A Complete Journey Into a New Language - Part 3
Learning the basics through an imaginary conversation
In the last article, I showed you how I learned to read Thai but there’s not much point in knowing how to read if the words mean nothing to you.
Learning a language starts with knowing how to read and (somewhat) pronounce the letters. Stopping there is pointless.
What comes after is where it gets interesting.
To truly kick off my journey in learning Thai, I chose to use the monthly challenge I set in my weekly newsletter.
I created an imaginary conversation filled with things I wanted to know.
What I actually did first
It’s been a while since the last time I actually chose to learn a new language from scratch not as a bonus but as my main task.
The last two languages I chose to study from scratch for the long run were German and Burmese but the process through which I went was different. I gave myself no deadline and focused on spending time on both regularly.
For this reason, I had forgotten a lot of the advice I’ve given in the past.
I watched lessons on YouTube, read a few lessons from Easy Thai, handwrote a few sentences. There was no direction to how I learned. I just picked up stuff.
A week into this process, I decided to rethink everything and dove into looking for things I needed.
That’s when creating the conversation started.
Creating a useful conversation
Here’s the conversation I wrote:
Me: Hello, nice to meet you. My name is Mathias.
Other: Nice to meet you too. My name is X.
Me: Could you speak more slowly, please?
Other: My name is X.
Me: X. Thank you.
Other: Where are you from?
Me: I’m French. I arrived in Thailand yesterday. You’re from Bangkok, right?
Other: No, I’m from Chiang Mai.
Me: Oh, that’s great! I will go to Chiang Mai next week.
Other: I hope you will like it. Have you been to Thailand before?
Me: No, this is my first time. I want to learn Thai before I go back to France.
Other: I can help you. So, how old are you?
Me: I’m 31. What about you?
Other: I’m 35. What do you do for a living?
Me: I’m a freelancer. You?
Other: I work in Marketing. Why did you come to Thailand?
Me: My brother lived in Chiang Mai for three years. I have never been there so I want to visit it now. […] Sorry, I need to go now. What is your phone number?
Other: It’s XX. Talk to you later.
Me: See you later!
Is it a clunky conversation? Hell yeah. I’ll never have that exact conversation. I’ll probably never get to say “I arrived in Thailand yesterday” since I’ll be in quarantine for a week when I arrive.
So why write this conversation?
It’s filled with useful bits. From grammar the patterns I want to be able to use, to vocabulary I will need to know sooner than later.
Here’s a short list of what you can find in this conversation:
Past tense, present tense, future tense.
Questions
How to express wishes, hope, needs, and capacity
How to ask where, what, why and answer
How to express possession
It’s also filled with words I need to know. How to say my age, my profession, my country of origin, the one I visit, the name of cities I’ll visit, and a few time indicators like “yesterday” or “next week.”
There are thousands of things to learn when you begin a new language.
Figuring out what you want to know is almost more important than studying.
If you spend time on things you don’t need nor want to know, you’ll lose motivation within weeks, if you even last that long.
Side note: If you want to have a look at the simple Notion table I created, you can find it here for free, along with a few notes on the grammar patterns and words I wanted to highlight to my future self.
Translating the conversation in Thai
Alright, let’s get into the nitty-gritty.
How can you create an imaginary conversation in a new language when you know close to nothing.
There are three components to any sentence:
Vocabulary
Grammar
Connecting the two above
If you know the words but not how to connect them, you sound stupid. If you know the grammar but not the words, you can’t even create anything. The magic happens when grammar meets vocabulary.
The quest for words
Every language has multiple words for the same translation.
The common verb for “to meet” in French is “rencontrer” but it can also be translated to “retrouver” or “accueillir.” Use the wrong one and your sentence “Nice to meet you” becomes “Nice to find you.”
Understandable, but awkward.
Finding the right word is hard when you have no basis to start from. That’s where dictionaries and examples come in.
I used a combination of Wiktionary, Papago, Google Translate, and Google.
My first stop was usually Papago (a better version of Google Translate for some Asian languages).
I’d type the word I wanted on its own, followed by a random example including it. I tried to come up with a different sentence than the one from my conversation so I could still work on my sentence on my own.
Once that was done, I entered the word in Wiktionary to check if it was right. If it was, I’d save the tab until the end of the construction of my sentence.
I sometimes found words by googling a simple “how to say ‘x’ in Thai” and opening the first few results to verify they all agreed on the word.
The search for grammar
I love grammar so you may enjoy this part less than I did. FYI, if you hate grammar, you should change your mind. 😉
No matter your stance on it, finding grammar patterns you want to use right away is a lot less frustrating than learning one you don’t care about.
When you can’t say you want to do something because you lack the grammar pattern, getting to know the answer is liberating. You get to that, “Finally I can say that!” state.
