This article was originally posted on WomenLearnThai.com.
WLT’s Thai Language Giveaway…
Welcome to week SIX of WLT’s seven weeks of Thai language giveaways by top movers and shakers in the learning Thai industry.
To find out about the $4,500+ in prizes being given away do read the intro post, Please Vote THAI and WIN! 2015: Top 100 Language Lovers Competition.
The previous FIVE giveaway posts by sponsor are: 1) Paiboon Publishing and Word in the Hand, and 2) DCO Books and Orchid Press, and 3) PickupThai Podcast, 4) Learn Thai Podcast, and 5) Learn Thai Style. Once again, congrats to the lucky winners!
Duke Language School and Bingo-Lingo…
This week Duke Language School and Bingo-Lingo (Arthit Juyaso) have joined together to sponsor prizes.
There are FOUR of Duke’s Survival One Group Lessons, which includes the textbook. Also included is free access to the beta version of Duke’s online course, created by Royce Heng.
Note: 1) you need to be in Bangkok to take the course, and 2) you do not have to take it right away.
There are also FOUR copies of Bingo’s detailed book, Read Thai in 10 Days (audio included). For this prize you can be anywhere in the world (we pay for shipping). Good luck!!
Bingo-Lingo: Read Thai in 10 Days….
If you are not located in Bangkok, then Duke’s Survival One Group Lessons will be out of your reach for now. BUT, here’s the good news. Arthit, the author behind Duke’s teaching materials, has also written the terrific Read Thai in 10 Days.
Author: Arthit Juyaso (Bingo-Lingo)
Price: $17.99 (orig $49.99)
Paperback + audio files: 170 pages
As I’ve already reviewed Read Thai in 10 Days in Learn to Read the Thai Alphabet in 2 Weeks, 10 Days, 60 Minutes, here’s a wee snippet from Arthit:
The selling points of this course are simplification, understanding, and organisation.
Simplification: Many Thai script teaching courses don’t handle rules well. For example, the tone rules. Instead of using bloated tables or cumbersome-looking tone flow charts, RTITD organises tone rules into one principle (plus the default tone for each tone mark) and three exceptions. The course also has a different take on Thai vowels. RTITD simplifies the ‘traditional’ number of vowels from 32 vowels (plus 10 vowel changes) to 22 vowels (4 of which have two forms), and treats vowel shortening and vowel-less words as separate.
Understanding: People may forget what they remember, but they will never forget what they understand! RTITD doesn’t rely on sheer effort to purely memorise individual character’s sounds when at initial and final position, it tells you WHY they are the way they are. The course also explains the nature of the Thai phonological system, that there are no unreleased finals, and which initial sound will become which final sounds, and much more.
Organisation: By prioritising what’s essential, the entire course is carefully structured in such a way that makes sense. Lesson by lesson, what learners have previously studied is repeated and combined with the new materials being introduced.
For reading skill reinforcement, the approach draws from the principles of spaced repetition. Words chosen for the reading practice exercises are not random, but appropriately distributed throughout the course. Using this method, students quickly gain confidence in their ability to read Thai.
Website: Read Thai in 10 Days
Facebook: Read Thai Language
YouTube: Read Thai in 10 Days
Twitter: @readthai
Duke Language School: Survival One Group Lessons….
When going through Survival One I was impressed to discover there are only 300 words to learn. With only a bare minimum of vocabulary, the lessons are jam-packed with useful phrases, sentence patterns and structures. Mentioning it to Arthit, he replied:
One of the main points of the course is to recycle previously seen vocabulary as much as possible (it’s my love for spaced repetition).
Arthit not only knows his stuff, but equally important, he knows how to explain it to westerners. You are just going to love the helpful advice and cultural tidbits dribbled all throughout the course. And yes, it’s real Thai.
Stu Jay Raj (jcademy.com): I searched for months to find Thai language schools in Bangkok that I would feel comfortable affiliating with and being able to recommend to my students of the Thai language regardless of where their level was at. They must be linguistically accurate, dynamic and have a teaching system that really engages their students.
All roads led to Duke. Their team has all the right ingredients of tech savvy, linguistically qualified experienced teachers that really know their stuff.
