Learn Thai in Singapore

Dear Aspiring Thai Language Learners,

Have you tried learning Thai

Via structured classroom lessons, only to go to Thailand and realise you can’t speak a word? 😭
By yourself from online podcasts and YouTube videos without much success? 🥺

Or have you

Given up learning Thai completely because it’s too difficult, and you don’t know where to start? 😨

Fret not, you have come to the right place. 🥰

Check out reviews on my Thai Language lessons! 🤩

Wonderful experience with P’Joanne’s lessons. I believe that she is the best Thai teacher anyone needs to learn fluent Thai in a practical, engaging, and relatable way. What she can provide is:

1. Relating Thai to English and Mandarin

This allows English/ Mandarin speakers to pick up Thai easily because they are able to relate similarities and differences in sentence structure and vocabulary.

2. First-hand experience of learning Thai from scratch

Being someone who started as an adult learner to being extremely fluent in the language, she is able to provide useful tips from personal experience. Her friendly demeanour also makes the learning experience much less daunting.

3. Knowledge of the language itself

Having an extensive background in Thai including both the authentic Thai experience and aptitude in standardised tests, she also has the expertise required to provide the full learning experience equivalent to (or better than) what a native Thai teacher can.

4. Dedication to Teach the Thai Language

She is dedicated to helping everyone learn Thai, and she offers students the chance to ask questions outside of lesson time should they encounter any doubts.

Hallo, Sawatdii ka สวัสดีค่ะ🙏🏼

My name is Joanne (Thai nickname= Jann). I’m 100% Singaporean but I enjoy being a “fake Thai”. Till today, some people still believe I am half Thai 😂

I decided to build this website because I noticed that most Thai language learning resources in Singapore are shared by Thais. Which is awesome in its way because no one can speak better Thai than a “true blue” Thai. But this also means no one can understand the struggles of learning Thai better than a foreigner, who is starting from zero Thai exposure.

Today, I have 8 years of experience in speaking the Thai language. I am not perfect in my Thai language but I can easily and confidently navigate myself around Thailand. I can haggle for better prices in Thai, order Thai Street food and hop onto public buses and boats in Thailand. I can give directions to Thai taxi drivers, read road signs and understand some Thai shows without subtitles. If your goal is SURVIVAL THAI, or just to get a basic foundation of the Thai language before learning Thai for business reasons, I will be your perfect Thai language teacher to help you reach your goals! 🤩

LEARN CONVERSATIONAL THAI

LEARN THAI ALPHABET

Joanne Learn Thai in Singapore — Joanne – LearnThaiInSingapore Thai Language Teacher

Thai-Language-Proficiency — *Chulalongkorn University Proficiency Test of Thai as a Foreign Language (CU-TFL)*

There are just so many reasons to learn the Thai language. Whatever your motivations, you’ve hit the jackpot by landing on my website! I’ll be sharing my personal experiences on why I learnt Thai, how I became fluent in the Thai Language within 2.5 years and how learning Thai has helped me in my career.

You did not read that wrongly. I became fluent in the Thai language within 2.5 years – and I would still be certified to teach Thai had I bothered to renew my certificate with The Sirindhorn Thai Language Institute, Chulalongkorn University.

Sirindhorn Thai Language Institute, Chulalongkorn University
สถาบันภาษาไทยสิรินธรแห่งจุฬาลงกรณ์มหาวิทยาลัย
Image taken from: https://www.facebook.com/stichula/ — Sirindhorn Thai Language Institute, Chulalongkorn University
สถาบันภาษาไทยสิรินธรแห่งจุฬาลงกรณ์มหาวิทยาลัย

Questions might start exploding in your head. Is it easy to learn Thai? Where did I learn Thai – in Singapore obviously (given the domain name) – but exactly where? What Thai books or language learning apps did I use? How did I manage to learn Thai so quickly? All these questions and more will be answered in my About page. But first, a bit about myself.

Why I Learnt the Thai Language

I had never planned to learn Thai. It was a complete fluke.

I had always been more interested in learning Japanese (anime, anyone?) and had plans to go to Japan for my Student Exchange Programme (“SEP”). However, NUS introduced a gradeless first year after my cohort and reserved half the schools for SEP for the junior batch. Given the list of modules I wanted to map over for my SEP, I was left with no choice. From the whole world, it was narrowed down to the one and only school – Thammasat University in Thailand.

