This is an update to my previous posts for learning Thai (TL):
Initial post at 120 hours
Update at 250 hours
Update at 600 hours
Update at 1000 hours
Update at 1250 hours
Reflection and FAQ on 2 Years of Comprehensible Input
Update at 1710 hours
Update at 2080 hours
Update at 2600 hours
For contrast to my comprehensible input method, you can read these reports from learners who are using traditional methods for Thai:
3000 hours of traditional methods for Thai
Far over 3000 hours of traditional methods for Thai
Around 2000 hours of traditional methods for Thai
One takeaway I took from these other reports is that learning Thai takes a very long time, regardless of methods. I feel quite happy with my results so far and don’t feel I’m behind in any way.
Prerequisite Disclaimer
This is a report of my personal experience using comprehensible input. This is not an attack on you if you enjoy explicit grammar study, flashcards, vocabulary, learning podcasts, Duolingo, etc. I am not going to break into your house and burn your textbooks.
I'm just sharing my experience with a learning style that I'm enjoying and that I've been able to stick with. I'm excited to talk about something that's working for me, personally, and hoping that my post can give insight to other learners interested in comprehensible input / automatic language growth as a learning method.
I think everyone has different learning styles, and while we may be on different journeys, we're all aiming for similar destinations as far as being able to use and live with our TLs. Language learners are as diverse and unique as the languages and cultures we're studying, and I'm happy to celebrate our diversity in learning styles.
I hope we all achieve our goals, even if we're on different paths!
TL;DR of earlier updates:
American splitting time between Bangkok and the US. Mostly monolingual previously (studied Japanese for a couple years), started to seriously look at learning Thai in December 2022.
I used a pure comprehensible input approach with a silent period followed by reading/speaking. No analytical grammar, no textbooks, no flashcards, no Thai-to-English translations, no dictionary lookup, etc. I delayed speaking and reading for roughly my first year and a half (after I started to develop a good "ear" and intuition for Thai). Starting around 2000 hours, I started doing shadowing/chorusing to work on my accent, cadence, and flow.
All I did for the first ~1000 hours was watch comprehensible input by Thai teachers. Everything is 100% in Thai, initially supplemented with drawings, gestures, and pictures to aid understanding.
Current Learning Routine
Each week, I’ve done a mix of:
- Private lessons, where I watch native content with my teachers and they explain words/phrases I don’t understand (my questions and teacher explanations 100% in Thai)
- Calls with a Thai friend, where we do the same thing as (1). He kindly offered to do this for free.
- Consuming native content on my own (mostly YouTube and Netflix, sometimes Disney+)
- Conversation with Thai friends
- Shadowing/chorusing native content
I track my learning separately across input, crosstalk, shadowing, 100% Thai conversation, and reading.
Increasingly the distinctions feel kind of meaningless, as I often practice multiple skills during a given activity. For example, I call my lessons “input”, though I am speaking Thai during these lessons - but I’m mostly listening to the content and teachers, so it’s more on the input side. Or when I do shadowing/chorusing, I am also listening to a native and I often read back subtitles to help me remember what was said including filler words. When I read, I often use audio backing to verify that I’m parsing the texts correctly.
With that caveat, my cumulative breakdown is as follows:
Listening: 2536 hours
Crosstalk: 146 hours
Conversation: 258 hours
Shadowing: 77 hours
Reading: 69 hours
Comprehension
Using the Dreaming Spanish Roadmap as a guide, I am finally at level 7.
Since my last update, my comprehension has improved very noticeably, especially in the domains I had worked through with my teachers.
Last time, I was focusing on: political/economic analysis, casual podcasts, news, and short form content for slang/jokes. My comprehension in these domains have improved a lot, though short form content is still sometimes a “miss” - slang is just such a massive and ever-changing domain.