Their new Journey series fits in very well with CTF and the new upcoming online version that they’re putting together is looking fantastic!
Duke’s Survival lessons (1-3) are for basic beginners. Survival One is included in this giveaway. The Journey series (Conversational 1-3 and Fluency 1-3) focuses on speaking, Explore (1-4) introduces reading and writing, and Connect (1-4) takes it further. All courses require the same amount of time to complete.
Survival lessons are taught onsite at Duke Language School in Bangkok. Each course is 12 days long, lasting for two hours per lesson. It’s important to note because you will obviously need to be in Bangkok to collect this part of your prize!
Duke’s Survival One Chapter Breakdown:
About the Thai language.
Thai sounds: consonants, vowels, and tones.
Numbers from zero to 100.
Essential words and classroom phrases.
Chapter Two: Meeting and greeting
How to introduce yourself, greet people and say goodbye.
How to talk about your home country and hometown.
How Thai pronouns work.
Chapter Three: Taking a taxi
How to get a taxi and use the service.
Yes-no questions.
How to give simple directions.
Chapter Four: Buying street food
How to ask what something is called.
Buying food from the street.
About different kinds of street food.
Chapter Five: Navigating buildings
How to ask where things are.
How to talk about locations.
The words for places inside a building.
Layout of the lessons: Essential Words (20 words and mini-phrases), Dialogue (cartoons acting out the scenes, then dialogue on its own with transliteration and English, finishing with questions to make sure you understand what is happening), Key Structures and Expressions (important sentence patterns are taught in this section), Noteworthy (one of my favourite sections because goodies are imparted here), and Vocab Builder (more vocabulary to increase your usage of the patterns explained in Key Structures and Expressions).
Tod Daniels: The new course and textbooks by Duke Language School are some of the most revolutionary, best written and engaging conversational Thai textbooks I’ve seen after viewing the material of almost 20 private Thai language schools.
This stuff will turn the “teach conversational Thai to foreigners” marketplace on its ear. This is how Thai should have been taught to us ages ago. The material is presented in a very easy to understand and logically progressive manner. It contains contemporary, high frequency vocabulary that a student will be able to use from day one in conversations with Thais.
If you factor in the companion on-line program currently in development you’ve got the makings of a product that stands head and shoulders above everything else out in the marketplace now. I can’t say enough positive things about the books and the course.
For more about Duke, read Tod Daniels’ Review: Duke Thai Language School.
At present, Royce Heng’s Survival One online course (included in the giveaway) is in sneak preview mode. Once it’s been finalised winners will get two months free access. But, before it’s all spiffed up, winners can preview the incomplete materials as much as they want.
Note: If you don’t win one of the courses not all is lost. You can still get a free lesson by sending them an email here: Duke: Learn Thai.
Duke Language School
10/63, Trendy Building, 3rd floor
Sukhumvit Soi 13, Wattana
Bangkok 10110, Thailand
Tel: +66 8-2444-1595
Facebook: Duke Language BKK
Twitter: @DukeLanguageBKK
Rules for WLTs Thai Language Giveaway…
The rules are dead simple (at this point I could recite them in my sleep):
- To be included in the draw, leave comments below.
- Comment(s) need to add to the conversation (it really does matter).
- Each relevant comment gets counted, so please do leave as many as you like!
- You do have to live in Bangkok to enter the contest for Duke’s course (let us know).
- You don’t have to live in Thailand to enter the contest for the book; the cost of shipping to anywhere in the world is covered (again, let us know).
- If you don’t collect your prize within a week of the announcement, it will be given away to the next person in line.
And remember, even if you’ve won in past giveaways, you can win in this one too.
The draw will run from this moment until the 7th of July, 6pm Thai time. At that time I’ll announce the winners in the comments below as well as create a dedicated post. Good luck!
Again, my thanks goes to Duke Language School and Arthit for gifting these wonderful materials!
WLTs 2015 Thai Language Giveaway…
Here are the posts so far in WLT’s Thai Language Giveaway.
