A Complete Journey Into a New Language - Part 8
Slumping hard and learning from three books
It’s been a while since my last long update on Thai so I figured I’d share what I’ve been up to.
I left Thailand a month and a half ago and the lack of constant reminders I should be learning Thai is getting stronger as the days pass.
When I started learning Thai, I relied heavily on myself to study Thai but spending two months and a half in Thailand changed that. Hearing Thai around me every day became my reminder to keep studying.
Without it, I’ve turned back to my usual self: constantly interested in other languages I’d like to make less “foreign” to me.
Still, I’m glad I haven’t given up because the language makes more sense to me each time I study it.
Enough chitchatting though. Let’s get into what’s really up.
The sound of silence
As mentioned above, I don’t have a constant oral reminder I “should” study Thai anymore. I have to rely on myself.
At first, I kept the language as part of my life by listening to a podcast called แปดบรรทัดครึ่ง but it was so far away from my level that I grew tired of listening to what seemed like ramblings.
I then started listening to more Thai songs I enjoyed, as I did at the start, but I changed that to Vietnamese songs after hearing a beautiful Vietnamese song remixed live while at a coffee shop in Hanoi. This lasted about a month and I’m now back to my usual Lo-Fi, underground Korean, and old-school Japanese songs.
The sounds of Thai have almost disappeared from my life.
And that’s a problem, even if my current goal is to read Thai, not speak it.
That’s why earlier this week I did a deep dive into Netflix’s catalog and found a few Thai movies and TV shows that seem rather good. This was harder than expected because most Thai shows there are too cheesy for me to handle, and the rest is often horror stuff—which I’m not particularly attracted to.
Still, I found Bangkok Breaking, Ghost Lab, and Remember You.
I started with Bangkokg Breaking and loved hearing Thai again. It felt so good I decided to look for yet another podcast to listen to on the go.
I ended up with ภาษาเกาหลี KHEM KOREA, The Secret Sauce, and SoulRiwit.
For now, I’m trying them out so we’ll see how this goes, but it’s interesting to find I recognize way more words than I used to a few months back.
Reading to fluency
I’m now down two full chapters of เราเติบโตขึ้นในทุกๆ วัน, three children's games of ไขปริศนาคดีนักสืบ (ฉบับการ์ตูน), and half the bilingual book (IN LOVE ฉันอยากบอกเธอว่า...).
With เราเติบโตขึ้นในทุกๆ วัน —the self-help book about growing up,— I now only need about 30 minutes to analyze a paragraph and get its meaning rather well.
My process to do so is straightforward:
Open Wiktionary, Sealang, Papago, Google Translate, and HiNative.
Start reading
Look up every new word I encounter on the Wiktionary
If not found, look them up on Sealang
If still not found, google them with extra keywords like “English,” “grammar,” or “how to use”
If the word is one I’d like to know, write it down in my notebook along with its IPA pronunciation and signification
Repeat this until I’ve got all the words of a line.
Try to get an approximate meaning of it.
Move on until I’m done with the paragraph (which usually is one freakishly long sentence).
Rework my way through the entire paragraph without my notes.
If there’s a new grammar pattern and/or many new words I want to remember, I write down the Thai sentence in blue and the word-by-word translation in red (see Part 6 for why).
Before I write down the full-length sentence translation, I check the machine translation on Papago and Google Translate.
I either pick one of the translations or a bundle of the two (whatever makes more sense).
If I can’t find/create a “normal” English translation, I ask for it on HiNative.
Writing this down makes me realize there are quite a few steps in the end, but the action of doing it is a lot smoother.
For more information about this, I wrote about it in details in Part 7.
With the kids’ book with games, I get images that help me have an idea of the text before I even succeed in understanding it.
For example, in the double-page below, it was clear there’d be something about finding a difference between the images. A few words in, I learned the text was about children being taken away outside of kindergarten1. I knew the image A would be the answer before I even finished the paragraph.
Then on the next page, the answer was written while explaining what gave it away, therefore reinforcing some of the vocabulary I had learned before.
Finally, with the bilingual love story, I’m not taking many notes but rather rereading passages I’ve worked through before, slowly recognizing the words as I compare the Thai version with the English translation (which is often rather liberal and sometimes strays away from the original sentence to convey a similar feeling).
I’ll be honest.
This intensive text study is taxing.
Before Thai, I had never worked through “normal” texts aimed at natives as a beginner learner. I tend to use graded readers or comics instead to ease myself into things. This time around though, I didn’t have much choice as I found none (interesting at least) for Thai.
Still, even though it’s taxing, I’m loving the experience because of the variety of texts I have. Having three books seems like a good mix to alternate enough to not get bored and not too much to get forget whatever the story/topic was the last time I touched each.
Final notes
I recently tweeted about seeing my languages as my children.
Well, Thai is one of the most recent children so, as all parents do, I don’t give it as much attention as I gave my first or second children. And I’m fine with this because it’s a matter of letting it grow on its own too.
Between a few study sessions weekly, watching the TV shows and movies mentioned above, and looking at Thai words I struggle with that I’ve hung around my place, I know I’ll get better with time.
I’m in no rush and I’m enjoying the journey as it is.
Fun.
Inspiring.
Interesting.
And that’s what every language learning journey should be like, no matter what they look like.
As a final final note, about this series: I originally planned on publishing bi-weekly, if not weekly, updates but I now realize there’s not that much to say anymore since my process is rather well organized. I’ll keep publishing this series to show the journey but you can expect more of a monthly-ish rhythm. Although I’ll write posts every time something new changes with Thai.
Of course, if you have specific aspects on the journey you’d like to see, let me know!
Yeah, creepy for a book found in the kids' section. There are also images of blood in some future “games.” This would never have been allowed in France. Talk about culture shock.
I loved this piece. The sound of silence is why I am beginning to listen to French songs.