Learn Thai Workshops and Webinars
Reading Thai requires “solving the puzzle” for each word. After the course you will finally be able to read Thai menus, the labels on your beer bottles and understand what all those little shops down the “sois” are selling – the cheap laundry service, the car wash & polish, the computer repair shop, the dressmakers, what kind of beauty treatments or massages are available, cheap rooms for rent, etc. etc. 🙂
Not to mention, knowing whether that lane you’re about to turn into is a short cut or a dead end…!
Why Reading?
I went around in circles, looking for a way to acquire fluency, but in a relatively effortless and enjoyable yet effective manner. and without having to spend much time on it.
Reading (out loud) is the solution
I won’t go into the details here, suffice to say that you gotta start by being able to read out loud to the point that you can pronounce the words fluently and accurately. There’s no shortcut or alternative. Everything else leads to a dead end. Worse, what you learn is mostly wrong and you will acquire bad habits that are almost impossible to fix later on. If you’re illiterate then even if you get to the point where you can speak “fluently”, Thai people will find it really difficult to understand you.
When you can read, you can continuously build up your vocabulary with minimal effort, directly from your surroundings. The menus and street signs and labels and notices are a living (and visual) dictionary that’s fun to decipher. The last thing I would want to do is to read a dictionary for amusement. But reading signs and making out what’s on the menus is a really enjoyable pastime.
I’ve been following the efforts of dozens of people wanting to be able to converse reasonably fluently in Thai, to be able to talk to staff, to understand what their kids (and spouse’s friends and family) are saying, and to be able to connect more intimately with friends and lovers by being able to gossip or discuss ideas in Thai.
But life gets in the way. For most of us, learning Thai is just not a priority. It takes time and effort. Like learning to play the piano or guitar, or get fit or become skilled at Muay Thai or Taekwondo.
And, frankly, I’d also far rather spend my time playing piano or enjoying some physical activity than study a language!
So – how to make it easy and enjoyable to learn Thai? After all, it’s the key to a kind of Wonderland that we cannot enter or even see. There’s a fun and fascinating world out there that we can participate in and enjoy. Even if it’s just discussing your construction requirements with the builders, or asking the mechanic to fix your car, or joining in with the gossip and banter at a family or neighbor’s get-together. If you’re working, then it makes the world of difference to work with your staff or colleagues in Thai and discuss their ideas or concerns directly; or simply connect with them in a more direct, informal way, rather than as a somewhat lofty but dumb and unfathomable farang. Not to mention, being able to access the “sideline” sites or participate in social media groups or chat to newly-found friends on LINE or FB.Â
Dates and Locations
(Scroll down for the intensive six-day bootcamp or for the Alumni Refresher Weekend…)
Rapid Read Thai Online Workshop
Asia Time Zones
15 Week Days
Monday May 8 – Friday May 26
10am – 1pm
(Provisional. We will select dates and times that suits everyone if possible.)
Price: ฿15,000 THB + ฿10,000 for the Rapid Read Thai course material if you don’t already have it.
Starting from Day 1, we will learn to pronounce the tones accurately using the same tones we have in English.
Gradually, we will learn the most important letters and immediately read (and pronounce) words using the letters and tones we have learnt so far.
The schedule is more or less as follows:
- Sex, tones and first letters
- Basic letters
- Tone marks and the sex-change doctor
- Basic vowels
- Fused consonants
- Combination and “dirty” vowels
- Advanced and obscure letters
- How to read the modern fonts
- Reading menus, songs and stories
- Wrap-up: the 20 reading rules and the 10 rules for reading sentences without spaces
By the end of the course you will be able to read just about any Thai word accurately and with the correct tones.
You won’t necessarily understand what you are reading. That comes later with the follow-on conversational courses.
But already you can start to pick up vocabulary from your surroundings by reading the menus, notices and street signs. You can guess many of them, many already have English translations, and the rest you can look up in your dictionary app.
One useful bonus about building vocabulary this way is that you tend to remember a word more easily if you have a visual image of it and where you saw it.
| April 24-29 | Monday to Saturday |
| July 15-20 | Saturday to Thursday |
| Â | 8am-5pm (Six Days) in Chiang Mai |
Price: 42,000 baht
Discounts:
฿4,500 off pax if you book two or more people together (please contact me first).
Just the difference to pay if you’ve already purchased the Rapid Read Thai online course.
Price:42,000 THB
This is the start of a one year program to become conversationally fluent in everyday Thai.
Skeptical? Is it a gimmick or a scam?
It sounds too incredible to be true, right? But rather than take my word for it,
here’s what (real) people have said about the course:
I wanted to thank you for an excellent weekend. I asked my Thai teacher today if she thought it possible for someone with no prior knowledge to learn to read Thai in two days. She said no. When I read some Thai to her she said, “It’s a miracle!!!” Simon Gunn, Managing Director, Channah Thailand
Thank you Gary, it has been tremendous fun and tremendously motivating. Ian Chapman, Mayer Brown JSM
It was excellent, I learnt and retained more information [in one day] than I had in the previous 3 months by conventional teaching methods. Mark Pirie, Triumph Motorcyles
I was [astounded] at how I absorbed your material and was able to apply it. […] Well done mate – your depraved teaching methods really work. Jeff Lafaro, Uhde Shedden
more comments, good and bad, from participants (and skeptics)…
| October 2013 | August 2017 |
| October 2017 | February 2014 |
| What did the Norwegians say? | Comments from a German, a Brit and an American |
| Richard in March 2015 “Just do the course… it’s the best way to learn Thai.” |
Becky in March 2015 “Warning! It’s R-Rated.” |