- Please Vote THAI and WIN! 2015: Top 100 Language Lovers Competition
- WLTs Thai Language Giveaway: Paiboon Publishing & Word in the Hand
- WINNERS: Talking Thai-Eng-Thai Dictionary, Thai-Eng-Thai Phrasebook, and Thai for Beginners
- WLT’s Thai Language Giveaway: Smyth’s Thai: An Essential Grammar, Higbies’ Thai Reference Grammar and Essential Thai
- WLT’s Thai Language Giveaway: PickupThai Podcast
- WINNERS: PickupThai Podcast’s Sweet Green and Spicy Red
- WLT’s Thai Language Giveaway: Learn Thai Podcast
- WINNERS: Learn Thai Podcast
- WLT’s Thai Language Giveaway: Learn Thai Style
- WINNERS: Learn Thai Style
And remember, after this there’s still ONE more week of prizes to be given out to celebrate WLT turning seven. Good luck everyone!
Hello everyone Im very impressed with what your doing at this school.. I have lived a total of seven years in Bangkok and just came back after a three year hiatus.. I want to learn more Thai language and nothing has caught my eye more than this course.. My heart is beating fast just thinking about it lol the structures and learning style completly attract me and seem like a great motivator.. No other school I have visited has impacted my education wants and needs, as well as making me feel more confident in investing in such a future of learning.. I will be visiting the school come April 5th and hope to become A full time student then.. I hope your all blessed as your making positive movements in others lives . how exciting! Thank you!
I’ve been depending a lot on transliteration lately and I just read another review somewhere that a reader of RTITD can now learn new Thai vocabulary with Thai writing. I know that sounds ideal in any case, but it seems to me that I can’t seem to let go of the transliteration. I freeze up when encountering just the Thai characters alone so for me even memorizing the transliteration is essential for me. Even with the Reading/Writing lessons I’m taking now, a habit of mine is that sometimes I tend to pay attention to the transliteration more than the Thai letters. So it’s just great to hear that RTITD could be the way to break that habit of mine. And all of these reviews just mesmerize me.
It’s like a mystery….that 10 days (to say the least) seems too good master, despite it already taking me weeks to connect sounds to symbols. But I have no doubt Bingo has this magical method that will trigger a quicker learning device in all of us. The more I think about this mystery, the more I can’t wait to find out how!
Hi,
I looked at this, and it looks like a really good way to learn thai. I’ve been struggling to learn it by myself, but here the structure seems to make sense,
Using realistic means o teach tones, and dialogues ,so it feels like real life will aid memory! And interesting oaswel
Dear Bingo,
What first drew me to your book “Reading Thai In Ten Days” was reading that you have a different take on teaching the vowels and the presenting the tones in a more organized way. Some of the tone charts and explanations that I’ve found on-line are so complicated that they make me cross-eyed. I look forward to learning your much simpler method.
After ten days and I’ve “LTRT” I will be ready to enroll in the Duke on-line courses that Catherine mentioned above to Bernard.
Oh, by the way, I read a wonderful tip at the bottom of the Duke School home-page to get my husband to respond to my “baby sounding” Thai. I tried out the #6 suggested sentence under the “How do you get Thai people to SPEAK THAI to you (without embarrassing yourself)?” heading. It worked!
Thank you. Kob Khun Maak Kha.
Thanks, Catherine – got a crazy idea, perhaps, I can squeeze it in my Bangkok stay 🙂
Aleishea, Yes, Thanks, I did, but as I had no idea what, if any, bus I needed to get and as I was then already late, I opted to search deep into my pockets and managed to dig up enough Baht to get a taxi there. I did eventually manage to return home cheaply from there on the right bus though (but as it is a terminus they stand still long enough to get time to double check the destination written on them! ^_^
Wow! I was just talking to my husband earlier about learning how to read Thai language. It is very interesting to learn because I am actually enrolled at Duke Language School at the moment and I am enjoying the class. The book will be really helpful in understanding and learning more about the language. 🙂
Excellent. I’ve heard good things about duke.
Dmitry – it’s 12 days 🙂
Happy Monday everyone!
Dmitry – I’ve asked Bingo to clarify if it’s 12 or 20 days. At this time the Journey Survival courses are not listed on Duke’s site so I can’t double-check.
