mp3s with transcripts available, which makes a huge difference to me. The online dictionary Thai2English has a feature that allows submission of text from an entire document and easily lookup of any word in the document. Together with transcripts from VOA, this makes it very efficient to find and research new words.

Steve Kaufmann was kind enough to comment on a recent post and give some suggestions about building vocabulary and flashcards. I'm experimenting with new approaches, including modified flashcard practice. I emphasize listening over everything else, but I've recently been uploading unfamiliar words from VOA mp3s to the excellent WordLearner website and practicing them there. This really helps my listening and reading comprehension. I then use repeated listening to help "acquire" what I've "learned".

Since I'm looking up more words and practicing them in an unnatural way, I'm breaking the input model slightly more now than I was before. The upside is that my listening comprehension is much better. On balance, I think this approach is a big improvement. I'm still experimenting and changing it quite a lot.

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Technorati tags: second language acquisition, thai, thai language

Spelling is Hard

2007-01-10T22:03:00.000-08:00

Now that I'm chatting occasionally on instant messenger, I realize how difficult spelling can be. Reading in Thai is very phonetic most of the time, but writing is more difficult. There are often many different choices of letter for a phoneme (like initial ศ, ษ, ศ, final พ, ฟ, ภ, บ, ป, and so on). Words borrowed from other languages can also have a silent letter at the end that's "cancelled out" (as in "คอมพิวเตอร์"). I suppose this is still much easier than English. In English, even the rules for reading are ambiguous.

Usually, my chat partner can tell what I'm trying to spell, but I need to get better at this. Here's what I'm planning. If anyone else has had to learn to spell in a new language, I'd be interested to get advice.

1. Probably the best thing I can do for my spelling is a lot of reading. Eventually, this should provide the necessary intuition for whether a word "looks" right. Unfortunately, my reading is so slow and my vocabulary is still so small that a lot of reading is going to take a lot of time. But I'd like to get faster, so this seems like a good thing to try.

2. There are certain phrases that come up all the time, like "Hello", "Did you eat rice yet?", and "What time is it in Thailand". My name comes up all the time, and the names of the people I chat with come up all the time. For these sorts of words and phrases, I can practice typing them until correct spelling becomes more automatic.

Between these two approaches, I think I'll eventually learn to spell.

Any thoughts?

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Technorati tags: second language acquisition, thai, thai language

Rosetta Stone

2007-01-08T21:46:00.000-08:00

The other day, I learned that my local public library has a site license for Rosetta Stone, which allows patrons to use language courses for free through the library's website. This costs about $50 per month if you subscribe individually, so it's a nice discovery.

I had read some critical reviews of Rosetta Stone, but I've been pleasantly surprised. The majority of each lesson is based on comprehensible input. For example, you hear or read a sentence and select a matching picture from four pictures on the page. This is the technique used by Winitz and Reeds in the papers referenced here*. The exercises are well thought-out and fun.

My main disappointment is that the Thai Level I course (the only Thai course that's available) is much too easy for me. I wish I had learned about this resource 8-9 months ago, when I could have benefited more from it.

I agree with some of the criticisms I've read, but they seem pretty minor. For example, it looks like the authors are using the same sentences and pictures for many different courses, so there's little linguistic or cultural specificity to what is presented.

I have been introduced or re-introduced to a few unfamiliar words (such as the word for "skirt" and certain classifiers). The reading practice is also helpful. But unfortunately, I think I found this resource too late to get a lot of mileage out of it.

I'll be interested to try a course sometime for a language I don't know at all, like Spanish or Japanese.

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* Winitz and Reeds' papers:

Winitz, Harris. 1981. A reconsideration of comprehension and production in language training. The comprehension approach to foreign language instruction, ed. by H. Winitz, 101-40. Rowley: Newburry House Publishers.

Winitz, Harris, and Reeds, James A. 1973. Rapid acquisition of a foreign language (German) by the avoidance of speaking. International Review of Applied Linguistics 11.4.295-317.

Technorati tags: second language acquisition, thai, thai language

Best News All Year

2007-01-02T21:39:00.000-08:00

This made my day.

I noticed this morning that VOA Thai is now posting mp3s with transcripts on their homepage. The availability of transcripts makes their site one of the best sources of comprehensible Thai input on the internet.

I don't know how long they've been doing this, but it's great. Welcome to 2007!

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Technorati tags: second language acquisition, thai language

Mog Software TV and Radio

2006-12-30T21:12:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago, Kikiat suggested a great web resource in a comment.

With a broadband connection, you can stream Thai TV or radio from the Mog Software site for free. If you're using Internet Explorer, navigate to one of these links:

Then click on one of the Windows Media Player icons.

This allows you to stream the television or radio station right on the page.

There are also links for Firefox and Opera users, and a few of the channels and stations open an external Real Player. Among the configurations I tried, my experience was the best in Internet Explorer with the embedded Windows Media Player.

Remember to click on a Windows Media Player icon. If, instead, you click on the name of a channel or station, you are redirected to that station's website, after which you get a lot of unexpected practice reading Thai script.

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Technorati tags: second language acquisition, thai television, thai radio, thai language

When to Speak

2006-12-29T21:09:00.000-08:00

Steve Kaufmann posted a provocative thought on his blog.

I guess I would summarize my philosophy as follows; until I can read and listen to a novel, news programs, and recorded conversations... and enjoy doing so, I have no desire to speak with anyone.

This criterion takes the idea much farther than I have ever tried to take it personally, but I've read a lot recently about the advantages of an initial silent period. Understanding a large amount of input before trying to speak has been shown to result in better grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary for most students. As I've mentioned, I think this can probably be generalized to a behavior that's useful indefinitely in a second language, even after the initial acquisition takes place.

AUA advises students not to speak during the first 800 hours of class time. Steve says he has no desire to speak until he can read and understand a novel. I wonder what other criteria people advise or use for the duration of an initial silent period.

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Technorati tags: second language acquisition

Removed

2006-12-24T11:58:00.000-08:00

Update 7.23.2010: I'm removing a few posts that are no longer interesting to me. You can reach the homepage here.

Thanks for your interest!

Gallery of Obscure Patents

2006-12-23T17:40:00.000-08:00

This is an amusing VOA Thai clip about the online Gallery of Obscure Patents.

Click here to listen. Posted with permission.

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Technorati tags: second language acquisition, patents, thai language

Thai Typing Resources

2006-12-22T21:43:00.000-08:00

All of my Skype language exchanges have involved text instant messaging (IM) as well as voice chat.

I've been able to participate a little in Thai text IM by copy-pasting text from this tool and online dictionaries, but that's obviously very limited. So I now have another reason to learn to type Thai. Lleij Samuel Schwartz mentioned in a comment that a Thai keyboard helps a lot. I found a Thai keyboard in our house, but the cable is PS2, and my PC only accepts USB.

If I'm motivated, having no keyboard may be a good thing, since it will force me to learn touch-typing. Even so, I will need a USB keyboard for the long run.

