Changing The Way You/I Study Thai

After the past 4 years of studying Thai the traditional way (books, spelling tests, general memorization), I am ok at reading and writing in Thai. However, according to the ideal way to study a second language using the 'TV method' (or another input-based method like ALG) the learner should have virtually no prior experience with the second language. Moreover, the learner should not even attempt to speak the second language until they have over 300 (at least) hours of watching TV (input). And even moreover, the learner should not even begin reading/writing the language until they are pretty fluent! These are the exact steps a child takes when learning a second language:

listen/observe => understand => speak => read => write => awesome.

People in favor of such input-based methods claim that traditional language learning is not only inefficient, but also creates irreversible problems in ones ability to acquire the second language well enough to be totally fluent. One of my biggest goals right now is to become fluent in Thai, but since I have been studying Thai the "wrong way" for so long, am I totally screwed!? Is it too late for me to change the way I am learning Thai?

I asked these same questions to David Long at The AUA Thai Blog and he assured me that "It’s never too late to build your ability with input." along with some other good advice. Though satisfied, I was still not completely convinced that I wasn't doomed to never be fluent in Thai. After some searching around on the internet, I found hope when I came across some good blog posts at a blog called Spanish Only where an advanced learner of Spanish has just recently switched from traditional studies to the TV method. In these four posts (0, 1, 2, 3) he explains his positive experience with switching to the TV method even after traditionally studying Spanish for so long. In the future I'll post more stories of people who have had good results from watching TV but for now, I'll leave you a link to the updated List of Thai TV shows. I added #10 thru #12 this time and there is for sure more to come. see ya.

Learn Thai by watching TV (the 'TV method')

Lately, I have been trying to put a lot of time into studying Thai. After looking around at a bunch of blogs and websites about language learning I have come across an interesting method for studying Thai (or any language). People have been calling it the 'TV method' which, I think, originally came from this guy's blog. Basically, whatever your target language is, you just watch a bunch of TV shows and movies in that language with no English subtitles or translations of any kind. While using this method, you are encouraged to not even look up new words that you hear or even try to hard to understand them. Instead, you just watch TV and just guess what is going on in the show based on what you see. The theory is, after a good amount of time watching TV (around 300 - 800 hours) a beginner to the language will begin to pick it up naturally. It is a style of "input learning" that aims to mimic the learning of a small child who, doesn't really put any effort into learning his/her native language, but almost accidentally learns simply by watching parents and family memebers do things while they speak. I suppose that the 'TV method' has been influenced by other input learning methods such as the ALG (Automatic Language Growth) method brought to us from the AUA Language Center in Bangkok where foreigners in Thailand can go to learn Thai (naturally). At this school, native Thai speakers stand in front of the class and speak Thai to the students while drawing pictures or acting out whatever they are talking about. People claim that studying this way (after about 1000 hours of class) results in native-like fluency.

I am really interested in the approach to learning Thai that they take at AUA (and you can read more about it here), but since I won't be able to attend class there anytime soon, I have decided to do the next best thing and try out the 'TV method'. There are tons on Thai TV shows online that you can watch for free but the problem is that a lot of the titles of Thai shows (without English subtitles) are written in Thai. So how can beginners to Thai find good Thai shows to watch? To help out people in this situation I am going to start compiling a list of Thai TV shows that I come across into this document of THAI TV SHOWS and I'll try to update it with new shows every week or so with a new blog post. If you find any good shows to watch let me know and I'll add them for sure. welp, see ya later.

The Thai Basic Reader web resource

So I was searching around on the internet and I came across this blog written by someone else who is learning Thai. On the blog I found a link to this sweeeet website called Thai Basic Reader. Apparently Thai Basic Reader is a text book people use for learning Thai. The book has around 50 dialogues and narratives (written in Thai) that have been scanned to the website along with audio clips of native speakers reading each dialogue. Anyways, I think it is an awesome resource maybe I'll try to listen and read at least one dialogue everyday.