g0thb0istudies

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Language Study Diary: Day 8 (2022/6/17)

Forgot to post yday but I started day 2 of Read Thai in 10 Days. I feel like I'm kinda getting closer to the rolled R but who knows??!

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Language Study Diary: Day 7 (2022/6/16)

Read The Eighth Night. Kind of finished Day 1 of Read Thai in 10 Days? Still a few pronunciation issues I want to take care of but I think I'm ready to start Day 2 tomorrow. Can always go back if I have to. Feel like I proto-(???)rolled an R a couple of times today?

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Language Study Diary: Day 6 (2022/6/15)

Read 7th Night. Still working through Day 1 of 'Read Thai in 10 Days' - taking it super slow. I think it will be another two days before I move onto Day 2. And I’m going to work on my rolled Rs in the bath.

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20 Ways to Supercharge Your Ability to Learn

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Language Study Diary: Day 5 (2022/6/14)

Reread 6th Night before class. Downloaded the audio for 'Read Thai in 10 Days' and worked through the intro and part of chapter 1. I wish I could actually cover a chapter per day - as per the book’s title - but I’m too dumb and tired for that. Still working on rolling my Rs...

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Language Study Diary: Day 4 (2022/6/13)

Reviewed some vocab in the MW vocab builder before heading to class. 'Read Thai in 10 Days' arrived today so I'm going to read through the intro and find out how to download the audio files before going to bed.

... Hopefully I'm not setting a bad precedent for the amount of language study I'm gonna do on weekdays lol

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Language Study Diary: Day 3 (2022/6/12)

お決まり表現単語帳→review + 10 new words (90/180) Ten Nights of Dreams→read 5th (reread) + 6th Nights Thai→purchased Read Thai in 10 Days; will work through this before returning to the comprehensive textbook (or maybe both at the same time?) →still pratcising my rolled Rs; still no luck MW Vocab Builder→170/692

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Language Study Diary: Day 2 (2022/6/11) お決まり表現単語帳→review + 10 new words (80/180) Ten Nights of Dreams→read 3rd Night (reread) + 4th & 5th Nights Thai→skimmed through introductory chapter of textbook (みっちり学ぶ初級タイ語) but it doesn’t introduce the writing system in much detail, so I’m looking into other resources →spent some time trying to roll my Rs; no luck yet 

[g0thb0istudies]

Language Study Diary: Day 1 (2022/6/10)

Hi! I'm starting a daily language diary on the off chance that the sense of accountability will keep me in check.

My goals with English and Japanese are basically to continue building vocabulary through vocab books and extensive reading. I’m also starting Thai from scratch, so I’ll be working through a textbook and using other supplementary resources. Today: お決まり表現単語帳→reviewed 10 words, studied 10 new words Ten Nights of Dreams→reread The First Night, read The Third Night Merriam-Webster Vocabulary Builder→p163/692

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someday I wanna learn how to write in Thai because I love the way it looks, like it’s so complex looking but the structure is actually really formulaic and the characters are so unique and I like it a lot

[g0thb0istudies]

Hello! I just recently started getting interested in Thai, I absolutely love the script and I think it sounds so amazing! But I've been struggling with finding good resources.. do you have any suggestions??

Oh, sweet!

Yeah, I do have some suggestions for you and for others who are starting out in Thai.

1. I cheer for learning the script from the beginning, even though it's pretty hard. If you know the script, you can figure out how exactly the word sounds and even the right tone for it.

I personally started out with free apps teaching you the script and when I somewhat grasped the basics, I moved on to learning vocabulary, picking up the rest of the writing system on the go. The thing is, there are lots of consonants producing the same sound and some of them pretty rare and you can learn them later, when you encounter them.

I'd say you mostly need this part of the alphabet to start out, at least I did and then gradually mastered the rest.

Also there's a very nice video explaining final sounds and how to write things.

https://youtu.be/pXV-MzO4Acs

2. When you're comfortable with writing, there's this set of rules that helps you to figure out the tone of the syllable. It looks intimidating, but learning that is really rewarding. For example, it's explained well in Poomsan Becker's Thai for Beginners.

3. General recommendations. There are some good books:

Thai​ ​for​ beginners​ by Benjawan Poomsan Becker

Colloquial Thai

Living Language Spoken Word Thai

All of them come with nice native audio.

Then there's Thaipod101 on YouTube and their own site, they have some free podcast lessons.

I really like some courses on memrise for vocabulary with audio, up to this moment I've been learning my vocabulary through memrise. There are some courses closely following Thai for beginners, so it works perfectly for me.

And also I try to watch a lot of native content with subs on YouTube and pick some things up that way.

[g0thb0istudies]

Can you please share some of your resources for learning thai? I really want to start but can't seem to find anything reliable. Thanks🤗

Hi! For sure I can :D Studying Thai is not a priority for me at the moment, but I do keep up with it in the background. The book i'm using is Thai for Beginners by Benjawan Poomsan Becker. It also has a CD but I bought the book without CD. All of the audio on the CD is also conveniently on Spotify!

For online resources I really only use ThaiPod101. They have a great course on learning the alphabet that has helped immensely. On the website it is a monthly subscription but they also have loads of free content (on the site and on YouTube)!