Bernard – Duke has plans to get their materials online so that will open their courses up to everyone.
Will – you’ll be able to use the conversations taught in the course with your students. I’m sure they won’t mind if you use them as guinea pigs 🙂
Will, I think we all have some sort of guilt in us for neglecting necessary things to be done. We all get caught up with depending on our other half. But I think anytime is the right time to get out your books and start again. I feel your temptation for Bingo’s book! I also am compelled to it after reading Catherine’s review about it. It looks so well constructed and furthermore, I like the fact that he has an exceptional linguistic background (which I am so deeply interested in…especially since he also studied Japanese, my second-language, so forgive me if I’m a little bias :P) And who knows, it just might be the book that will do it for us.
Gordon, so did you end up in getting back to Bang Na safely? I’ve heard about the speed buses and it’s funny because it’s like your Thai is put through society, like a speed comprehension test but in real life. I assume this mistake often happens. Any other unforgettable occurrences related to misreading or writing of Thai? The best part about learning a language for me always was learning from mistakes/errors and learning to correct them. I said in a previous post that I meant to write to a guy friend: ขอบคุณ (khob khun) and wrote ชอบคุณ (chob khun) without noticing the difference between symbols ข and ช. It was funny considering that it was the right time yet wrong words used and my friend taken-aback by this. But I can relate to Gordon that incidences like these are imminent, and only stimulates us more to become aware of Thai language a lot more.
Dear Khun Bingo,
Thank you for your response. I used to live in Bangkok in the early ’80’s for about 3 years and attended AUA to study Book 1 & 2. At that time, because of family constraints, I did not keep up with what I learned. Now I regret it, as it would have been much easier in my 20’s but it’s still not too late. For the past couple of months I have been obsessed with trying to learn to read by memorizing the Thai alphabet and vowels. I feel ready to move on to the next step and that is where I need help. I strongly believe that your book, “Read Thai in 10 Days” will help me to succeed. Thank you. Kob Khun Maak Kha.
Will, I feel for you. The speed busses approach and the dirt pften on them can make things even more difficult. I jumped on a minibus a couple of weeks ago intending to get to Bang Na, only to find it later passing the expected turn off and heading quickly in another direction to Bang Nam. I had, through tje dirt, the speed, or just my poor reading, missed the little “o” on top of the “Na” making it “Nam”. Luckily I new the general route and realised quickly that I was off track or it would have taken me ages to get back to where I should have been going! Sounds like we are both in need Bingo’s book! ^_^ Good luck.
Bingo, thanks. I am reallyl looking forward to getting started on your book. I have been distracted recently and need to find a new drive or two to get me concentrating on my Thai learning again and reading and writing better will make studying easier as oening s a book or an e-book is easier to use when only a few minutes are available, compared to ‘lessons” which really need longer set slots of time to get into properly. Your book will hopefully get me to the stage where my reading is good enough to find appropriate, and intersting, books that I will be able to work with. Fingers crossed I am lucky enough to win your book and get started on it next week. ^_^
Hi Catharine, Bingo and Duke,
I’m a hard nut to crack. I’ve lived in Bangkok for eight years and my Thai remains at the sub-elementary level. Having a wife that speaks decent English takes away much of the incentive to practice, I’m sorry to admit, although we do exchange some Tinglish phrases. When I first arrived in Thailand, I bought a shelf-full of books and set out to learn how to read the destinations on bus signs, since I live far from the MRT and BTS. It was tough going, but I also learned the routes for different bus numbers and, better yet, found I could memorize the colors and shapes of buses easier than spotting and translating the destinations. Having poor eyesight adds to my difficulty. So while I continue to use the Bangkok bus system more than most expats, I have stalled in my efforts to learn Thai. The books on my shelf gather dust. And as an teacher of English to monks, I regularly give out advice to my students about learning a language that I fail to follow myself. I must say that both Bingo and Duke’s offering look very tempting. Will they work with me? As I’m a fan of free stuff, I’d really like to try. Probably Duke’s class might be more demanding and Bingo’s book a definite challenge. But I’m game. Try me out.
