ต เต่า กับ ร เรือ

27 July 2015, TV = 1172.6 hours

AUA: total class time = 2189 hours; taking reading/writing level 2

advanced class = 1202 hours; reading/writing classes = 49 hours

How Real Does It Feel?

13 January 2015, TV 1045.7 = hours

AUA: advanced class = 1068 hours, total class time = 2006 hours

Years ago, as a college student, I took several semesters worth of French and then ended up spending close to a year in the country, getting to the point where I could understand, speak, and read the language to a decent level

Acquiring New Words

10 January 2015, TV 1042.6 = hours

AUA: advanced class = 1068 hours, total class time = 2006 hours

In my experience with learning a language on its own terms, from the inside — in other words, not going through other languages (i.e., not getting translations or explanations in English¹), and a lot of the time not even asking what words mean, but just letting their sounds and meanings crystallize in my consciousness of their own accord — I think the acquisition process happens largely on its own timetable. The points at which I’ll start noticing a word, at which the sounds of the word become clear enough to discern, or when the meaning or use of the word comes into focus, don’t seem to be things I can predict or control, though I believe that continually getting more input is what keeps the process going forward.

Love & Syntax

20 November 2014, TV = 1002.8 hours

Aydeen gives a lesson in love — and syntax — as he expounds upon two statements that, as Aleen says, sound very similar (from สูตรเสน่หา soot saneha, episode 13):

More Poo Than I Ever Knew: A Failure To Differentiate

8 August 2014, TV = 841.6 hours

I’ve updated the previous post with some corrections and an explanatory note, after a reader pointed out that I’d mistakenly used the same word for both ชมพู่

Isaan Idyll

7 July 2014, TV = 829.0 hours

A while back when my internet connection was down, I finally got around to watching ครูบ้านนอก (kru bannok), which I had had lying around on VCD for a number of months.

Hmmm….

16 June 2014, TV = 793.1 hours

I just started watching the 2011 version of รอยมาร roy marn, and here’s Bee using the exact words used by one of the characters in the 2001 สามีตีตรา samee tee tra; it would seem that this is indeed some kind of expression or aphorism in Thai, as I had surmised

Still Thinking About Learning To Read

13 June 2014, TV = 783.8 hours

Attempting a little self-evaluation a few posts back, I talked about my comprehension of spoken Thai, as well as my very limited ability to read – or maybe more accurately, to pick out a few words here and there.

A commenter named Jon wrote:

“Why don’t u write ur blog in Thai? Or at least some of it? This is how I got really good at Thai. Writing is such an essential part of a language learner s journey to fluency. Studying at AUA will never make u fluent. . . unless ur extremely gifted in picking up languages.

Happy Birthday, กทม!

25 April 2014: hours of unsubtitled Thai TV & movies watched = 739.5

กทม (“gaw taw maw”), a common way of referring to Bangkok in Thai, is an acronym taken from the first three syllables of the city’s name.

Apparently I’m late to the party: Monday 21 April marked the 232nd anniversary of the official founding of Bangkok. So a happy (if belated) birthday to the city that is now my home!

This reminds me of a funny story from my early days learning Thai.

Screwdriver

1 April 2014; AT5 = 1063 hours; total class time = 2001 hours; TV = 687.2 hours

Yesterday I had to buy a screwdriver so I could fix something – not the leaky toilet I blogged about yesterday, but a malfunctioning hair clipper.

This was actually my second encounter with screwdrivers in a Thai language setting