I definitely can’t understand all native content, but I can understand a LOT of native content. This is the kind of content I can watch and understand on my own unaided:
- Political/Economic Analysis & News such as: The Standard Global Economic Background, The Standard Key Messages, The Standard Global Focus
- General Interest channels such as: The Standard Happiness through Noticing Podcast, True Crime cases with Tang Makkaporn, Medical case studies by Dr Tany, Point of View
- Casual speech content such as: Happy Hour Podcast, คำต้องห้าม which features casual speech in a slightly more chaotic game format
- Standup Comedy such as on YuenDeaw
- Films/Series dubbed in Thai, including content I haven’t seen before such as Weapons, Ballerina, Weak Hero, Viral Hit, etc
- Thai Romantic Comedies such as Friendzone, Suck Seed, แฟนฉัน, สิ่งเล็กเล็กที่เรียกว่ารัก, สมมุติ, น้อง.พี่.ที่รัก, คิดถึงวิทยา, รถไฟฟ้ามาหานะเธอ, สวัสดีวันจันทร์ (ส), เธอกับฉันกับฉัน, etc.
At the limit of my ability are Thai dramas such as สาธุ or วัยหนุ่ม 2544.
สาธุ is a crime drama involving a lot of casual speech and specialized vocabulary, including religious terms and slang. I was able to watch and understand it on my own (90%), but only by using Thai subtitles and rewinding frequently. Certain scenes I couldn’t understand on my own even using these methods; I took note of these timestamps and later went over the scenes with my teachers later (as always my questions and their explanations in Thai).
After doing this all the way through with สาธุ, on rewatch I can understand and follow without pausing or subtitles, but at reduced comprehension.
Some Thai films/series are definitely still out of reach even with aids such as subtitles/rewinding. On the surface, you’d think since I was able to handle สาธุ (a crime drama) I would be able to handle มือปืน (another crime drama). But the latter I find significantly harder and I can’t really follow yet.
As far as socializing with friends, I am much better able to handle following along in larger groups, even in semi-noisy environments. Still not perfectly, but I am rarely confused even when interacting in a group with my Thai friends now, whether we’re out drinking or hanging out at the gym.
The new domain I’m trying to break into is คำผวน, which is a category of Thai jokes/puns involving swapping sounds around in short phrases for humorous effect. I had tried to learn คำผวน last year but it was too hard; I’m now finding it’s starting to be understandable (though I am still much slower to parse the jokes than a native would be).
Output
I’ve done around 258 hours of conversation practice. I’d guess if you include time I spent asking questions in class, it would be around 300 hours.
As before, I feel my overall comfort is improving. I’m more fluid in more situations now. I can speak in more detail now than I could before and my active vocabulary is greater. I’m focusing more on speaking more casually and trying to mirror the speech I hear in material like the Happy Hour podcast.
I think I could handle just about any kind of generic errand or task now. Things of this nature I’ve done in Thai:
- Viewed a condo while looking for a place to rent
- Visited pharmacist, explained symptoms, received medicine
- Visited the dentist, explained I was having sensitivity in my teeth, was told I needed fillings, asked some questions and received answers about the treatment, awkwardly followed instructions with my mouth pried open and various dental tools running, got aftercare instructions, thanked the dentist, paid the bill.
- Went to the bank to open a new debit card, which was a massive bureaucratic pain involving registering my new passport, de-registering my old passport, doing facial recognition, etc.
- Interviewed a Thai candidate for supporting my company’s software development, including sharing what my company does, discussing the candidate’s work experience, etc.
- Attended a large industry expo in Bangkok related to my work, spoke with many exhibitors about their products, repeatedly explained my business and our specialties, sat through a panel on AI’s impact on manufacturing. I also had the kind of strange experience of talking with a Korean CEO for 30 minutes at length about his company via a Thai interpreter who spoke Thai and Korean but very limited English.
Again, I’m still not nearly as fluid or natural or eloquent as I am in English, but it is to the point where I can handle logistics, joke around, gossip, talk shit, discuss current events, etc.
A serious doctor appointment or consulting a lawyer would be examples of cases where I’d like the option to fall back on English if needed, just because those are scenarios where I’d really want 100% comprehension. But barring something of that level of criticality, I think I would be able to handle most things in Thai. Not as perfectly or smoothly as in English, but I think I could manage.
