Monday, April 29, 2013

Learning Thai in Bangkok

So, after doing some research, I subscribed to AAA language school. Main reasons were that a friend recommended it, and its easy to get there (just a few meters from Chitlom BTS). They are operating for a while, got approval from the Ministry of Education, and are reasonable priced. I booked 20 hours private lessons, twice a week 2 hour sessions. As a beginner, I have to start with pronunciation, and this is taught through phonetic language. A big minus. My experience with learning Vietnamese and Lao is, that is way better to learn read and speak right from the beginning.

I understand that this school may want to prepare people for daily life, and that should be mainly speaking. But it isn't, actually. How to understand all the signs, all the promotion messages, the bills etc? Also, one of the first words I had to learn were Ruler, Pencil and Eraser (Whats Abacus in Thai?). Clearly a sign that it is a while ago when the last updated their textbook.

My teacher is good, and at least my pronunciation will get better. In Laos people didn't care so much about it, as long as they got it from the context, but the Thais are like the french: Their language is art, and no derivates allowed.

To be continued....

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