Learn Thai Like a Local

1. What makes Thai hard to learn for reading and writing Thai?
2. What makes Thai hard to learn for speaking and listening Thai?
3. What makes Thai easy to learn?

Is it difficult to learn Thai? Honestly from a native Thai point of view and as a teacher who has experience in teaching Thai for foreigners, Thai is quite hard to learn. 

What makes Thai hard to learn for reading and writing Thai?

• There are many Thai consonants and vowels (42 currently used consonants and 24 main vowels)
• The consonants are divided into 3 main classes (middle, high and low classes) and the tone rules are different in each class.
• There are 5 tones in total (middle, low, falling, high and rising) and they are not direct. Some there are no tone marks but have tones in it according to the classes of consonants.
• There are 2 main groups of final consonants and some of them have members under the group as well. So you need to remember for example ส, ศ, ษ (s sound) will be under ด group (d sound) and that they will be in t sound as final consonants to pronounce Thai words correctly.
• There are also consonant clusters and leading consonants which have ways to be read specially.
• There are signs in Thai that affect the way of reading and special things that apply case by case such as hidden “ะ” and hidden -อ.

Please do not give up yet, to learn Thai can get easier by prioritizing what is important first and working on remembering them step by step. Learn Thai by focusing only on the important rules and work on practicing them. Focus on what is used a lot in daily life as you do not really need to focus on every rule that exists.

What makes Thai hard to learn for speaking and listening Thai?

• The tones! As mentioned before, there are 5 tones in total. If you do not know the reading rules, you have to learn Thai by remembering each word in transliteration and be familiar with the tones by using them.
• There are many ways Thai can be transliterated. It could be confusing if you learn Thai by yourself.
• Different tones can lead to different meanings (not always tho).
• Learning Thai without knowing how to read Thai consonants makes it harder to speak Thai clearly.
• There are formal and informal ways of the same words. There are official ones and the ones that are used a lot in daily life. So you have to learn the right word to learn to speak Thai like a local or understand the variety of it to be able to understand Thai in daily life.
• Listening to Thai is difficult because Thai people have different accents too.

However, it can be easier to learn Thai when you focus on the useful daily life vocabs, building sentences and gathering the confidence to use them by speaking it out in daily life with native Thai when you have a chance. 

What makes Thai easy to learn?

1. Good materials

The good Thai materials will guide you to learn from what is important and easiest first and step by step. Focus on the only useful parts and cut out all the unnecessary. Yet you still learn all you need to know to be able to perform all skills in Thai successfully.

2. Experienced native Thai teachers for foreigners

With the help of native Thai teacher, you have a chance to learn more on important rules and practice all skills with natives. You can ask questions you have and also practice having conversations which is hard without.

3. Practice through fun exercises

To be able to speak other languages needs work from both learners and teachers, apart from learning what it’s important. Working on remembering them is also very important.

This is why fun exercises are important not just for the kids but also for adults to help in remembering the reading rules and important vocabs as well. When you remember better, it will make your progress of learning faster, more fun and feel accomplished.

If these are the things that you are looking for, try out a trial class to learn Thai with Learn Thai Like A Local and see if you like it. The answer to your question “Is Thai hard to learn?” could be something that you are looking for!