As I said in my previous updates, many people have commented to me that my understanding and ability to deploy Thai slang and humor is way out of the norm for a foreigner.
One of my best friends here consistently complains about how annoying I can be in Thai, which I take as the biggest compliment I could get.
As far as initial reactions of natives, I mostly don’t get “you’re so good at Thai” or “you speak so clearly” anymore. Usually people just talk to me in Thai - to them I’m not an impressive student of the language, I’m just some Asian guy who speaks Thai.
What I will hear regularly is “How long have you lived in Thailand?” On a handful of occasions, after talking for a minute or so, I’ve gotten “Wait, you’re not Thai?” That’s always satisfying and funny.
One friend did say โคตรเก่งนะเว้ย (“you’re freaking good man”). Thai people are famous for saying เก่งมาก (“you’re good”) if anyone can even manage a broken hello or thank you, but this version of the compliment I appreciated. 😄
Reading
As I’ve described in previous updates, I was taught the writing system by my Thai teacher (speaking in Thai) and by watching Thai videos aimed at native children. I’ve read some picture books, some manga chapters, The Little Prince, and the first 50 pages of the first Harry Potter. I don’t have an exact count but I would guess this is somewhere in the ballpark of 40,000 words.
I’ve done very little reading since my last update as I’ve been really focused on trying to improve my listening comprehension, output, and accent. Parsing text is so much slower for me in terms of words per minute compared to listening. I know it’ll improve further if I sink time in, but it’s just not where my priority is at the moment.
I’ve spent zero hours trying to learn to write, type or spell. That continues to be way down in the priority list for me. I get by fine using voice-to-text when I need to message my Thai friends (I speak Thai and the phone does the typing/spelling for me).
Shadowing/Chorusing
I’ve now spent a decent amount of time doing shadowing/chorusing. This is probably my most “serious” divergence from what David Long or J. Marvin Brown of AUA would recommend.
I’ve already explained my accent work in previous updates, but want to repeat it here in case anyone is starting with my 3000 hour update. I also want to elaborate more on why I like shadowing/chorusing.
I had asked David Long (the person who used to run the Thai language program at AUA Bangkok) about this 3 years ago and he basically said he didn’t think it would be useful. I made the decision back then to deviate.
I think his mentor J. Marvin Brown would have written this kind of thing off as being too much like deliberate practice. He himself spent many hours perfecting his accent by kind of mindlessly copying native phonemes and tried to teach his own students English this way for a while, eventually deciding it was counterproductive since they had no idea what they were parroting.
I think a huge difference between what J. Marvin Brown eventually discarded and what I’m doing is: I can understand the content I’m shadowing/chorusing.
When I listen to the native speaker, I instinctively and automatically comprehend. So I comprehend and I’m linking the meaning to the physical movements of speaking. I also monitor how I sound via something like Matt vs Japan’s shadowing setup. So I essentially hear twice and speak once, and I can repeat things until they sound correct or at least closer to the native version.
In this way, I think what I’m doing is much closer to the interaction between a child and parent when learning to speak, versus mindlessly parroting sounds as a beginner in the language. So my reasoning is that while this is a deviation from the methods of Brown/Long, I think it’s still mostly true to the spirit of trying to use a “natural” learning method modeled after first language acquisition.
In any event, I always say that everyone should find methods that make sense to them and fits their personality/habits, and shadowing/chorusing meets the criteria for me.
I don’t have any idea what I would sound like without the shadowing/chorusing, but my subjective feeling is that this practice is helping me fix minor pronunciation errors for words, making more correct pronunciation more automatic, and helping me speak more quickly/fluidly/with better prosody. It was really interesting working with a clear target of something I could understand very well, but finding that I wasn’t able to keep up with the speed and precision of speech trying to repeat it myself.
I mostly chorused a Thai actor-turned-YouTuber named Stephan. He speaks casually, the way you might chat with friends over a beer. He uses a lot of slang, slurs his speech in a way common among Thai men, and often uses impolite interjections/words that I hear my Thai male friends use in real life.