I did find some resources online.

1. Set-up instructions for non-English typing.
2. A Thai typing tutor.
3. Thai keyboards for sale. I haven't ordered one yet.

Update: I solved my keyboard problem by buying a PS2/USB adapter. Even before attaching the Thai keyboard, I used this image of the Kedmanee keyboard layout along with these mnemonics, and typing didn't look like a lost cause. I'm a decent touch typist in English, which may help. I'm now practicing with this useful list of common phrases. Fortunately, you don't have to type very quickly in an IM session.

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Technorati tags: thai language

AUA Small Talk

2006-12-21T21:59:00.000-08:00

The AUA materials include a great book of dialogues entitled "Small Talk" by Adrian S. Palmer. Since I am experimenting with Skype language exchanges through Mixxer, I am working with this book and CDs again.

The CDs were originally intended for practice drills, but I am using them primarily as a source of comprehensible input. I focus on listening and understanding the phrases and dialogues, rather than trying to follow the drills out loud. If past experience is any indication, new words and phrases will find their own way into my speech after sufficient listening. At times, I do find myself speaking along with the tape, but I don't try to make that happen.

The presence of repetition and substitution drills means that most of the input is not exactly natural, but that drawback is counterbalanced by the fact that, for me, the level is almost perfectly i+1. Also, as with all the AUA CDs, there's very little L1, which is great.

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Technorati tags: second language acquisition, thai language

Practicing Output

2006-12-20T07:02:00.000-08:00

Steve Kaufmann posted an interesting abstract from a study* showing that practicing speech does not appear to improve fluency.

This study investigated whether giving learners an opportunity for oral output has any positive effect on the L2 learners' acquisition of a grammatical form. Twenty-four adult ESL learners were randomly assigned to one of three groups: an output group, which engaged in a picture description task that involved input comprehension and output production; a non-output group, which engaged in a picture sequencing task that required input comprehension only; and a placebo control group. The two treatment groups were exposed to the same aural input for the same amount of time. Learning was assessed by means of a pre-test and a post-test consisting of production and reception parts. The results indicated that, contrary to our expectations, the output group failed to outperform the non-output group. On the contrary, it was the non-output group that showed greater overall gains in learning. A careful post-hoc re-examination of the treatment tasks revealed that the output task failed to engage learners in the syntactic processing that is necessary to trigger L2 learning, while the task for the non-output group appeared to promote better form-meaning mapping.

More and more, I perceive my ability to speak emerging automatically after sufficient listening with understanding. For example, there are certain things my wife says in Thai to my son every day. Having heard them for years, I now also say them, automatically, without thinking or having practiced. The first few times I said them may have been a little awkward, but my speech quickly zeroed in on the sounds I was approximating.

The idea of speech emerging automatically from listening is a radical departure from the way I used to think about language study. Even the way we describe language acquisition in English shows a bias toward practicing speech. When asking whether someone is fluent in another language, we say, "Do you speak French?". Maybe a better question is, "Do you understand French?". If the Comprehension Hypothesis is true, understanding will eventually lead to speech, but speaking doesn't necessarily lead to understanding.

It's very interesting to experiment with this as I study Thai, and I'm sure my ideas about this will continue to change as I read more and gather new experiences.

(*Investigating the Effects of Oral Output on the Learning of Relative Clauses in English: Issues in the Psycholinguistic Requirements for Effective Output Tasks, Canadian Modern Language Review, Yukiko Izumi, MA, Shinichi Izumi, PhD.)

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Technorati tags: second language acquisition, thai, thai language

Code Switching

2006-12-17T21:39:00.000-08:00

I would be interested to know more about the phenomenon known as "code switching". Does anyone have an internet reference? The Wikipedia article, where I would normally start, is marked as needing a complete rewrite.

A few months ago, I posted about the Silent Period Hypothesis and "using what's there". From my post at that time:

For me, "using what's there" consists of using English words, remaining silent, or changing what I'm saying. This completely circumvents a hesitancy that can occur when a student learns by translation and is forced to speak.

Last night, my wife and I had dinner with several French people. They speak English, and I speak passable French, so the conversation drifted freely between English and French. If I didn't have the French vocabulary or construction immediately available, I switched over to English for a sentence or two, and the French people also switched often between the two languages. For me, this was a very relaxed and enjoyable way to practice French.

When I recently exchanged Skype language practice with a Thai man from Bangkok, we did the same thing. I spoke in Thai as much as was comfortable, but switched back to English when I felt I was straining to find the right Thai word or phrase. He also switched back and forth, and the practice session was very relaxed and productive.

I'm wondering whether freely switching languages like this has been studied as an acquisition technique. A bilingual friend recently told me about code switching, which sounded very similar. Is this the same thing?

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Technorati tags: second language acquisition, code switching, french language, thai language

Superman Again

2006-12-12T21:54:00.000-08:00

A while back, I posted a VOA news clip about Superman.

With a lot of help from my Thai wife, I have posted a transcript at the link below. I'm using it as a supplement to the audio. I hope it's helpful to other people as well.

Superman บินได้...

Transcribing this made me realize:

1. I need to learn to type Thai properly, so that I don't have to copy-paste from this tool and the online dictionaries at thai2english and thai-language.com.
2. When listening, I still often confuse the short and long "a" sounds อะ and อา.
3. I don't understand spacing rules in Thai very well.
4. Transcription takes a lot of time. :)

(VOA clip used with permission.)

Technorati tags: second language acquisition, thai language

How to Do A Language Exchange

2006-12-10T08:11:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I posted about my first Mixxer language exchange.

Omniglot recently mentioned another language exchange site, which has an interesting page on how to do a language exchange. The site also has lesson plans, which include good ideas for things to talk about.

Do you have experience with Skype language exchanges? I would be interested to get tips and pointers on how to get started. How often do you meet? Do you follow a structured format? How many people do you meet with? What do you talk about?

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Technorati tags: second language acquisition, language exchange, thai language

Mixxer

2006-12-09T08:21:00.000-08:00

By reading omniglot.com, I learned about Mixxer, a language exchange site that makes it easy to find partners for conversation practice. Last night, I contacted a Thai speaker from Bangkok and practiced conversation a little with him on Skype. We chatted for about half an hour, switching back and forth between languages, so that we both had a chance to practice in the other language. Everything was free, including the Skype call to Bangkok.

This will be a great resource for conversation practice. It's amazing how the internet has revolutionized language acquisition.

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Technorati tags: second language acquisition, thai language

Tone Sandhi and Cursive Speech

2006-12-05T21:52:00.000-08:00

There is an interesting, detailed description of Thai tones from a learner's perspective at this webpage. I'm especially interested in the last couple of paragraphs:

What is cursive writing? That's when we write letters together in a string without lifting the pen up - the "b" runs into the "a" which runs into the "d". Why do we do such a lazy thing? Because it is faster. The same holds true for speech and tones in Thai. If Thai speakers were required to make a pure flat "high" tone followed by a pure flat "low" tone just as the Thai guide books imply, then they'd have to literally stop their voice & restart it at each tone at the exact level required.

