TV Method Thai Progress Report 1 (12 hours)
By thomas on Mar 31, 2009 in TV Method
I just finished the 8th episode of the Thai drama I’ve been watching. That brings me up to 12 hours of Thai TV watched. Passing the 10 hour mark seems as good a time as any to make my first progress report, so here goes..
Greetings
Keith tipped me off that the first thing that would jump out at me would be greetings. He was right. When two or more people meet it’s natural for them to greet each other. Dramas on TV tend to have several scenes where people run into one another, so there are a lot of greetings. I already knew the basic Thai greeting, so it wasn’t exactly new, but I heard it a lot. Good to know my ears could pick it up. One new thing that I did pick up with regard to Thai greetings was that talking on the phone and talking in person are not the same thing. Different greeting.
Names of People
I thought that I would pick up peoples’ names pretty quickly, but this turned out not to be the case. I didn’t figure out the two main characters’ names until episode 7. And I was lucky. I might not have figured it out if they hadn’t stuck the perfect scene in there. This is what happenened:
The two characters (a guy and a girl) have been on the run trying to escape some bad guys with guns. This time they escape the bad guys by hopping on bicycles and heading into the forest. In the forest, they are surprised by a sharp decline in the terrain and they head downhill at a very high speed. They lose control of their bikes and tumble over a waterfall (what else?) into a small lake or pond.
The guy surfaces and can’t find the girl anywhere. He searches and searches, but no luck. He makes camp and at night goes to bed. Then he sees her in a dream and wakes up and begins calling her name over and over again. Meanwhile the girl, asleep in another part of the forest, has a similar dream and wakes up calling the guy’s name over and over. Either that or she heard him and starting calling back. Whatever. Anyway, they hear each other and continue calling each others’ names over and over until the guy finally finds the girl’s camp.
Until then, I had no idea what to call them. If that scene hadn’t been there, I probably still wouldn’t know. And I still don’t know that names of any of the other supporting characters. Names are hard.
Names of Things
I have a 1.5 year old son, and he is just learning how to speak. Most of the words he can say are the names of objects: “star”, “moon”, “nose”, “feet”, “toe”, etc. It makes sense. It is easier to connect a sound to a physical object that you can see like the moon than it is to connect a sound to something abstract like … “abstract”. I thought it would be the same for me and I’d pick up on object names first.
The jury is still out on that one, but it seems to be coming true. The few times where I was able to jump up and say “Aha, that word probably means _______” were when a character (usually the female lead) would point to some object and say a word. This happened to me for banana, for snake/cobra, for telephone, for sunflower and for waterfall (I already knew the Thai word for waterfall though, so it doesn’t count).
I don’t remember the word for banana, as I only caught it once back in episode 1, but I was pretty sure at the time that she was naming the object, like “oh look, bananas!” I don’t remember sunflower or snake either. But telephone. I got telephone down.
The first time I heard it, the girl lead was walking down the street lost when she suddenly stopped and pointed and said the word. The camera pans over and there is a public telephone, which she uses to call someone (who I think may have been her mother). At this point, I had a feeling the word she said was the Thai word for telephone, but I wasn’t sure. It could have been “oh look” or “what’s that” or “finally!” for all I knew.
Then a few episodes later, the male lead does the universal phone symbol (hold your hand to the side of your head, thumb in your ear, pinky in front of your mouth) and says the same word. The evidence is building. Finally in Episode 8, the episode I watched today, there was a whole scene revolving around the two main characters borrowing a phone from some strange people and I heard that same word about eight times. I’m pretty sure I’m right and that word means “telephone”.
There is a little ambiguity though. In all cases, the phone was a big clunky one. I don’t know if this same word is used for cell phones or not. I’ll have to keep my ears open during cellphone scenes to make sure.
Conclusion
Two small victories in my first 12 hours.
- I figured out the main characters’ names.
- I figured out a word that means “phone”.
Beyond that I can generally follow the story of the drama, not with my ears, but with my eyes. There is a lot of action so it’s easy to understand. My ears are still getting used to the sounds of the Thai language. I feel like it’s not spoken as fast as Japanese is. I don’t understand what they are saying, but I feel like my ears catch everything, ie I don’t miss any syllables.
I’m at the halfway point in the drama now. I’ll write my next progress report when I finish the drama.
TV Method, Thai, Total Hours: 12
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Names are definitely harder to pick up on than one would expect, unless the language usually uses some kind of name-prefix or suffix like Japanese and you already know that. If not, you have no idea that a name is being spoken until after a while when it becomes obvious.
Object names are similar. I guess if we could, we might want to watch a ton of pre-school programs where they are teaching toddlers these things. But unfortunately, those programs aren’t usually sold and aren’t uploaded to YouTube, so you would either have to live in the country or ask someone who does to go through the trouble of recording and sending you the pre-school programs.
Keith | Apr 1, 2009 | Reply
This is where i don’t quite understand the appeal of the tv-only method. Wouldn’t you now want to open up Anki and make some cards (perhaps with no english in them) for the words “banana”, “telephone”, and then maybe look up the other words you thought you almost had, and see if you were right?
seems to me that a little bit of force-feeding and reinforcement would go a long way toward accelerating your understanding. what if no one mentions bananas for the rest of the series? you probably want to be reminded by an SRS, imho.
this is what i’m trying to do with reading in german. I spend a certain amount of time reading with no dictionary, and i’m allowed to write down 2 or 3 words from every page that stand out, then later i review.
any thoughts?
doviende | Apr 1, 2009 | Reply
@doviende
From a TV method standpoint, you shouldn’t do that. Still, the sentence method is all about doing exactly that, and it has proven to work perfectly. I normally don’t look up things from a book because I read mostly while traveling, but if you could, two – three words aren’t that bad. Just be sure to either look up an example sentence with the word (or several sentences) or copy the entire sentence from the book, and then enter it into Anki.
