As I write these words, it’s been a bit over a month since I decided to stop trying to speak Thai and turned my focus to reading Thai.
I couldn’t be happier about my choice.
I feel much less pressure and am able to enjoy the journey all the better.
Am I improving faster? Maybe. Or maybe not, but I’m lovin’ it. And isn’t that all that should matter?
I’ve been slowly reading two books. And when I mean slowly, I really do mean slowly. I’ve only read one complete chapter for the main book. And here it is in its entirety.
Yes, this short.
Instead of focusing on how long it took me, however, let’s focus on what I did and my thoughts about it.
Comprehensible input and beginners
Stephen Krashen made the idea of “comprehensible input” to learn a language popular. The concept is simple:
Expose yourself to content mostly understandable and you’ll learn faster.
In general, people aim for texts 85% comprehensible. How they figure out a text is 85% comprehensible is still a mystery to me though.
Stephen Krashen relies mostly on extensive exposure. The goal is not to understand every detail but to get a feeling for the meaning of the content. While this is an amazing way to improve at an intermediate level, this is difficult for beginners.
How do you find texts for beginners when you don’t understand much yet?
Graded readers help but most aren’t that interesting. Normal books are, on the contrary, interesting but feel like gibberish because there’s so much you don’t know yet.
That’s where intensive reading comes in.
I consider intensive reading as one of the best ways to improve in a foreign language. It’s exhausting but the knowledge you gain stays with you.
Now, let’s get into how I did it.
Chapter 1: Title Unknown
When I started reading this book, I had no idea what it was about. I didn’t even know the book title, let alone the chapter title. I dove in thinking,
“Three pages shouldn’t take long.”
Oh my. How cute that thought was.
One hour and a half later, I was done translating the first paragraph. Oh, my bad, the first paragraph was only one long sentence divided into three parts so let me rephrase this.
It took me 1.5 hours to translate one sentence.
Now, you might think spending this much time on it was a waste of time but it actually set me up for the rest of the chapter.
I learned the expression “nae-nam tua” (แนะนำตัว) which means “to introduce oneself” and turned out to be the topic of the entire chapter, reappearing at least once in most other paragraphs of the chapter.
I also discovered the word “kan” (การ) and it was what caused this paragraph to take so long to translate. You see, kan is not a simple word. It’s a prefix used to normalize verbs. For example, “kan nae-nam” (การแนะนำ) turns the verb “to introduce” into the noun “introduction.”
Reading this, you might think it doesn’t take long to understand the concept but digging deeper is what matters in intensive reading.
I began reading blog articles, answers from native speakers, and videos about this particle and its counterpart “khwam” (ความ). Time flew by as I tried to get a good feeling of this new and seemingly very useful word.
I did well because it reappeared many times in the chapter and I began noticing it everywhere I looked in Thai texts and videos.
I also discovered another version of the verb “to be,” khue (คือ).
Looking for its difference with the more basic pen (เป็น) allowed me to make the next paragraphs easier to understand too.
Translating to learn & Writing it all
In order to remember as much as possible and to be sure I understood well, I followed a three-step process:
Look up words individually
Try to figure out the sentence’s meaning without extra help
Ask native speakers for their translation on HiNative to verify.
I wrote down each word with its translation, followed by the entire sentence where I underlined each word with its translation. Then I wrote my translation and under it, the correct one received on HiNative.
A few times, I even asked for a recording of the sentence as a bonus.
I repeated this process over the next few weeks, one paragraph (or part of a paragraph) at a time…
Until the last few paragraphs.
Strangely enough, the last three paragraphs combined took me under an hour to read and translate. Well, in reality, this isn’t so strange. By then, I had already encountered many words and the context was clear in my head.
It was rewarding. I knew I had improved and I had proven to myself this method actually helped.
I’m now about to start chapter 2, and look forward to seeing how much faster it’ll go this time.
How I looked up information
Intensive reading is, well, intensive.It can be overwhelming when you don’t know how to search for the information you need. So here’s how I did it.
I didn’t use one single platform. I started from Google for every question I had:
Most times, I typed the word followed by “meaning,” falling upon dictionaries and discussions between learners on the meaning.
When I discovered that hâi (ให้) could have many meanings, I typed it on Google and added “how to use” after it. It allowed me to fall upon this page (a website that regularly appeared during my research but not always).
For words that seemed to have a similar meaning to what I already knew, I typed “difference between X and Y.” Most times, this got me to find someone had already asked the question on HiNative (such was the case for the difference between คือ and เป็น).
When I wasn’t satisfied with the answers I found, I dug deeper by adding “Thai” or “Learn Thai” after the word I was looking for.
It may all seem like obvious ways to look for the information needed but it’s easy to forget the simple saying
“Google is your friend.”
Looking for a word’s translation in a dictionary or a grammar pattern in a textbook is a good start but you should never hesitate to dig deeper online.
You’ll always find something more there.
Warning: Be careful not to keep digging until you master words/patterns. The goal is to get a good understanding but accept you’ll need to look them up again.
Added bonuses
I could have done all this without writing anything. I could have looked up what I needed, translated it in my head, and moved on but the usefulness of this task would have been reduced.
Writing most new words made me avoid having to look words up online again. Instead, I could look through my previous notes and find them, therefore strengthening my memory of them.
I also learned to read and write the script with more ease.
While at the beginning I had to move my head back and forth between the text and my notebook, at the end, I could often read and keep a part of the sentence in my head until I was done writing it.
I didn’t have to check again if the word gan (กัน, “together”) had ◌ั or ◌้ above. I didn’t need to verify every part of each character.
The language felt less foreign.
Next steps
I’d be lying if I said I was always excited during the process.
Since the chapter was about the importance of introductions in our lives, you could say it’s not the kind of story you fall deep into.
It’s interesting but lacks storytelling. It’s simple non-fiction.
That’s why I recently started reading a second book along. A bilingual book about a simple love story between a boy and a girl. It’s a few sentences per page but it’s cute enough to make me want to read on.
I plan to alternate between the two books for the time being.
Also, since I am now out of Thailand, I feel I’ll need to find a way to keep getting some Thai into my ears. For now, I’m listening to this podcast once every two days but since I understand about 1%, I don’t know how long I’ll last.
I don’t expect this month of learning Thai to be full of changes but I’ll take notes of as many highs and lows I have so I can share those next time!
Until then, ลาก่อน!
Congrats on getting as far as you have! I just wanted to throw in my two cents - whenever I start a new language, I start with children's picture books. I mean ones written for three to four year olds. Not only are they simple, but they are fantastic for getting basic concrete nouns, everyday verbs, simple (e.g. core) grammar, and more difficult but very common abstract nouns (like "love"). Next time you're in a bookstore, stop in the kids section and see how you go!
Your determination is inspiring!