Learning and Speaking Thai

"I think the website at http://www.learningthai.com/books/manee/index.html is much better than the link given previously."

It's a good link, and there are others with the Maani reader series as well. For what it's worth, I got through the entire Maani series without worrying about the type of consonant (high, low, etc). I did concern myself, a bit, with short vowels versus long, only for pronunciation purposes.

Once I made my way through Maani, then learning the individual consonant groups clicked into place......and likewise tones became an easier code to decypher.

It's what worked for me with my pharmacist as a teacher.......and I realize it may not be everyone's cup of tea.

I went back and re-read this thread and it has inspired me also to get serious about reading and writing Thai. That and the fact that my 21 month old daughter now speaks more Thai than I do and its pretty sad when you can’t understand your own daughter. She also can recognize most of the letters in the Thai and English alphabet, thanks to Youtube. In fact she just started preschool and her teachers are amazed that she can do this and she now “helps” the teacher by saying the letters to the other kids.

That Manee series looks pretty good. In the first lesson I already FINALLY think I can tell the difference between DOR and DTOR. That’s been a source of confusion as my wife has two close friends, Dor and Dtor and I keep asking her which do you mean and I’m sure she thinks I’m incredibly stupid because I can’t tell the difference. But hearing them by clicking on them in Manee I am beginning to recognize them.

I started trying to learn Thai about six years ago when I started to get involved with Thai ladies and also joined a Thai/Lao Fellowship group in the US. I started with a phrase book but made no headway and I agree that you can’t learn to speak it from the Romanized text. So I procured a set of Cd's using the Pimsleur Method. It’s a pretty good method of learning but very slow and after 10 Cd's all I could do was invite someone to go to dinner with me. Then they got bogged down in the next three lessons and got into the arcane Thai time telling system and I lost interest. This 24 hour military time system gives me enough trouble.

So now I am re-energized and this time I’m going to make it, so once more UM members have performed a community service.

"So now I am re-energized and this time I’m going to make it"

A hint that may help:
I'd suggest you write out each lesson in Maani....write it out when you listen....that'll reinforce the sound/shape of the each letter.

As you drive down the highway, use license plates as a way to help you remember the letters you learn. When you see a familiar letter (ม for example), try to remember the word in the maani lesson that uses that word (มี for example) and then say it the way the word is spelled (ม maw อี ee มี mee)
Good luck with your studies.

My Thai is slowly improving and still limited but one of the things that I find frustrating is when I do say something clearly and distinctly in Thai the local will repeat exactly what I've said back to me. I seem to get that a lot. Perhaps I'm not speaking as well as I think I am.