The "no more excuses" Thai Blog

[kikenyoy]

I have never taken a Thai placement test (or spoken with someone who has) but I think I'm around low B2 level which is pretty poor for someone who has lived in the country for about 12 years. Here are all the excuses why I'm not a higher level along with the reasons why they no longer apply:

I live with a family who only wants to speak English. I am single now and don't have the crutch of having family members who can help me when I need to speak with natives so I need to be able to fend for myself. Also, my next girlfriend likely won't speak English nearly as well as my ex-wife and since I am in Thailand I feel like it's my responsibility to learn the language.

There are no good resources for intermediate level and above. This was true when I reached B1 about 8 years ago but there are a few now, especially the Pickup Thai Green and Red Podcasts.

I don't have the time or money to study as much as I'd like. There have been times where I've had plenty of money but very little time, and others where I had plenty of time but very little money. Neither is an obstacle now.

I lack motivation because I hate Thai media. Sadly, this one is still partially true but I have found some shows, movies, and books that are at least tolerable.


I don't like to make rigid goals like "reading x number of pages per day" because I do best when I can throw myself into a project. I might binge watch a series for a while then find a book I like and read it, then decide my grammar or vocabulary needs improvement and focus on that for a while, etc. I will try to make sure one skill doesn't fall too far behind the others.

For the last month I've been doing about 4 italki classes per week and I think I will up that to 5 or maybe even 6 in the new year. My first project is to improve my pronunciation and tones. They are good enough that it's usually not an obstacle to being understood but I have a pretty heavy American accent and my tones get sloppy when I speak quickly. I need to slow down and focus on them for a while then gradually increase the speed while maintaining accuracy.

My goal for the end of 2018 is to be at least a strong B2 level and possibly even low C1. I am basically retired and don't have anything else that takes up a significant amount of my time so I could theoretically do close to "all Thai all the time" but realistically I know I can't give up American media entirely and my desire/work ethic isn't that strong. I think studying an average of 4 or 5 hours per day is pretty realistic for me.

[iguanamon]

Welcome to the forum, kikenyoy! We have at least a few members who speak Thai: Bakunin, leosmith and lingua come to mind. I'm sure you'll find some kind of media to help you get to a higher level. Looking forward to seeing your progress. Good luck in the New Year!

[kikenyoy]

Welcome to the forum, kikenyoy! We have at least a few members who speak Thai: Bakunin, leosmith and lingua come to mind. I'm sure you'll find some kind of media to help you get to a higher level. Looking forward to seeing your progress. Good luck in the New Year!

Thanks!

I used Bakunin's Thairecordings site years ago. His new project with the illustrations looks very useful too. Too bad he hasn't posted here in about 6 months. Hopefully he comes back.

leosmith is one of my best friends and is in Thailand with me now.

Unfortunately lingua put her Thai studies on hold after her trip.

[leosmith]

I lack motivation because I hate Thai media.

Lol, that's a problem of mine too. I just wish they had more movies and TV shows involving ladyboys and ghosts.

[kikenyoy]

Since my last post I decided to finally buy Stu Jay Raj's Thai book and finished it. I picked up a few useful tidbits but I don't think it was worth the time and money considering where I'm at in Thai right now. Oh well.

I had a lesson with a new (to me) Thai teacher on italki and at the end she had a list of a few words that I had mispronounced. When she had me say them individually she said I spoke them very clearly so the issue isn't with me not being able to produce the sounds, it's just doing it all the time in real time. There are many words that I hastily learned and I'm not 100% sure of the tones or vowel lengths so I'll need to keep an eye out for these and make a note of them so I can really learn them. Other than that, slowing down my speaking a bit (which almost everyone has suggested) and focusing on my pronunciation while speaking should help.

Leosmith told me about a site called upwork where you can hire people to do just about anything and I used it to have a woman make Thai transcripts of youtube videos for me for a very reasonable price. This is going to be a huge benefit to my studying. Now I can choose shows I like from various genres and use the transcripts to learn new vocabulary and help with my listening comprehension. So far I've done an episode of a talk show and a comedy/variety show. Now I'm looking for a few about news and politics.

[Adrianslont]

I lack motivation because I hate Thai media.

Lol, that's a problem of mine too. I just wish they had more movies and TV shows involving ladyboys and ghosts.

Just stumbled on this post (I’m not actually learning Thai) but if you want movies about ghosts (hantu) and featuring ladyboys (waria) you should be learning Indonesian!

[kikenyoy]

I've been on vacation for the last 10 days to the south of Thailand. I got some conversation practice, did some light reading, and kept up with my anki reps but didn't do much studying. I'm back home now and ready to get back to it.