Hi catherine, Hi Bingo
Ok, I know already how to read Thai. Well, mostly. I’ m still stuck – many more times than I would like to – facing words that are quite complexe to read – for me. They take me several minutes to read them out, then go to a dictionary… So the book from Bingo-Lingo will be interesting to have a look and test its new approach of reading Thai.
Living in Chiang Mai and not planing to move some weeks to Bangkok for a Thai course anytime soon, it seems that the Duke course is out of interest for me. And I’ m more a beginner too. But the fact is that if the textbooks, and way of teaching is different from other more classical, formal (and boring as well) textbooks, it may be interesting to use it also in a self studying environment. It could be also a nice experience for Duke Language School to test the efficiency of the textbook with someone that cannot come to class. And that could be possible as it seems there is something online that is planed to “relay” the books and, I guess, help students to train someways what they learnt. In the future, selling a very new textbook for the self-studying can be also a good project for Duke Language School (it could be something adapted from the actual textbooks which were created for in-class group teaching). Or for sustaining face to face Skype sessions.
Fact is I’m a bit like Catherine. I like tools, textbooks, videos, flashcards et tones of iOS apps… I’m a curious and a quite odd (old) student. So I’ m interested to see what is about that new way of teaching/learning Thai that Duke (Tod Daniel and Stuart J. Raj) promote for some months.
But, to be clear, as I’ m not a beginner, I don’t want at all to “steal” a course that could be very important experience for a beginner living in Bangkok.
But if Duke managers, and Bingo, feel that my idea could be interesting to give a test at, and if they can afford to send me a class textbook (perhaps not the very beginner’s one, but something more challenging), I ‘m willing to collaborate with them as long as continue learning Thai.
I already started to work with LTP. About half hour a day. When I was paid subscriber, I didn’t use it a lot, as I had no time (I don’t know why I subscribed to LTP at that time). I progress quite quickly in the beginner course, but I didn’t want to jump directly to the intermediate lessons. It is good to review a lot, and LTP help doing that as it it a very structured course, with four main perspectives.
I worked also with my first two Green podcats from Yuki, but it is a bit more challenging : I use them mostly for train my listening skill (can I says “skill” about something taht is so terrible), and I have to listen many, many times the audio before understanding fully the stories.
Thank you Catherine for this giveaway. I feel learning good and inline to progress – bite by bite.
Hi Catherine and Bingo,
Just a question about the time period: Catherine, you mentioned 12 days for the 1st Survival course and at Duke’s web-site it looks like 20 days per a course?
@Vanna:
Hi Vanna, I still remember you mentioning the similarity between Thai and Khmer strategy in expressing time, unfortunately I haven’t really got around to do that yet, as my main project (Duke Language School’s Journey course) is taking a lot of my time. But soon, I hope.
@Gordon:
Thank you for your interest in both prizes Gordon 🙂 About the possibility, I’m sure Catherine would have the answer for you soon.
@Celine:
I’m sure you’ll find our approach interesing, Celine. And may the odds be ever in your favour 🙂
@Joanie:
I wholeheartedly agree that being able to read boosts your pronunciation accuracy, also your ability to build your language skill on your own as well (which you’ll read about it in the intro of RTITD, if you win 🙂 ขอบคุณครับ
@Dmitry:
We’re looking into providing private lesson via Skype. As for the online course, there is no definite launch date yet, but if you want to try then we’ll inform you as soon as it is available 🙂
@Aleishea:
Thank you having a look at my website and for your kind words 🙂 Best of luck, Aleishea.
After reading about Bingo’s history, his love for languages, and how he came up with a method for reading Thai…WOW is just the one word that I can think of right now. The reviews that come up are just “mind-blowing.” The picture on the website first caught my eye with the Sukumwit sign. Oh how simple that looks to read! In the end, it all buttons down to stressing “Simplification, Understanding, and Organization.” I love the quote “people may forget what they remember, but they will never forget what the understand.” It is so true! Learning to read any language incorporates understanding and logic. I already started doing the sample pages and couldn’t wait to do more! I usually get too overwhelmed when there are too many symbols put together, but completing the sample page was not difficult at all! This book would be perfect to complement my studies, since I’m doing a Read and Write course already. It would make an excellent reference! I have been having trouble recognizing symbols and connecting it with their appropriate sounds. Thank you for including this in one of the weekly giveaways. I am so glad to find that this book is out there!!