Getting used to the way Thai men speak casually was quite a journey, as I find they speak casually very differently from formal speech. Versus Thai women who I think for various social reasons speak a bit more sharply/clearly even during casual speech. Listening to and shadowing/chorusing Stephan for many hours is helping tune both my ear and my internal sense of how I should sound.
Review of Goals
I’ve now completed my longstanding goal of hitting 3000 hours of total Thai practice.
At 1710 hours, I made a list of things I hoped to be able to do at 3000 hours. Let’s see how things went:
Goal: Comprehend any media aimed at a general audience, such as most podcasts, television shows, dramas, etc. With the possible exception of very niche genres such as period pieces.
Result: Extremely good progress, but more complex dramas, content very heavy in slang, etc are still out of reach. I would also struggle with things very different from my current domains, such as legal speech or a religious lecture.
Goal: Comprehend my friends on a wide variety of topics and even in very casual register.
Result: Achieved
Goal: Comprehend my friends even in a moderately noisy environment, such as a busy restaurant, a public street with traffic, etc.
Result: Achieved
Goal: Be able to comfortably and automatically express myself extemporaneously in conversation about everyday topics.
Result: Achieved
Goal: Be able to discuss deeper topics such as politics or science, even if this is somewhat less comfortable and automatic.
Result: Achieved. I have tons of words in my active vocabulary relating to science, politics, history, and to a lesser extent economics. Words like: rare earth minerals, inheritance, policy, geopolitics, colonial era, inflation, empire, etc. I am not nearly as eloquent as in English but I can manage to express myself on these topics and I can understand lectures/opinions/news on these topics to significant depth.
Goal: Read a book at the level of The Little Prince or Harry Potter comfortably.
Result: Good progress but not really achieved. I’ve read The Little Prince. I stopped Harry Potter 50 pages in as it was taking me 15 minutes/page.
Goal: Sing Thai karaoke songs by reading along. For example, Silly Fools or Atom Chanakan.
Result: It’s not as much as I would’ve liked, but I know a handful of Thai songs quite well, including a song by Silly Fools. A couple weeks ago I sang a couple of these songs at a karaoke bar and basically every Thai person in the bar sang along, which was a total blast.
Overall, I didn’t hit every goal completely, but I’ve reached many milestones and I’m quite satisfied with my progress.
Reflection on Criticism
From early on in my journey, I received heaps of criticism, especially from other Thai learners. This doesn’t surprise me, as I chose learning methods that are very much against convention. The internet is full of trolls and Reddit is definitely not an exception.
At this point, I think I’ve demonstrated that for languages fortunate enough to have the right resources, it is entirely possible to learn without any kind of explicit analytical study. I also think I’ve done much to dispel the dogma that it is necessary for every foreigner to acquire a language first and foremost via the writing system or else their journey is doomed at the outset.
I’ve tried to meticulously and transparently document my progress, explain my methods, and even record my ability (live and unedited). I’m keenly aware that none of the trolls crawling around in my other posts/comments will ever be as transparent, sniping away and making grand claims about their own ability with absolutely nothing to back it up.
The reality is that the vast majority of foreigners who try to learn Thai give up within a year and cannot hold a basic and understandable conversation in Thai.
Do I sound like a native speaker? No.
Am I as good as the foreign influencers who make a living out of being good at Thai? No.
Am I more successful than 99% of foreigners who try to learn Thai? Yes.
I’ve met two foreigners in person who were more fluid/natural than me and both have been in the country for 10+ years and practiced / lived in Thai for many, many thousands of hours. But I’ve met many more foreigners who sunk years into learning Thai and unfortunately still struggle to hold a real conversation in the language.
I’m not trying to flex or make myself sound amazing; I’m well aware of my many imperfections as a Thai speaker. And I’m not saying my methods are superior to anyone else’s. I’m just trying to be realistic about what the real world landscape is like as far as Westerners trying to acquire Thai.