How did I find the patterns I want to use then?
Simple, I watched YouTube videos explaining them and tried to create my sentence right after.
For this, I relied heavily on ThaiWithMod, the best YouTube channel for beginners by far, and a bit on Thai Lessons With New. I also watched a few videos from BYU and Thai Language Hut School.
When that wasn’t enough, I turned to my friend Google and straight-up asked “how to express possession in Thai” for example.
I was able to create my sentences because I looked up every grammar pattern I wanted to use. I didn’t try to guess without having all the information.
I then entered my guessed sentences on Papago and Google Translate to see if they translated them in English correctly.
Still, knowing how the grammar works is sometimes easier than actually applying it.
That’s where I used my new best friend: HiNative.
Overcoming the struggles
For every sentence successfully created on my own, I had tons of worries. 😧
Was the order of words really the most natural? Would there be a better way to express what I meant? Do I need to keep the polite ครับ at the end of every sentence?
I chose to skip digging too deep because I’m still a beginner. Making unnatural sentences is normal for now.
What matters is being understood.
But there were also sentences I had no idea how to construct. For these, I turned to the kindness of native speakers on HiNative.
I logged in and asked natives how to say the sentence. Then I added notes to explain my request. In one, I was particularly interested in how to express the “oh” of surprise. In another, I was trying to be sure my sentence read “my brother lived…” and not “my brother has lived…”
I got replies within 24 hours every time. I even got one within 10 minutes.
I copy-pasted the answer in my table on Notion and then dug into the details of the sentences.
Why did they add this word? How come it was at the end instead of the beginning? I looked for answers and moved on to the next sentence once I was satisfied.
Getting much-needed sentences
If I weren’t moving to Thailand now, I wouldn’t have needed to know “nice to meet you” this soon. But since I know I’ll have conversations in Thai in the near future, I knew I needed to find some common sentences.
It’s much easier and time-efficient to look for common sentences already built.
Why try to create “talk you later” when the common way to say it might be said in a completely different way from English? After all, we say “A bientôt” in French even though it literally translates into “Until soon.”
For these simple sentences, I watched videos filled with common sentences, like this one from ThaiWithMod. I then googled the sentences found to verify how common they were.
What’s missing now?
Creating a useful imaginary conversation is all fun but it’d be a waste if I stopped here.
As a beginner, I’m not used to speaking the language. I may be able to read everything I wrote but it’s a slow process analyzing each letter and remembering the script.
That’s why I will ask native speakers to record this conversation on RhinoSpike.
If you’ve never heard of this platform, it’s a place to get transcriptions and recordings from native speakers for free. I wrote a full guide on it here.
Once I have it, I’ll be able to listen to it on repeat while I do mindless tasks like walking or cleaning dishes. This will get my ear used to the sound and rhythm of the language, for sentences that actually matter to me.
I will also handwrite the entire conversation in my notebook while listening to the audio.
This will serve to reinforce the memory of each word and grammar pattern. Since I write slowly, I will have more time to learn these sentences.
Finally, I will shadow the conversation.
Shadowing is a term coined by the polyglot Dr. Alexander Argüelles. The concept is simple: read the text as I listen to it, over and over.
I might use AudioWorkBook to shadow sentences one by one at the beginning. This audio player cuts files into sentences so you can listen to each on repeat with one single click.
Once I’ll be done with this, I’ll probably create a new conversation with other useful words and grammar patterns I want to know.
And the cycle will start again.
What I’d do differently next time
This idea of learning all the basics through an imaginary conversation came out of nowhere while I was stuck in bed with Covid in early January. I had used imaginary conversations in the past but never to this extent.
The problem was that I dove too far too early.
I created an English version filled with way too many grammar patterns. I wanted to tackle everything (and still missed many more patterns but that’ll be for the next conversation).
Because of the variety of grammar patterns I inserted, I only got to create one or two sentences with each pattern. I didn’t get to practice them much.
It’s much better to create a repetitive conversation with a similar grammar structure at first.
I’d also make more but shorter conversations.
Creating a conversation that covers that many topics as a beginner is straining. It forced me to learn a lot of words but I didn’t get to learn many words on each.
I could have spent more time on places. I could have learned more time related to time. I could have learned how to talk about hobbies.
Shorter imaginary conversations help dive into one specific area.
At least for the beginner stage.
Next time
As I’m finishing writing this piece, it’s the evening before my departure for Thailand. If you read this on the day it comes out, chances are I’ll be in the air flying toward this new adventure.
My next large piece will most probably be about pronunciation, at the end of February, once I’m done recording myself daily for this month’s challenge.
This being said, I will have more time to spend learning Thai when I’ll be there so I might publish one more in two weeks to update you on this.
Until then, don’t hesitate to ask me any questions or share tips/resources if you have any!