For listening practice I watch Thai series and movies as well as listening to a lot of Thai music. (this is my Thai playlist on Spotify if you're interested: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1aX2i2itjyoMZeoWP1bD3Q?si=065ac863a05245cb )

And that's pretty much it right now. Please don't hesitate to ask any other questions. I'm sorry for the slow response in advance. I'm not great at keeping up with Social media...

[g0thb0istudies]

maybe it's better to learn a language slowly. maybe we're too obsessed with things happening as quickly as possible. maybe it's more beautiful to dedicate years of your life to a language and have it grow with you as you journey through life rather than "become fluent in one week!". idk just a thought.

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Hey did you know I keep a google drive folder with linguistics and language books  that I try to update regularly 

UPDATE because apparently not everyone has seen this yet the new and improved version of this is a MEGA folder

I know there’s so many more urgent things but if you like this resource you may consider buying me a ko-fi to keep this project alive

[g0thb0istudies]

Anyone studying Thai up in here? I wanna follow you!

[g0thb0istudies]

Learning to read in your target language !

Learning to read in any language is difficult!  There’s nothing more frustrating than picking up a book you’ve read in your mother tongue and not understanding a word in your target language. Luckily, it’s a matter of vocabulary ! 

You won’t understand everything

 Even in your native language, you still don’t understand EVERY WORD, you use context to try to figure out something you don’t know. But you’ll find that if you keep at it, you will get visibly better.

I read Harry Potter as my first long text in French and I high lighted every single word that I didn’t know. Looking back, about 35% of the words on the first page are high lighted vs. about 5% on the last page.

To get the most our of language learning, you should start trying to read as soon as possible !

You get so much passive input out of reading comprehension. It’s easy to subconsciously pick up commonly used phrases and putting grammar points and vocabulary into application.

So, what methods can I use to get the most out my reading?

A.) Read a paragraph through and look up the words and their definitions, then read it again and really try to find the meaning of each sentence. This might be the most taxing method and easy to lose focus or motivation, but honestly it’s the best for learning. 

B.) Stop at every word you don’t know and look up the meaning. I personally don’t like this method. I find myself looking more for words I don’t know than the meaning behind the whole sentence. I also don’t like stopping and starting and stopping and starting. 

C.) Skim the paragraph or page for words you don’t know, highlight them, define them first, THEN read the whole piece of text. This is my favorite method. I like looking back at the beginning of the book and seeing all the words I didn’t know then but I know now.

D.) Try to gather context of sentence without looking up any words. This is what native speakers do, and it is, of course, the best method but it requires a deeper meaning of the context that most A1/A2 learners have yet to understand.

You might be struggling learning through textbooks because the vocab lists prioritize subjects like “body parts” and “animals” over giving you basic tools to describe things. It’s great to know words like “knee” and “candle” but how often do those really come up in conversation? Instead of finding random lists that might be useful one day, I suggest creating a list of vocab based on your reading content! When you see a word that has come up a few times and you still can’t gather from context what it means, look it up, then every time you see it in the text from now on, it’ll enforce that knowledge in your brain.

If you aren’t sure what kind of texts you should be reading or want more information and tips, check out my other post.

[g0thb0istudies]

What should you be reading to maximize your language learning?

It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of literature we can learn from. Baby books bore you, but you’re not ready for any type of novel, so what’s left?

Here are some tips 

For beginner/A1/A2 learners

Watch a YouTube video in your target language, then read the comments

you’ll already have vocabulary from watching the video, most of the comments will probably use that vocab

it’s a short enough text that you won’t get fatigued

the only downside is that sometimes people utilize abbreviations and slang terms, but even these are good to know

Read news headlines and if you find one you understand almost fully, try to read the full article

sometimes the vocabulary used is not common in everyday usage, but it’s a total win for an A1 learner to fully read and mostly understand any text

while vocab is not used everyday, it will give you the ammunition to talk about that particular topic

Watch Netflix in target language with subtitles in the same language

believe it or not, you will learn to read better, especially because you don’t have to understand written description of visuals (usually uses very niche vocab) or emotion

and now you can slow down or speed up 

I watched DARK in German before I felt like I could read a book, and I understood 85% of it. This is because I looked up some vocabulary in the first episodes and they continued to use it throughout the show so it really cemented in my head to the point where I don’t even think about it. Now, I had to rewatch some conversations the characters had, but that’s much better for understanding than switching it to English or looking up full phrases and sentences. 

For intermediate/B1/B2 learners

read fanfiction

it’s ALWAYS good to read about something you’re interested in so if you like any major movies, books, television, this is the perfect option for you

most people use relatively basic language and you can choose the length 

find a comic book or graphic novel

like watching tv, that visual aid really helps with understanding of the plot without all those tricky descriptions

read a book in your target language that you’ve read and loved in your native language

this is by far my favorite way

you don’t have to worry about trying to understanding the bigger picture because you already know what’s happening/what will happen, you really have to discover the meaning of each sentence and then you begin to picture the scene using only your target language

Check out my other post for methods of how to get the most out of reading !