Waiting for an online course 🙂
Is Duke going to provide teachers for Skype lessons additionally to the online course?
I was very excited to discover this website a while back as it has been a big source of motivation for me in trying to learn Thai on my own. I previously had tried for many years without much success. The transliteration/karaoke was very confusing and inconsistent from one product to another. I learned from here that actually learning to read first or at least along with trying to learn the Thai language would give me a better chance. My husband is Thai but he doesn’t want to speak my “baby sounding” Thai with me so I am on my own. I am very happy to see that Bingo Lingo’s Read Thai in 10 Days is one of the giveaways. A few weeks ago I saw his site and was impressed reading about the book and watching the youtube video. I feel that his being a Thai Principal/teacher will reflect in his teaching method and put me on the right path to learning to read Thai and speak Thai correctly. Hopefully, I will graduate to “adult sounding” Thai. I appreciate any consideration you may give me. Thank you. Kob khun maak kha.
Duke’s seems to be just what I need! I live in Bangkok since a year now and I thought I would start learning Thai quickly but I still just know hello, thank you and counting to ten. I so badly miss being able to communicate with people around me with more than smiles, it feels as if I miss out on the real Thailand when I don’t understand anything going on around me. I have always been amazed how people can stay for a long time in a country without learning the language and now I’m doing it myself! Please help me out of this embarrassing situation 🙂
Awesome! Would love to see more of his stuff!
Vanna, you’ll be happy to know that Bingo will continue to write for WLT as well (I love his stuff).
Gordon, all good points! I’m not sure how they will choose the winners (Duke’s course and RTITD, or separate). I imagine they’ll go by how many good comments there are and figure it out from there. I will ask for you though …
Duke’s school sounded very interesting when I saw his presentation at Stu’s workshop a while back and although in theory the Suvival Lessons may be on the easy side for me, there are three reasons why I would still be interested in them. First, I am in Bangkok and the forced regular attendance at a school will redevelop the regular habit of scheduling a dedicated time slot to learning Thai with all the advantages that attending face to face lessons and the feedback that they generate that self-study misses out on, would be a great benefit, especially with the pronunciation, tones, vowel lengths, etc. that is so important to get right as quickly as possible. Second, the Thai school that I previousy attended taught very formal Thai and Duke’s course is more colloquial ‘everyday street Thai” which means I would be expanding my Thai even at this so called intro level. And third, as I said above, the school sounds like it has a great , and different approach and the couses of lessons sound like it would be a good alternative to the other schools and I found from the original school that I attended that after they advised that I skip the initial course as I was “above that level”, when I started at the second level I had missed out on some important stuff that the other students had learned, like proper pronunciation, some of the “basic” vocab needed in the second couse, etc, that made the rest of the courses much more difficult than they needed to be therefore attending this survival course would be a great intro to any follow up courses at Duke’s school.
As I said last week, Reading and writing are a weakness and having struggled for a long while to find a system that works for me, I am always on the lookout for a different approach. If RTITD is as revolutionary as Stu and Todd, and of course Cat, say it is then RTITD may be the one that works for me so it would be great to try it.
As Duke’s course and RTITD work are interelated, it would be great to have RTITD to support Duke’s Course, but it sounds like the draw will only be for one or the other product, not both. You are (“unfortunately” LOL) drawing a great numbers of comments Cat, so to have a very remote chance of winning both products, do I need to post twice, or do I automatically get entered in both draws?
After the post by Bingo Lingo on time particles on this blog, I’d have to agree he sure does know how to explain things. I also like the fact he believes in active learning. How else will you get anything in to your system other than learning things actively? Spoon feeding answers will do no good. By the way, Bingo Lingo, how did researching the Khmer time particles go for you? Since I’m obviously not in Thailand, I’ll have to settle for his book. I’d love to see how he explains the tone rules for Thai. Well, good luck to everyone else who enter the draw.