6 Best Tips To Learn Thai Like A Native

Original blog post: https://ling-app.com/linglive/learn-thai-like-a-native/

If you are one of those foreigners learning Thai and a Thai accent, we are here to help. With Ling-app, you can learn Thai like a native speaker, and here’s how.

If you travel to Thailand often enough or live here, you will want to learn Thai like a native. The spoken Thai language is one of the most challenging languages taught in the world. It’s a tonal language, which means that the same word, spoken in five different tones, means five completely different things. That is why very few foreigners ever learn to speak Thai as their mother tongue.

It’s hard to pronounce Thai, it’s hard to remember the tone of the word, and the grammar of Thai can be painful. So if you find it difficult to learn basic Thai lessons, LingLive will teach you Thai culture and how to speak Thai using some essential Thai words and phrases.

6 Quick Tips For Learning Thai For Thai Learners

Learn The Thai Tones Correctly — Tone Rules

Anyone who wants to speak Thai like a native speaker must learn to pronounce five tones correctly. Since every word has a tone, if you cannot pronounce the tones correctly, it will be difficult for a Thai to understand you. So before anything else, learn five tones — high, rising, medium, low, and falling.

Start with the word “mai” and learn to pronounce it correctly in every five ways. When you finish “mai,” you will know the Thai words “new,” “tree,” “no,” “silk,” and “burn.” Then apply those five tones to other similar words until, according to the local Thai, you say the tones correctly 100% of the time — then move on to the next step.

Learn To Read Thai

Many foreigners do not learn to read Thai, so they have time to pick up new words. Thai language alphabets are not written in the Latin alphabet but are written in the Thai alphabet. Thus, if you cannot read it, you cannot learn new words or tones of those words.

Of course, there is a way of transliteration (translating sounds of the Thai language into the Latin alphabet), such as the Thai word “mai” (so it looks like the Latin alphabet). However, since the transliteration method does not show how the tone is maintained in the word, you will never learn Thai like a native Thai speaker.

Copy How Thais Speak

Too many native English speakers speak Thai in one flat tone that is hard to understand and scary to listen to. When you learn a new Thai vocabulary, you would definitely want to speak Thai like a native speaker. You can hire native Thai teachers from Thai language schools who can repeat the word to you, and you could repeat it until she/she says you get it right.

Learn Thai Like A Native With Thai Friends

It also leads to Thai learning and getting Thai friends (native speakers). I am amazed how many westerners have lived in Thai society for years and still don’t have a Thai friend. If you live in Thailand and are a native English speaker, you must have more Thai friends than native English speakers. It is extremely helpful that you can practice speaking Thai any time you want, and there is always someone there to correct your mistakes.

Listening Practice By Watching Thai TV And Movies With Thai Subtitles

A great way to speak Thai as a citizen is to watch Thai movies and Thai music with Thai subtitles. This way, when you hear the sounds, once you can read Thai, you can read. With both phonetic and written Thai, vocabulary sticks to your mind faster.

Learn Thai Like A Native By Reading Thai Newspapers

As you will notice, there are no spaces between Thai words. Each word is related to the next word. By reading Thai newspapers, you will not only learn how to distinguish one word from another, but it is also another perfect way to learn new vocabulary.

Common Phrases For Thai Language Learners

Write Thai, read Thai, and learn Thai like a native with these free words and sentences about saying hello, standard greetings, and essential phrases. All these basic words and few sentences are spoken by real native Thai speakers or a Thai person, which helps to learn correct Thai pronunciation.

Have Fun And Learn Thai Like A Native Speakers

First of all, do not make learning the Thai language a chore. Instead, make it fun and understand Thai. Do it every day and practice all the time. For example, suppose you need help in practicing conversational Thai phrases. In that case, you can get benefits from hiring a native Thai teacher from online resources, like you can browse any language learning website or download an app that is teaching Thai or other languages with the best teachers.

Furthermore, feel free to learn Thai online as these language learning apps, such as Simya Solution’s Ling-Live, are convenient, easy, and fun to use. It teaches you Thai script and Thai language through fun games, flashcards, and quizzes. As a result, you can learn and practice your target language, and it will let you learn Thai like a native, and you can start speaking Thai in no time. Good Luck!