So in cursive, natural speed speech, Thais need tones which can run from one to the next.

I don't normally think about tones in this much detail. But I have noticed that tones used in normal speech are more fluid than I used to think.

A linguist was recently telling me about "tone sandhi", a term for tonal pronunciation which changes depending on surrounding words. He compared this to an English speaker pronouncing the acronym "NPR" (a public radio network in the U.S.), which is often pronounced "em P R".

Much of the language acquisition material that I've read suggests focusing on phrases when acquiring words. Tone sandhi seems like one good reason to emphasize phrases.

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Technorati tags: second language acquisition, thai, thai language

How To Learn Any Language

2006-11-29T21:48:00.000-08:00

By reading Paul Davidson's Japanese for Life blog, I discovered that there is a terrific web community for language students at how-to-learn-any-language.com. I registered today for their free forum. I'm looking forward to reading about people's experiences, getting language acquisition tips, and possibly even connecting with other Thai language students and speakers.

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Technorati tags: second language acquisition

Superman Returns

2006-11-27T21:35:00.000-08:00

VOA Thai recently gave me permission to post MP3 clips from their news programs.

Here is a great little clip about Superman from last summer, when Superman Returns was released in theatres.

Click here to listen

(From VOA Thai, used with permission.)

I love listening to this kind of report, in which the subject matter is very interesting* and very familiar. Even if a lot of the vocabulary is new, there are enough "hooks" to make sense out of the report, and the vocabulary becomes more familiar the more I listen.

*Superman is, of course, super-interesting!
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Technorati tags: second language acquisition, thai, thai language, superman

Thai Morphology

2006-11-26T22:28:00.000-08:00

A surprising number of people happen upon my blog looking for information about Thai morphology. I am not a linguist, but I decided to post what little I know about it. I hope that someone will find it useful.

There is no inflectional morphology at all in Thai. Nouns, verbs, and adjectives do not inflect, nor does any other part of speech. In cases where inflection would communicate essential information, such as number or tense, additional words are used to convey that information. For example, "I walk already" would be the Thai equivalent of "I walked".

Although there is no inflectional morphology, Thai does have derivational morphology using a small set of prefixes. The site thai-language.com has this excellent list of common prefixes which change the part of speech or meaning of the words they precede. Also note that thai-language.com has transliterations of the Thai words below, as well as mp3s of native speakers pronouncing them.

การ converts a verb or adjective into a noun, a general abstract description of the state or static process. For example, ตกปลา (to fish) becomes the general, abstract activity การตกปลา (fishing), a noun or adjective.

ความ converts a verb or adjective into a noun, the general abstract feeling of the action. For example, เร็ว (fast) becomes ความเร็ว (speed), or ร้อน (hot) becomes ความร้อน (heat).

ด้วย just as in English, the word 'with' can have the effect of converting a noun into an adverb. For example, ความนับถือ (respect) becomes ด้วยความนับถือ (respectfully).

โดย converts a noun into an adverb, For example, เร็ว (fast) becomes โดยเร็ว (quickly), or ง่าย (easy) becomes โดยง่าย (easily).

น่า converts a verb into an adjective which expresses an opinion of the verb as worth enacting, similar to the -able suffix in English. For example, รัก (love) becomes น่ารัก (lovable), or เกลียด (hate) becomes น่าเกลียด (hatable).

If there are errors or omissions, please feel free to comment, clarify, or correct me.

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Technorati tags: linguistics, thai, thai language

Removed

2006-11-24T21:28:00.000-08:00

Update 7.23.2010: I'm removing a few posts that are no longer interesting to me. You can reach the homepage here.

Thanks for your interest!

Don't Try to Follow Every Word

2006-11-19T12:20:00.000-08:00

When I registered at AUA, an instructor evaluated my Thai knowledge for placement. As part of the evaluation, she watched me listen to a conversation and checked my comprehension. After the placement was complete, she gave me some advice. She said, "When you listened to that conversation, you were trying to understand every word. If you try to follow every word, you won't understand the story. Don't pay attention to every word -just pay attention to the story." I thought this was a great explanation of how to acquire another language through listening.

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Technorati tags: second language acquisition, thai, thai language

The Trouble with Barney

2006-11-12T20:17:00.000-08:00

Update: Over on omniglot.com, a commenter claims that Thai singing does use tones. This certainly could be true -I just can't hear it in the children's counting song I mention below.

I have some reservations about Barney the purple dinosaur.

I'm an educated man in my late thirties, but my reservations have nothing to do with watching a stuffed dinosaur come to life. It's not that Barney is too cute and cheery, or that I already know my shapes and colors and don't feel a need to review them.

The problem with Barney is that he sings.

I've been watching Barney dubbed into Thai with my three year old son. Overall, it's a pretty good source of input. The shows review and reinforce important vocabulary, like days of the week, numbers, colors, and shapes. Review of basic vocabulary is interspersed with easy dialog. The only problem is the singing.

Thai is a tonal language, which makes it impossible to learn correct pronunciation from songs. This is most obvious to me when Barney sings his numbers. In Barney's counting song, there are no tones at all, just musical notes. Although I'm very familiar with Thai numbers, it sounds strange, foreign, and hard to understand. There would be no way to learn correct tonal pronunciation by listening to it.

On the other hand, Barney has excellent spoken dialog, and Thai children listen to songs without a negative effect on pronunciation. The Barney input is helpful, as long as I don't focus on the songs or try to learn vocabulary from them.

Removed

2006-11-08T23:20:00.000-08:00

Update 7.23.2010: I'm removing a few posts that are no longer interesting to me. You can reach the homepage here.

Thanks for your interest!

Removed

2006-11-06T23:02:00.000-08:00

Update 7.23.2010: I'm removing a few posts that are no longer interesting to me. You can reach the homepage here.

Thanks for your interest!

Implicit Review

2006-11-02T23:34:00.000-08:00

I'm still emphasizing news broadcasts. I've listened to a total of about 60 hours of news.

Last summer, I stopped reviewing vocabulary with flash cards, because I became convinced that it's better to emphasize "input" over memorization. But I accomplish a lot of implicit review just by listening to the daily news.

For example, not long ago I acquired the word for "senator" by listening repeatedly to the news about U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman's defeat in a primary election. Since then, the word for "senator" has occurred quite often due to upcoming elections in the U.S. Every time the word occurs, I hear it in a meaningful context with native pronunciation. It's a very pleasant and, I think, productive way to review vocabulary. I now feel like the word for "senator" is completely built-in to my brain.

One consideration about building vocabulary in this way is that it takes a lot of time. Back when I was using flash cards, it seemed like I was learning a lot of words very quickly. But many of those words were forgotten after I had memorized them. Words that I acquire naturally are much more permanent.

Removed

2006-10-18T21:24:00.000-07:00

Updated: I'm removing a few posts that are no longer interesting to me. You can reach the homepage here.

Thanks for your interest!