Ramses | Apr 1, 2009 | Reply
@doviende: there are a lot of reasons. The main reason is I don’t want any English at all in the method. I can’t look up “banana” in a dictionary without English “banana”.
Another reason is I can’t read or write Thai, and I’m not familiar enough with the sounds of the language to make up my own transliterations. I think I know the word for telephone, and I could probably say something that sounds like it (I bet it wouldn’t be dead on though). But I have no idea how to spell it.
Another reason is that would be studying. Just watching TV is really relaxing and easy. There’s no stress. If I miss something, need to get up to grab a drink, no big deal. That’s a nice feature of the TV method. It doesn’t feel like studying at all. Looking up words and entering cards into Anki can be tedious. I know because I do it everyday with Japanese (I’m a supporter of that method!!) :) Besides, with the rate I’m going at, I’d be adding about 4 cards every week. That’s a lot of days with 0 cards due in Anki :).
Another reason is that this is an experiment. My primary goal is to test out the TV method. My secondary goal is to learn Thai. Maybe that will clear it up :). I don’t want to cheat and ruin my experiment.
100% aural immersion. That’s all it is.
thomas | Apr 1, 2009 | Reply
@Keith: I actually thought of that and asked a Thai friend about shows similar to Sesame Street or Shimajiro, and there aren’t any. Or rather, there used to be one but it stopped a while back because they weren’t making any money :(. I found three clips of it on youtube, but they are all songs, which I’m not ready for yet.
The next step up would be cartoons for young children (who can already talk). I found a Thai CG movie about some elephants on youtube. It’s looks pretty cool and it’s less than 2 hours long, so I’m going to give it a couple watches. My mom back home runs a daycare and the kids there often watch the same movies over and over again (Bugs’ Life, Aladdin, etc). I’m going to pretend I’m a little Thai kid.
thomas | Apr 1, 2009 | Reply
‘…shows similar to Sesame Street’
I asked this awhile back on a Thai language forum and didn’t receive an answer.
Then just recently, Rickkr (Thai 101) shared a link to dubbed Sesame Street videos.
http://www.kidsquare.com/list.php?catid=565
I’ll track them down this weekend at Pantip (Bangkok) if I can get away.
I know you can’t watch lips with dubbed shows but Sesame Street is fantastic so I’m hoping they’ll be fine.
Catherine | Apr 3, 2009 | Reply
@Catherine: Thanks! That’s cool. I asked some Thai friends and they said there really isn’t a Thai sesame street-like program. At least not anymore. There was an old one that went off the air a few years back (ran out of money?) called เจ้าขุนทอง. I can’t read Thai but my friend spelled it in roman letters this way: chao khun tong.
Youtube had a couple songs from the show (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=id5irbri4mA .. I love the ox muppets) but that’s it. Songs aren’t as useful to me as regular conversations/skits would be.
If you can find some videos for the show, I’d love to find out where I could watch/order them.
thomas | Apr 3, 2009 | Reply
Most kids fare tends to be cartoons, but there are certainly lots and lots (and lots and lots) of cartoons either produced locally or dubbed from foreign sources.
If you want educational-type kids shows, it’s not just Sesame Street. Dubbed (or sub-titled) versions of Sesame Street, Barney, Bob the Builder, Thomas the Tank Engine, Noddy, Clifford, Magic School Bus, and Blues Clues are all relatively easy to find, and quite cheap.
For a VCD, a 30-minute dubbed children’s program will run 79-129 baht (US$2-4) list price, but I often find them on sale for 19-29 baht (US$0.50-$1), or 4 for 100 baht, etc. DVDs (which are nice because you can switch audio languages/subtitles off/on) tend to retail for 229 (US$7), but are occasionally found for cheaper; I’ve even seen as low as 50 baht.
I bought a bunch of subtitled Thai programs (so my daughter can hear the English) the last time I saw them in the 19-29 baht range. If I see them again, I’d be happy to pick you up a few and send them your way if you’re still doing the experiment by then. Catherine’s trip to Pantip may prove more fruitful.
Googling just now I found this site: http://www.babekiddy.com/
It’s all in Thai, but you can type the English name of the program you want into the search box to get an idea of what’s out there. I tried searches for “Barney” and “Sesame” and got lots of results, and cheap, too. I’ll have to bookmark this site…
rikker | May 2, 2009 | Reply
Oh, and by “if I see them again” I meant the price. Clearly you would want the dubbed versions, not the subtitled ones. :)
rikker | May 2, 2009 | Reply
hey you should check this out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADG-sG-mlMY&feature=related
It’s a Thai cartoon for kids. The stories move pretty slow so it could get kinda boring to watch a bunch of them in a row but I think they are good to watch every once in a while. Each story line is pretty simple so it shouldn’t be too hard to guess what the characters are talking about.
jorsh | Feb 15, 2010 | Reply