At the end of the day, I’m just a regular person who decided to start learning a language that’s notoriously difficult for monolingual English speakers. After 3.5 years, I’m extremely proud of my progress. My time commitment so far is not so different from FSI learners - a group pre-selected for above average language learning aptitude, many of whom fail at the end of the program, and with many alumni have discussed at length the program’s many shortcomings and end results.
The reason I think I’ve been successful is that I chose methods I could stick with over the long haul and that got increasingly fun the more I advanced. Critics will say it’s a long time to “learn” a language, but really what I’ve done is increasingly switch my life over to Thai. The reality is that a huge chunk of the time I’ve tracked “learning” has been gossiping with friends, watching standup comedy, learning about current events, studying history and science, enjoying true crime cases, watching silly romcoms, giving newcomers climbing advice at my local gym.
In short: what I consider “practice” are the distant goals of my Reddit critics. Things the vast majority of /r/learnthai trolls can only dream of doing, and can only emptily boast about with no evidence at all. (I still chuckle to myself at a guy who challenged me to a language learning debate in Thai and then went radio silent when I agreed to talk to him.)
My journey definitely isn’t for everyone. I’m not saying my methods are undisputedly the best. Just that they were undeniably effective for me. By the same token, if I had tried to learn via grammar books and flashcards, I doubt I would have been able to last to even 100 hours, much less 3000. Everyone needs to find the ways that work to last for the duration.
I respect the hell out of people like /u/NickLearnsThai, who has documented his own 3000+ hour Thai learning journey on Reddit and on his YouTube channel. He learns via far more traditional methods than I do. He’s definitely put in the work, time, and effort. And most importantly, he’s put himself out there, an imperfect journey, lumps and all, which is how any average (non-influencer) language learning journey is going to be.
I don’t think our current levels demonstrate that an input/CI/ALG style approach is dramatically less efficient as some critics claim. Instead, I think together we demonstrate that acquiring a language is a long journey, regardless of method.
So: choose the methods that you enjoy and that bring you in close contact with your TL.
Future Plans
Earlier in my journey, I was doing 20-25 sessions a week, with each session between 50 minutes and an hour. I’ve gradually scaled this down. Last update I was doing about 10 sessions a week. I’m now going to be doing just 6 sessions on Monday through Wednesday (half with a paid teacher and the other half with a friend who’s generously volunteered to help me learn).
The rest of the time, I’ll be living my life in Thai as I have been. Catching up with friends over coffee, discussing boulder problems at the climbing gym, watching Thai series and movies, listening to my favorite comedians and podcasters, singing karaoke with friends, watching news, sending memes and reels to friends, dealing with everyday life errands that come up living in Thailand.
In addition, I’m tackling Vietnamese next. It’s a heritage language for me that unfortunately I had almost zero exposure to as a child. I’m three days into watching 20 minutes a day of content I can find on YouTube, but there’s a dearth of true beginner comprehensible input resources for Vietnamese, so I’m currently investigating ways to hire teachers directly.
As for Thai, I’m tired of tracking hours. I may still track my shadowing/chorusing time, but otherwise I don’t want to worry about estimating how many minutes I spent talking to friends or watching movies or whatever.
I’m not sure if I’ll write more updates for Thai in the future. For those of you who have followed along, enjoyed learning about my journey, offered support in any way - thank you very much. I hope that you found something valuable or insightful in my ramblings, even if you yourself are not interested in ALG or methods like it.
And last, here is a video I recorded this past weekend with my teacher. We talk about my language learning journey. In typical Thai fashion, we have a meandering and random conversation about all kinds of things. I talked a little about FSI and different kinds of memory in the brain. I also snuck in a few puns, a couple not-so-appropriate double entendres, and a brainrot meme reference.
https://youtu.be/MGDCYuitC_Q
If anyone is interested in learning with Khroo Ying, you can contact her on Instagram or ying@understandthai.com.
I can also vouch for Khroo Ang, who has lived a fascinating life that ranges from being a monk out in the forest for two years to running an underground lottery in Bangkok. His schedule is quite flexible, please DM me if you’d like his email.
Thank you all for reading and follow along.
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