Taking a Break

2006-09-26T22:38:00.000-07:00

Last week, I substantially reduced the intensity of my Thai language listening. One of the Automatic Language Growth papers by J. Marvin Brown suggests that language skill continues to improve during breaks between study. Steve Kaufmann, who speaks many languages and owns an internet ESL company, also writes that skill can improve during breaks. So, I'm trying it out.

Part of the motivation for taking a break now is that my son recently started attending a French immersion school. I've been practicing French quite a bit more than usual, by reading books, singing songs, and watching DVDs, which doesn't leave a lot of time or energy for Thai. This is temporary. From past experience, I know that I'm at a point in my French learning where it will continue on its own once I've adjusted to it.

The other part of my motivation is that I was starting to push myself to maintain my rate of Thai input. It's better if interest and curiosity come from within, in which case there's no need to push.

I'm still receiving some Thai input -I watched the Little Mermaid in Thai on Saturday, and I listened to the news for an hour on Monday. But I'm easing up for a couple of weeks to let things incubate.

Logical

2006-09-09T21:15:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about Thai compounding lately. Many common Thai words are made up of simpler component words. For example, the word for "river" translates to "mother of water". The word for "electricity" translates to "sky fire". (I personally associate "sky fire" with lightning, although the Thai word for "lightning" is different.) Tears are "eye water", calmness is a "cool heart", and so on.

The online dictionaries thai-language.com and thai2english.com give component words along with translations, and it's always interesting to see the components. Component words are often more common, and, while I don't try to use this information in any explicit way, I think the component words provide little automatic hooks for building vocabulary. Once I've associated "sky fire" with electricity, it's hard to forget.

A related phenomenon is "derivational morphology", where Thai words can change their nuance or part of speech by a small set of common prefixes. As I hear these prefixes in different contexts and become more familiar with them, they really contribute to my comprehension.

Between compounding and derivational morphology, vocabulary in much of Thai is pretty logical. The more challenging vocabulary includes proper names, words borrowed from other languages, and "specialized" vocabulary such as that used by and for royalty.

Comfortable and Curious

2006-09-05T21:31:00.000-07:00

150 hours:

I've listened to about 38 hours of news so far. Words which have recently become familiar include words for "nuclear reactor", "agency", and "Germany". The Thai system for numbering years is also becoming more familiar.

A colleague tells me that as an undergraduate math major, I claimed that success in mathematics is a matter of getting comfortable with not understanding everything right away. I don't remember making this claim, but I think there's some truth in it. Being comfortable and curious with partial understanding is a great mindset for learning all kinds of things.

To acquire a word or language pattern naturally through "i+1" input, I have to hear it many times. New words and patterns start as meaningless streams of syllables interspersed with better understood context. Gradually, I differentiate each new word or pattern as a sort of "motif" that's appearing over and over in different contexts. As more and more context is understood, and the word continues to recur, it becomes very familiar. Eventually I recognize and understand it immediately, without effort. At some point during this process, I usually verify my understanding of the new word with a dictionary or native speaker. This breaks the input model slightly, but I feel that it's helpful, since I'm studying without the aid of a teacher. Words acquired in this patient manner are easily available to me, without review, effort, or memorization.

This process requires me to be comfortable with not understanding everything right away.

The Din of the Night

2006-08-30T22:30:00.000-07:00

A while back I wrote about "din", which I equate to getting language "stuck in your head" like a pop song. Common sense suggests that one way to experience this would be to listen to repetitive input for many hours in one day. The most Thai listening I've been able to squeeze into a day since then is about two and a half hours, which isn't much.

So I may not have experienced exactly what Krashen would call "din", but I have noticed something interesting. When I'm falling asleep at night or waking up in the morning, I'll usually hear something from my Thai mp3s in my head. Maybe this is some kind of mental "practice", similar to din.

It's not always the case that what I hear when falling asleep comes from something the same day. Often it's from audio which I haven't listened to in a few days or more. It's interesting how the mind works.

Deadwood

2006-08-28T21:55:00.000-07:00

I almost never watch westerns, but I have been enjoying the HBO series "Deadwood" on DVD. I'm pondering the use of English in the show and comparing it to the Thai movies and television I sometimes watch.

The vocabulary in Deadwood consists of common words, but for an ESL learner the level of English would be quite advanced. The characters speak in outdated idioms and turns of phrase. Important plot points are communicated by indirect dialogue. There's an implicit assumption that the viewer is familiar with American history, culture, and geography. Even as a native speaker, I have to watch and listen carefully.

The closest Thai equivalent I can think of is a movie that uses a regional dialect (like parts of Ong Bak, Thai Warrior) or a royal dialect (like Legend of Suriyothai).

It's interesting to me that the "advanced" nature of the English in Deadwood is due to cultural, stylistic, and idiomatic features, rather than vocabulary.

Training for Thai

2006-08-21T22:06:00.000-07:00

135 hours:

A few weeks ago, AJ wrote a great motivational post entitled, "Learn a Language, Get in Shape!", pointing out how L2 input and physical exercise can be done at the same time.

I recently started training for the Seattle half-marathon, which will take place in November. My times in previous half-marathons have been slow, but I'm quite content to get some exercise, enjoy the race, and finish without injury. If I'm lucky, I may even take a few minutes off of my personal record.

Running provides a great opportunity to listen to Thai language mp3s. I'm running for a half-hour a few times per week, plus a longer run on the weekend, so the hours accumulate quickly.

I've had to solve a few issues. The main one is that ambient noise like wind or traffic is a big obstacle to comprehension. Since I value my hearing, I don't want to compensate for ambient noise by turning up the volume. I never noticed a problem with ambient noise while listening to NPR podcasts or English talking books, so I must be much better at unconsciously filling in gaps in English.

After a number of experiments, I'm now using a pair of Sony earbuds which cut down considerably on ambient noise. It also helps to listen to short, 1-5 minute segments over and over, rather than trying to listen to an entire newscast. This enables me to follow the thread even when a few words are lost.

Din in the Head

2006-08-17T21:07:00.000-07:00

Stephen Krashen has written about a phenomenon he calls "din". It's something like getting a song stuck in your head. Din is an "involuntary mental rehearsal" which people sometimes experience after a lot of exposure to L2 input. Krashen quotes a Russian language learner describing the experience this way:

"By the third day, the linguist in me was noticing a rising din of Russian in my head: words, sounds, intonations, phrases, all swimming about in the voices of people I talked with. This din blocked out all my other languages."*

I've personally experienced short Thai phrases and sentences getting stuck in my head, but never anything quite as dramatic as what's described here. It would be an interesting experiment to try to induce "din" by listening to comprehensible input for a long time at once. It seems like short, interesting, repetitive input might be the most likely to induce this phenomenon.

Unfortunately, this experiment would require that I find a few consecutive hours during which I can listen to Thai audio, and the only time that is available is in the evening after my son goes to sleep. It could be hard to stay awake and alert. Maybe a cup of coffee would help.

