Thai Video Transcripts

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.

Chulabook and Pocoyo

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

Debating the Bear

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

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

Classifier Practice Page

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.

Efficiency

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

Thai Core Vocabulary

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

Reading and Writing Thai

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

KanTalk

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

Experimentation

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

Best News All Year

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

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:

• Thai Language Radio
• Thai Language Television

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

Blogroll

What are the best language acquisition blogs on the internet?

These are the blogs I currently follow.

Aspiring Polyglot
Effortless Language Acquisition
Foreign Language Acquisition
Japanese for Life
Omniglot
Steve Kaufmann

I'm especially interested in finding blogs which discuss theory and research in second language acquisition along the lines of Stephen Krashen's work.

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Technorati tags: second language acquisition

Thai Typing Resources

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

How to Do A Language Exchange

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

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

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

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