Learn Thai From A White Guy

สาธารณรัฐแซมเบีย เป็นประเทศที่ไม่มีทางออกสู่ทะเลในภูมิภาคแอฟริกาใต้ มีพรมแดนทางด้านเหนือจรดสาธารณรัฐประชาธิปไตยคองโก ทางตะวันออกเฉียงเหนือจรดแทนซาเนียทางด้านใต้จรดโมซัมบิก ซิมบับเว บอตสวานา และนามิเบีย และทางตะวันตกจรดแองโกลา เดิมมีชื่อว่าโรดีเซียเหนือ ชื่อแซมเบียมีต้นกำเนิด มาจากแม่น้ำแซมเบซี

สาธารณรัฐ – republic [สาธารณะ = public, รัฐ = state]

ไม่มีทางออกสู่ทะเล landlocked (no way out to the sea)

ภาค region; area (Northern Thailand is referred to as ภาคเหนือ)

พรมแดน – border 

สาธารณรัฐประชาธิปไตยคองโก Democratic Republic of Congo

ตะวันออกเฉียงเหนือ northeast (W/E + เฉียง + N/S)

จรด – reach; touch

มีต้นกำเนิด have orgins in; to have originated from

เดิม – previously; formerly

I headed down to Bangkok last weekend to do a podcast with the dashing fellows from Bangkok Podcast, Greg and Tony.  We had a good time and they had some พิซซ่า.

Check it out here.

The Competition is especially fierce in Chiang Mai.

สอนภาษาอังกฤษ

• เก่งแกรมม่า + กล้าพูด

  ติวสอบ

รับ 2 ขวบขึ้นไป

*ติว – tutor

The first version of the app is just about ready to go the store.  Thanks to the testers for their suggestions!

If anyone would like to be notified when it is officially released please sign up here.

Any of my readers that happen to have an iphone and would be interested in testing out my first app which is nearly completion please shoot me an email at -

learnthaifromawhiteguy AT gmail DOT com

I’m not entirely sure if it will be terribly helpful for regular readers of my site as it is more geared towards the beginner, but it may be useful as a reference for some of you.

These days, the only dictionary I use for Thai is http://dict.longdo.com/.  It is very possible that there are better dictionaries out there.  I know that there are a few others that access the same information as the above site, but I haven’t spent any time looking because there hasn’t been any need.  If anyone knows of better ones, please let me know.

Here are the main reasons why I’ve been using this one -

1. No transliteration + it usually has the Thai phonetic spelling for words with multiple or odd pronunciations.
2. Search results for definitions at the top are in Thai.  Often times the Thai def will give you a much better idea how to use the word as opposed to the Eng def.
3. Many of the words have usage examples.
4. Many words also have entries in Japanese and Chinese (as well as French and German) that occasionally appear in the results.

As an example I’ll use อึมครึม which I SRS’d fairly recently and haven’t seen again since.

I was down in Bkk for Barcamp last weekend and it was a pretty good turnout.

While there I did a session entitled “Learn to Read Thai in 30 minutes.” I covered most of what I normally would in a beginner lesson (middle class story, key concepts, a few bonus letters) and I think it went really well.

I also ended up running into David Long of AUA on Saturday night and we had a good talk about language study methods and decided to lead a discussion on Sunday called “Why Language Study Sucks” where we gave ideas on how to go about learning a language outside of the classroom.
Check out his post about the talk here
and the rest of the AUA blog here.

Things are really busy on my end lately. I’m off to Laos for a bit tomorrow and then back to the grind next week.

Steve of Lingq did a post in response to a comment from one of my current students.  Check it out!

http://thelinguist.blogs.com/how_to_learn_english_and/2010/05/native-speaker-teachers-or-non-native-speaker-teachers-or-independence.html

Earlier this year I went to Bangkok for Barcamp and I really enjoyed it.  If you haven’t heard of it, the basics are that it is an open educational conference.  Open in the sense that everyone is a participant can give a talk about whatever they wish.  It’s great for networking and a good time.   While there are a lot of tech guys, there are plenty of people from other fields as well.  And its free!

Depending on the turn out, I may do a talk or 2 about language stuff.

November 14th will be the 2nd Barcamp Chiang Mai.  If anybody is in the area or can get up here, you might wanna check it out.

Check out the poster here http://barcampchiangmai.org/0908/news/view/3

Short audio blurp from a vid I didn’t finish. I have a few of these. If I can edit out most of the garbage I’ll try and put ‘em up soon.