(*Elizabeth Barber, quoted in Krashen 1983, found in this pdf file which takes a long time to load. The original paper does not appear to be archived on the internet.)

2006-08-15T21:40:00.000-07:00

130 hours:

For a change of pace, I'm listening to audio from a Thai cartoon called Pang Pond (flash site). Some of the silly dialogue is getting stuck in my head, which is perfect.

To say the least, the vocabulary is different from that of internet news broadcasts. I haven't heard one mention of President Bush, Lebanon, or Bird Flu. The word "jao naa tii" (เจ้าหน้าที่ , meaning "police" or "authorities"), which I learned from the news, does appear in an episode about UFOs. Many words which haven't been reinforced for a long time also appear.

I suppose this doesn't do much to fine-tune my pronunciation, unless I want to talk like a cartoon. If an ESL learner only ever listened to Bugs Bunny, they might end up with an unusual way of talking. But a little of this keeps things fun.

2006-08-07T21:09:00.000-07:00

117 hours:

I've spent about 15 hours so far listening to news stories. One nice thing about news stories is that the domain is somewhat restricted, so new words get repeated a lot.

Examples of words which have recently become very familiar are words for "report", "news", and "company". Many geographical and political terms have become very familiar. Sadly, words dealing with war and loss of life are also becoming very familiar.

Examples of words which have recently become somewhat familiar are words for "government", "president", "prime minister", "science", and "environment".

Words for "crude oil", "atomic", and "fuel" have appeared, but they have not yet become familiar.

Listening to the news is a lot like narrow listening. The domain of discussion is restricted, subjects change slowly from day to day, and the subjects are interesting. An entire news broadcast is longer than the 1-3 minutes recommended for narrow listening, but broadcasts can be edited in Audacity, and individual stories are usually 1-3 minutes, give or take.

2006-08-05T09:56:00.000-07:00

115 hours :

Earlier this year, I was surprised by the very rapid way my vocabulary was growing. I think this was partly because I had such a small vocabulary to begin with. The old AUA books and tapes where I started learning Thai deemphasize vocabulary almost completely, teaching just enough to support grammar patterns, simple dialogue, and pronunciation. When I started attending the new AUA and focusing on input, my vocabulary increased very rapidly.

Recently, my vocabulary acquisition has noticeably slowed. This is expected -I have already acquired the very high-frequency words. As I get closer and closer to the long tail of the Zipf distribution, new words occur and recur less frequently. So of course, they take longer to acquire.

I spend most of my practice time these days listening to the news. Despite my previously mentioned concerns about propaganda, VOA is the most comprehensible Thai news I've found on the web. Almost every segment has a mix of completely new vocabulary, somewhat familiar vocabulary, and very familiar vocabulary, so it's never too far from i+1.

One of my goals for the future is to understand Radio Japan news broadcasts in Thai. Radio Japan is much more demanding than VOA. The announcers speak faster, the vocabulary is harder, and the subject matter is less familiar. When I can understand Radio Japan, I'll know that I've made a lot of progress.

2006-08-02T22:05:00.000-07:00

AUA uses a student's cumulative number of classroom hours as a guideline for expected level of acquisition. Every 200 classroom hours or so, most native English speakers are ready to advance to a new level of Thai. Classroom time at AUA is primarily spent actively listening to native speakers.

Inspired by AUA, I started keeping track of how many hours I listen to Thai. I took 32 hours of AUA classes in April. Since then, I've listened to 80 hours of other content, so I'm currently averaging around 27 hours a month, for a total of 112 hours.

I only count quality time. Mp3s count, but only if I'm paying attention. Movies count, but only if I watch without subtitles or significant distraction. Thai radio playing in the background does not count. Little snippets here and there don't count. In other words, my total is a conservative measure of high-quality input since April, but it's not anywhere close to the number of hours I've actually been exposed to Thai.

For the last three months, I've blogged mainly about my ongoing epiphany that people can acquire languages naturally through input. Now I think it might be interesting to reflect on changes as I listen more and more, using this cumulative total as a measure.

2006-07-31T21:09:00.000-07:00

I'm a big fan of Stephen Krashen's research and the comprehension hypothesis. I'm garnering enough experience learning Thai that I'm now convinced that input is the only way to truly acquire a language.

Recently, I've been thinking about how to determine a level of input that provides optimally efficient acquisition. That is, how can I tell when input is at level "i+1"? The American University Alumni language school uses a very pure input approach, and they provide some guidelines. AUA instructors target 80% or greater understanding for all of their students. For AUA, "understanding" includes not only familiar vocabulary, but also the context of visual and experiential cues. For example, a beginning student playing Uno in Thai might understand fewer than 80% of the words, but most people who already know the game would understand at least 80% of the experience. After a large amount of comprehensible experience in the foreign language, words acquire meaning without resorting to translation.

I think an 80% rule-of-thumb is good, and an inclusive definition of understanding is also good. In fact, I cannot imagine a pure input approach which does not allow for understanding by contextual cues. Without contextual cues, there would be no way to "get started" without introducing translation of some sort and breaking the input model.

This definition of understanding means that all sorts of material is available. For the months of May and June, I studied primarily by watching children's movies in Thai. I avoided subtitles, since they can interfere with acquisition. By using visual and contextual cues, I was able to have 80% or greater comprehension while only following 30% of the spoken dialogue. Watching the same movies again and again, my comprehension of the spoken dialogue improved, and for one those movies it's now around 60-70% and still growing.

My vocabulary is bigger than it was in May, and a new source of comprehensible input is radio news stories. If I already know something about the subject, I can fill in gaps left by unfamiliar vocabulary. If I don't know much about the subject, I have to understand more of the vocabulary. The vocabulary is usually easiest in human interest stories, like a review of the week's top movies.

It's not always possible to understand 80% of everything. Like Tony, an enthusiastic ESL blogger, I place the highest priority on my level of interest. If I am very interested, I will listen again and again with a great desire to uncover the meaning. Even if I only understand 50%, the listening is very productive.

I am not a purist. A very pure input approach doesn't seem practical without a teacher. I own a dictionary, and I do use it. However, I strongly emphasize input over anything else, and I avoid memorization, letting words and phrases build themselves into my vocabulary naturally.

2006-07-26T21:39:00.000-07:00

I have been listening to the Voice of America in Thai.

It's propaganda. I know. As an American who values critical thinking, I'm suspicious of any media outlet that is controlled by my government... especially recently.

But as a Thai acquisition device, VOA is awesome. The vocabulary is everyday. The content is interesting. The announcers are engaging. I often know something about the topics. Words get repeated often. Individual stories are perfect for narrow listening.

I edit the news in Audacity and listen to interesting segments over and over. As usual with Thai content on the internet, the content is a little beyond my i+1 level. But I can look up a few words.

