Welcome To My Learn How To Read Thai Tutorials!

About Me

I first visited Thailand in 1987 and fell in love with the country, as many foreigners do. In 1987 it was a completely different country to the one it is today. In that year there were about 3 million visiting tourists compared to 40 million that the Tourist Authority is estimating for 2019.

Most tourists back then were Asian from neighbouring countries and there were very few farangs (unlike today). On Samui Island there were just coconut trees and a few makeshift huts on the beach to accommodate visitors. There was no electricity and no airport.

After that initial trip I returned to Thailand for several vacations and saw rapid change all over the country. Throughout the 90's I became disillusioned with life in the UK and in 2002 I took a voluntary redundancy package.

After travelling around for a while (including another trip to Thailand a attending a TEFL teachers course in the Czech Republic) I moved permanently to Thailand in 2003. At first it was just like an extended vacation with no return ticket, but eventually it turned into normal life - if life in Thailand can ever be regarded as normal.

After many years with little responsibility my life took a serious turn when I married a local Thai girl in 2010 and our first child arrived in 2011. Our second child arrived almost three years later.

At the top of my list when I arrived in Thailand was to try to get to grips with the language. I took 20 hours of lessons in speaking Thai, but decided against learning to read because I assumed it would be too much. This was a mistake.

After my formal lessons I used lots of books to try to improve my Thai. Not being able to read Thai I was forced to use transliterated versions of Thai words and it became obvious straight away that the system of transliteration was horrendously bad.

There was only one way to bypass transliteration and that was by learning how to read Thai. It was a steep learning curve at first, but after a while it became easier. One of the frustrations was that whenever I asked Thai people a question about written Thai they couldn't provide an answer.

The Thai education system is based on rote learning and students simply have to remember things without needing to know why. This is why it is better to learn how to read Thai from a foreigner, but when it comes to speaking you should learn from a Thai because the majority of foreigners who speak Thai have problems with accents and tones (me included).

After 15 years how do I rate my ability? I can get by quite well in everyday situations and my vocabulary is mostly adequate. Am I fluent? It seems that foreigners have different ideas about the definition of fluency and I have heard many foreigners claim to be fluent, but I don't believe them.

Speaking enough Thai to be able to deal with everyday informal situations isn't being fluent. Thai is almost like two language (more if you include the regional dialects). For many nouns and verbs there are formal and informal versions, and to be fluent you need to know both, whereas most foreigners only know the informal versions.

Fluency is also about being able to speak in any situation, not just everyday situations. Could foreigners who claim to be fluent speak to a lawyer or doctor using all the technical and formal terms that would be required. I doubt it.

I met some German friends in Thailand and we did some tourist stuff together. They were impressed with how I spoke to the locals and it might have seemed to them that I was fluent. However, because of the definition of fluent I have just described, I don't consider myself as being fluent.

What about reading? My reading ability is very similar to my speaking ability. In everyday situations I find it very easy to read signs, menus and other pieces of information. On the other hand, newspapers tend to use very idiomatic language and books tend to use very formal language, thus my ability to tackle newspapers and books is limited.

Most foreigners probably aren't interested in getting to the level of reading Thai newspapers and books, but probably would want to be able to read signs, menus, bus destinations and other basic information. I feel quite confident in being able to teach to this level.

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Website Resources

Tutorials Index
Thai Consonant Summary
Thai Vowel Summary
Worksheet Downloads
Tone Rules
Classifiers

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Video Tutorials

People these days prefer watching videos to reading web pages. Many parts of the web are dying, whereas YouTube goes from strength to strength. I have been aware of this for some years and when you are trying to describe the sound of words it obviously makes sense if you can hear the words.

Learn To Read Thai YouTube Channel

For some years I have intended adding some video tutorials, but have not gotten around to it. With two young children to look after I haven't had a lot of time and I knew that I needed to improve my videography and video editing skills.

I am writing this in January 2019 and I have just started making some video tutorials - finally. As I make more I will add the links here.

Learning To Read Thai Video Tutorials - Introduction

Learn To Read Thai Video Tutorial 1 : ก

Learn To Read Thai Video Tutorial 2 : ร, -า, -ะ, -ั

Don't Worry Be Happy - You Can Learn To Read Thai!

Learn To Read Thai Video Tutorial 3 : ข, ค, ย, ใ-, ไ-

What's The Best Way To Remember Thai Script?

What Are The Practical Benefits Of Being Able To Read Thai?

Learn To Read Thai Video Tutorial 4 : น, ม, -ิ, -ี

Learn To Read Thai Video Tutorial 5 : เ-, แ-, ล, ว

Learn To Read Thai Video Tutorial 6 : แ-ะ, เ-็ว, -ัว, เ-ย, เ-ีย, เ-าะ

Learn To Read Thai Video Tutorial 7 : เ-ียว + review