2006-07-15T21:38:00.000-07:00

Stephen Krashen, the American University Alumni school (AUA), and others recommend an initial "silent period" for students of a second language. During the silent period, the student is instructed to listen and understand, but not try to speak. When I registered at AUA in Bangkok, an instructor asked me many questions in both Thai and English while observing my answers, speech, and comprehension. Because of my background in Thai, I was placed at an advanced level where complete silence is not required. Consequently, I do not try to stay "silent" all the time in Thai. However, there is a long-term version of the silent period, which is a useful behavior pattern in general for language acquisition. AUA alludes to this in some of their literature, such as this paragraph from "Just Let Me Try To Say It" by David Long (italics mine).

'When will I start to speak?' Without doubt, this is the most often asked question. This is also a question that a baby or young child never asks. The easiest answer is, 'When you're ready.' Each person will be little different but overall, when a student has acquired between 60% and 70% of the new language the phonemes of the new language are firmly set. After that, it is simply a question of whether or not the word is 'there' when you need it or not. If it's not, don't worry about it. Use what's there. You'll be amazed at how well it will work for you. When a student begins speaking, it isn't that the language will immediately come out perfect, but that he doesn't have to 'remember' anything at all. He will simply think the thought and the words will be there. This is exactly how your native language works for you. The key is that because the student is drawing only from the input of Thai teachers, those things he says will correct themselves in just a short while.

Just Let Me Try To Say It, David Long

For me, "using what's there" consists of using English words, remaining silent, or changing what I'm saying. This completely circumvents a hesitancy that can occur when a student learns by translation and is forced to speak. I often experience this "translation hesitancy" when I am speaking French, a language I speak well, but learned by translation. I believe that in the long term, my Thai will be better than my French, because I'm learning by input and "using what's there". Even now, Thai often feels more natural than French, even though my vocabulary is much smaller, there's less similarity to English, and I've spent less time with it.

2006-07-11T21:32:00.000-07:00

For the last week or so, I have been listening to a 12 minute Thai Buddhist discourse called "Living With the Cobra". It's somewhat beyond an i+1 level for me, but not by much. It's short, I have a transcript, and there are many repeated words, so with a little help from my wife, I can make sense out of it. People tell me that discourses on Buddhism are usually difficult because of specialized words and language. This particular one does have some specialized language, but it seems more accessible, perhaps because it's addressed to a westerner.

I could listen to this audio for hours and hours without losing interest. In college, I listened to a tape of the philosopher J. Krishnamurti over and over. It was all-absorbing because the subject was so interesting and he is so eloquent. By listening repeatedly with interest, I automatically reached a point where I had large parts of the tape memorized, including Krishnamurti's intonation, rhythm, and even pronunciation. This Thai mp3 is on a similar subject, and the speaker is similarly engaging. I can imagine myself assimilating this mp3 in the same way over time.

2006-07-03T21:54:00.000-07:00

My son is almost three years old. Consequently, over the past couple of years, I have had the opportunity to observe his natural language acquisition. It has been fascinating. Several things surprised me, most notably that if he cannot pronounce or does not know all of the words in a phrase, it doesn't stop him at all. He just says the phrase, coming as close as he can to the unknown words. Over time, these "approximations" come closer and closer to the words he is imitating.

His internal model of the words and phrases is apparently far ahead of his pronunciation. If we misunderstand a word or phrase, he always corrects us and says "no", that is not what he meant. Then he repeats what he said. Sometimes, he will repeat the misunderstood word several times, while we try different guesses at what he is approximating. Once we arrive at the right word, he finally tells us "yes" -that's what he meant.

This seems very relevant for my acquisition of Thai, and at the same time it is somehow very reassuring. If a child's acquisition of language can be an accurate model for an adult's acquisition of a second language, pronunciation will come along by itself, without explicit practice, once an accurate internal model of words and phrases is established. This is consistent with my understanding of the AUA literature and other research on second language acquisition. The nice thing is that it's normal to pronounce things imperfectly at first, and it's not harmful as long as an accurate internal model of words and phonemes has been well-established by extensive listening to native speakers.

2006-06-28T21:44:00.000-07:00

To get some sense of my progress, I've been trying to estimate how many words I know in Thai. I have approached this in a couple of different ways. First, I've thought through related sets of words. I know twelve months, ten colors, seven days of the week, fourty-four consonants, etc. Secondly, I've glanced over word lists, such as the vocabulary index of a Thai textbook and the entries in a learner's dictionary. By using the size of a list and the percentage of words I recognize, I can produce an estimate. My best estimate is that I know about a thousand words.

In doing this exercise, I've realized that it's actually not clear to me what it means to "know" a word. While very frequent words are clearly "known", and words I've never heard are "unknown", there is a whole range of other possibilities. There are words that I understand when listening but cannot correctly use. There are words that I recognize and understand only in context, and there are words for which my sense is still emerging and incomplete. Even taking into account this ambiguity, I think 1000 words is reasonably accurate.

Now that I know what I know, I'd like to find statistics for Thai showing that the most frequent 1000 words cover x% of spoken language, the most frequent 2000 words cover y%, etc. This lexical coverage information is easy to find for English, but I have been unable to find anything for Thai. So I've resigned myself to trying to estimate for Thai by using what is known for English.

One consideration in trying to apply English lexical coverage to Thai is that Thai morphology is not as productive as that of English. An ESL learner who acquires a word like "create" also acquires a whole family of words, including "creates", "created", "creative", "creation", and "recreate". In Thai, there are no such families of words. Other words function in place of morphology. For example, to say "created", a Thai speaker would say "create already". Word families in Thai are families of one.

I found some research on Marlise Horst's website showing that, with a vocabulary of the thousand most frequent word families in English, students understand about 85% of spoken language. To increase that comprehension to 98%, a vocabulary of 6000-7000 word families is needed. Due to the difference in morphology, statistics for word families in English might give a rough approximation of statistics for individual words in Thai. This jibes with my experience. With my thousand word vocabulary, I think it's accurate that I understand about 85% of spoken Thai. This assumes an idealization where the only impediments to following a dialogue are vocabulary and grammar. The ability to listen to spoken dialogue at a normal rate of speed in a variety of regional accents is a separate issue.

The Linguist, an interesting ESL website, has another way to measure proficiency in a second language using the number of known words.

Beginner a) 2,000 b) 3,500 Intermediate a) 5,000 b) 7,500 Advanced a) 10,000 b) 12,500 (source: The Linguist blog)

This system is for English, and every word in a word family is counted, so an attempt to apply it to Thai would again require taking into account the difference in morphology. Playing with the numeric data from Horst's site, it appears that there is an average of two words in an English word family, with the most frequent families being the largest. Since Thai has word families of one word each, it seems reasonable to multiply the number of words in my vocabulary by a little more than 2 to acquire a rough estimate of an equivalent ESL vocabulary. With my thousand word vocabulary, I'm the equivalent of an ESL student a little past "Beginner A". This seems about right.

2006-06-27T21:08:00.000-07:00

It's interesting to observe how learning works. J. Marvin Brown's article "Learn Languages Like Children" mentions an "incubation" phenomenon, where a student's ability in a foreign language improves after a hiatus. As a graduate student, I certainly experienced this with mathematics. As a hobbyist musician, I also observe this when practicing an instrument.

My recent approach with Thai has been simply to listen "effortlessly but with understanding". One of my staples is watching movies. It is often easy to understand a movie without understanding all of the dialogue, by using visual cues and other context. This is especially true with children's movies.

It's very interesting to come back to the same movie again after a period of time. My comprehension invariably increases without any work on my part. Clearly, this is at least partly because I am on the next iteration of hearing the same dialogue, but I wonder whether it is also related to "incubation" that occurs between subsequent viewings, when I am not even exposed to Thai.

2006-06-10T07:46:00.000-07:00

I have been coming to a provisional personal philosophy about language acquisition. Recently, I've been exposed to a lot of very convincing thought and research, such as Krashen's, suggesting that an "input" approach produces better long-term results than a conventional "skill-building" approach. An "input" approach teaches speaking through listening and writing through reading, while a "skill-building" approach teaches vocabulary and grammar through memorization, translation, and explanation.

When I learned French, the class used a very traditional skill-building approach. We memorized a vocabulary list, a dialogue, and grammar rules for each chapter, moving through a chapter every couple of weeks. I learned a lot of words this way, and I could produce many correct sentences on a variety of topics. As A. J. points out in his blog, part of the appeal of a memorization and translation approach is the appearance of rapid progress. There's a measurable increase in vocabulary and grammar as "known" words and rules are added to a big list.

However, after four years of French classes, I was still very weak at understanding spoken dialogue or producing language in novel situations. When I spent a year in French-speaking Belgium, I was finally presented with a large amount of "input", from my host family, friends, school, and the media. It was at that point that the language became much, much more "natural" to me. I no longer was translating from a memorized set of words, phrases, and rules -what I needed to say was "just there" as I needed it.

The skill-building approach used in my French classes is the opposite of a pure input approach, such as that of AUA, where translation and memorization are seen as unnecessary, and even undesirable. The input approach builds vocabulary and grammar in a completely different manner. As teachers present subjects using visual cues, acting, and gestures, words are very gradually discerned by the students from a stream of initially meaningless sounds, and they acquire meaning in context of other words and situations. The AUA literature even goes so far as to say that trying to learn particular words by memorization and translation is harmful to the quality of the end result. The process is modeled after the way children acquire their first language.

The philosophy behind the input approach is very convincing to me. Having learned words and phrases in both French and Thai using a combination of methods, I can clearly feel the difference between what has been learned naturally through input, and what has been learned artificially through skill-building. The former are "part of me", while the latter are fragile, easy to forget, and require an effort to use.

A difficulty arises for someone like me, living in an English speaking country, with no opportunity to attend an input-driven language program like AUA. The natural input available to me most of the time consists of Thai movies, MP3s, and dialogue between my wife and my son. The advantage of a program like AUA is that the teachers are charged with keeping their presentations at an i+1 level, ensuring maximum productivity from the classroom sessions. Language acquisition is slower from films and MP3s, as they do not gauge a student's understanding, slow down, restate, or explain in simpler terms. It would be nice if there were a way to supplement this input, to make it more productive in terms of acquisition.

I am attending Thai language classes at a local temple, where the class emphasizes translation and memorization. The words I've been learning are very high-frequency words. I've found that many of the words I have learned in this way have been immediately reinforced by appearing in context in movies or other natural dialogue. It occurs to me that one way to proceed might be to allow vocabulary and grammar study to take place "casually", without drill, memorization, or review efforts, then allow a large amount of natural input to provide the reinforcement and context for what is learned. At the same time, I can probably avoid "reaching" for words when speaking, reverting to my mother tongue whenever the L2 construction is not immediately available. This seems to circumvent a major pitfall of skill-building, namely that translations are always imprecise to varying degrees, and that students often begin to use words before they have an adequate context, resulting in "fossilized" constructions which are grammatically, semantically, or phonetically incorrect.

2006-06-07T21:20:00.000-07:00

I have been working through the AUA books entitled Reading and Writing. The Thai writing system has 44 consonants, which are divided into three classes, arbitrarily named high, mid, and low. The consonant classes are used to determine tones. One of the challenges Thai students face is to learn which consonants belong to which class. During the Thai class I took in graduate school, the writing system was de-emphasized until the second half of the course, at which point there was an intensive memorization effort aimed at the consonant classes and the corresponding rules. I did well with the homework, quizzes, and exams, but I never felt that I had mastered the material.

As usual, I find the AUA approach to be remarkably innovative, well thought-out, and interesting. Rather than jumping right into memorizing classes and tone rules, the AUA book starts by distinguishing sonorant consonants from aspirates and plain stops. Grouping consonants in this way requires no memorization -once the student understands the distinction, it is obvious which group each consonant belongs to. For example, "m" and "n" are sonorants because the larynx vibrates when they are pronounced. Further lessons explain that that sonorants are all low class and plain stops are all mid class, while explaining the tone rules for each class. This makes learning their classes and the corresponding rules very easy. The aspirates then have to be sorted into high and low class. Sorting out the aspirates is also easy, because the initial syllable of the name of each aspirate has either a rising tone (ขอ ไข่) or a mid tone (คอ ควาย). In the former case, the class is high, and in the latter case, the class is low.

2006-06-03T09:49:00.000-07:00

I have another movie review, this time for Ong Bak, Thai Warrior. It's a great film for muay thai boxing and stunt work, but a bad movie for learning Thai, at least at my level. The dialogue is composed mainly of the Isan dialect and central slang. It is also somewhat sparse, as a lot of time is taken up by boxing and stunts.

I did get a better sense of some words in informal Thai, like the particle "wa" and the word "dtang" for money, and it was interesting to hear Isan. I also really enjoyed the muay thai, the elaborate stunt work, and the action scenes in Bangkok. But I don't think seeing this movie again soon would help me much with Thai language skill.

***** for muay thai
***** for stunts
** for value as a language acquisition tool

2006-06-01T21:36:00.000-07:00

Last night I watched 6ixtynin9, a Thai movie that I rented from Netflix. It was great. The reviews pointed out that it's heavily influenced by Quentin Tarantino. I agree that some aspects show his influence, such as characteristic framing and liberal doses of tongue-in-cheek violence. I also wonder about the influence of David Lynch. There are some quirky scenes that remind me more of Lynch than Tarantino, such as one in which a mobster starts to cry about missing his mother. I thought Lalita Panyopas' portrayal of the main character was very good. I had only seen her in a campy police drama made for television, so I was surprised to see how well she can act.

The story is easy to follow without using subtitles. I would say that I understood 30-40% of the spoken dialogue, and 90-100% of the story. As AJ Hoge nicely puts it in his AUA observations, it was easy to "forget" that I was watching a movie in Thai. I'll probably watch this at least once again before sending it back. It is a nice change from watching "Finding Nemo" dubbed into Thai for the nth time.

2006-05-31T21:07:00.000-07:00

In my search for "comprehensible input", I have been delighted to find excellent Thai language audio resources at http://www.learningthai.com. The link labeled "Listen" navigates to dialogs, essays, and stories written and read by primary school students.

I'm currently listening to the story called "Red Boat". As I repeatedly listen over time, it is becoming more and more comprehensible, reminding me of the way features used to slowly appear in old Polaroid photographs. At first, I thought I would need to work to "make" this process happen, but it doesn't seem to be necessary. I listen over and over, between watching Thai DVDs and listening to my Thai wife speak, and the stream of nonsense is starting to acquire meaning. Even if some of the story is beyond my "i+1" level at any given time, parts of the narrative are always at the proper level. This method turns everything I thought I knew about language study on its head.

I am studying Thai language once a week at the Buddhist temple near my house. It's great to meet other friendly farang who are interested in learning Thai, and to chat with the monks and Thai people who stop by the temple. I have some interest in Buddhism and Eastern philosophy, and it's wonderful to keep in touch with Buddhism as I study Thai.

The temple lessons emphasize reading and writing, which is very helpful to me. However, there is also a tendency to want to build vocabulary through translation and memorization. Since study is entirely self-directed, I may start to de-emphasize memorization for myself. Words and phrases acquired through translation and memorization are different from words acquired naturally through listening. Memorized words tend not to "stick", and there is often little internalized context for how to use them correctly. Words and phrases that I have acquired slowly through listening are "just there", along with their usage.

2006-05-30T21:21:00.000-07:00

I have no formal training in linguistics, but I have been very interested to read about Stephen Krashen's research in second language acquisition. Krashen explains his comprehension hypothesis as follows.

"It hypothesizes that 'skills,' or mastery of the components of language, is the result of one particular aspect of language use, comprehensible input. It claims that grammatical competence and vocabulary knowledge are the result of listening and reading, and that writing style and much of spelling competence is the result of reading. "

I have been finding this idea more and more persuasive. Recently, I have been compiling and using comprehensible audio at what Krashen describes as level i+1, where i represents my current linguistic ability, and 1 represents a small supplementation. As I practice hearing Thai at this level, my vocabulary and grammar grow in a way that's completely different from a memorization approach.

My son has a number of Pixar and Dreamworks movies in Thai, and I have been practicing by watching them with him. They are very good, because I can rely on visual cues so that I am never completely lost. Upon repeated viewing, I notice vocabulary and grammar growing from the "inside out". Words and phrases that initially sounded like a random stream of syllables are becoming more and more comprehensible. Words and phrases I acquire in this way are available to me in a much more natural way than whatever I have learned through memorization and translation.

Welcome to My Thai Language Blog!

2006-05-29T21:03:00.000-07:00

My most recent trip to Thailand opened my mind in unexpected ways to many aspects of Thai identity and culture. The most interesting aspect for me was my experience studying the language.

During graduate school ten years ago, I took a Thai language class based in part on the American University Alumni Association (AUA) books and tapes. Having attained some French language fluency as a teenager, I was very impressed with the unconventional methodology of the AUA materials. For example, grammar and pronunciation skills were taught through substitution word games and rhythmic drills. This was a stark contrast to the way I had learned French in high school, which emphasized rote memorization of vocabulary and intellectual assimilation of French morphology. I enjoyed the AUA tapes, and I played them continuously in my car. My pronunciation became pretty good, and I found it easy to recognize and produce most Thai phonemes, but my vocabulary lagged behind. My Thai wife was very good at English and determined to practice as as much as possible at home, so after mastering a few of the AUA tapes, I stopped following the series and moved on to other hobbies.

Last month, I traveled to Thailand with my family. I had the opportunity to attend the AUA language school and resume my acquisition of Thai. The first thing I realized is that AUA has completely changed its teaching philosophy from the old books and tapes. The "new" AUA program is called Automatic Language Growth (ALG). It is based on modern research into language acquisition, which suggests that listening skills form the basis of speech in a second language, much as they do in a first language. The approach maintains that, if listening comprehension is taught first, while speaking is delayed until a solid foundation is established, long-term fluency benefits. It was interesting to me that J. Marvin Brown, who created the original AUA books and tapes, was also the initiator of this radical change in approach.

The more I learn about modern thinking in second language acquisition, and the more I reflect on my own experience, the more I am convinced of the wisdom of the ALG approach. If listening comprehension had been taught and emphasized in my high school French classes, I think my current level of fluency would be better. (I would characterize myself as an advanced-intermediate French speaker. I can carry on a conversation about most topics, with few grammatical errors, and I can follow about 70% of a television news broadcast.)

I find myself with an unusual set of Thai language skills. My pronunciation is good, but my vocabulary is weak. My writing is good, my reading is okay, and my listening needs a lot of work. I still enjoy AUA's tapes and books. On my recent trip, I purchased all of the AUA books from the bookstore at the school. I had to purchase the recordings from Cornell University, since AUA has changed its philosophy and no longer offers its old tapes or CDs. I am using my AUA CDs to resume grammar and pronunciation practice where I left off years ago, but since I'm more and more convinced of the preeminent importance of listening, I am spending most of my time doing that.

Thanks for stopping by my blog! If you are studying Thai or any other language, it would be great to hear from you. You can leave a comment here or email scottimig at hotmail dot com.

2006-05-29T21:01:00.000-07:00

Journey to Thai

Thai Video Transcripts

Fonts

Chulabook and Pocoyo

ALG Level 1 Demonstration

Leaving Bangkok

Politeness

More Time at AUA

Accents

A Passage to Bangkok

East and West by Yang Liu

LingQ

Debating the Bear

SpokenThai.Com

Compliments

Read My Book

ALG Principles

Post Removed

Galaxy 25

Classifier Practice Page

Word List Generation

Efficiency

Happy New Year

Thai Core Vocabulary

Post Removed

Thai Word of the Week: Subject

Thai Word of the Week: Consider

No Thai Word This Week

Thai Word of the Week: Expert

Thai Word of the Week: Historian

Thai Word of the Week: Signal

Is Translation Harmful?

Thai Word Of the Week: Oppose

Thai Word of the Week: Authority

Reading and Writing Thai

Thai Word of the Week: Provoke

Character Encoding

Removed

Thai Word of the Week

Taking a Forced Break

Is This Heaven? No, It's the Internet

Thai Websites for Children

KanTalk

Eight Random Things

Experimentation

Spelling is Hard

Rosetta Stone

Best News All Year

Mog Software TV and Radio

When to Speak

Blogroll

Removed

Gallery of Obscure Patents

Thai Typing Resources

AUA Small Talk

Practicing Output

Code Switching

Superman Again

How to Do A Language Exchange

Mixxer

Tone Sandhi and Cursive Speech

How To Learn Any Language

Superman Returns

Thai Morphology

Removed

Don't Try to Follow Every Word

The Trouble with Barney

Removed

Removed

Implicit Review

Removed

Taking a Break

Logical

Comfortable and Curious

The Din of the Night

Deadwood

Training for Thai

Din in the Head

Welcome to My Thai Language Blog!