Thammasat University Tha Prachan Bangkok | มหาวิทยาลัยธรรมศาสตร์
Image taken from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thammasat_University — Thammasat University Tha Prachan Bangkok | มหาวิทยาลัยธรรมศาสตร์

In hindsight, I call this providential 🥰

FAQs on Learning the Thai Language in Singapore

FAQs for Beginner Thai Learners in Singapore

Is learning Thai worth it?

Absolutely! Learning the Thai language made my career switch possible and got me into SEO. Thailand is also one of the more developed countries in ASEAN and if you need to expand your business in the ASEAN region, learning Thai will certainly give you a boost. But even if you wouldn’t be using Thai in your career, it is still good to learn a new language which is not only learning new skills, but opening your doors to appreciate new cultures and make new friends.

Is it difficult to learn Thai?

Honestly, it depends. First, what exactly do you want to learn? Do you want to learn how to speak Thai only, or also to read and write Thai? Second, how much time, effort and money will you put in to learn Thai? Last, do you have any Thai exposure? Or exposure to other Asian/tonal languages?

For (1), just speaking Thai alone should be easy – IF you are speaking another tonal language. The Thai language has 5 tones – flat/no tone, low, high, rising and falling. For myself, I also speak Chinese fluently so it was relatively easy for me to map the different Thai tones to the Chinese tones, which I have shared in my blog post.

That aside, vocabulary wise, most Thai words have 1 root word and paired together with another word, it “creates” a new term, which I will explain in greater detail in my blog. This makes memorizing Thai vocabulary relatively straightforward.

Thai language is definitely difficult to write for any foreigner learning it from scratch. there are 44 Thai consonants and 32 Thai vowels. This is a whooping 3 times more characters than the English alphabet. There are also many crazy exceptions you just have to memorize. With regards to learning the Thai alphabet, my bottom line is that you don’t need to know everything. You only need to know enough to survive.

For (2) and (3) – the answer is obvious. The more time, effort and exposure you put in/have, the faster you will learn Thai.

Is Thai grammar hard?

This depends on your style of learning – do you like to explore and discover things for yourself or do you prefer structure?

If you prefer structure, sorry to say there is bare minimum grammar structure in the Thai Language. This can make learning Thai speaking difficult because there is a certain “Thai way” of saying things (which is similar to Chinese 语感). However, most people should still be able to understand you even your sentences are strung together “unnaturally” – Thai grammar isn’t like Japanese grammar where one simple particle changes the entire meaning of the sentence.

How do beginners learn Thai?

Because of the relatively simple vocabulary and fluid grammar structure in the Thai Language, I would say for beginner Thai learners in Singapore, you can learn to speak Thai simply by constantly practicing Thai with someone who can teach you new words along the way and correct obvious grammar mistakes. Thai is a very fluid language so you are not going to learn Thai from just textbooks (if they exist) or in a classroom setting. You need someone to tell you the “Thai way” of phrasing whatever you want to say. That is the very reason why I am offering to converse in Thai daily with aspiring Thai speakers in Singapore.

Can I learn Thai by myself in Singapore?

If you have the right resources and connections to people in Singapore who speak Thai, you can definitely learn to speak Thai by yourself or learn Thai online. I have curated a list of online Thai classes which you can check out – though I would not be speaking from personal experience as I only learnt Thai in National University of Singapore (NUS) and by myself. There are also multiple apps to learn Thai – I find this app Thai-English Dictionary (TL) the best in terms of accuracy. This app also gives you sample sentences to learn how to use the word you’re searching for – and I relied heavily on the app when I was studying written Thai in NUS.

Link to app: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/thai-english-dictionary-tl/id707246890#?platform=iphone

How long does it take to learn Thai?

If you can find someone who is qualified in Thai to speak Thai with you daily, you should be able to pick up basic conversational Thai within 3 months. This will be sufficient for you to tell Thai taxi drivers where you want to go and ask them to use a metered fare, or give the auntie a good impression of you as you haggle for discounts on your shopping trips.

Paired up with proper Thai lessons, you should be fairly comfortable to converse in Thai for everyday matters within 3 months.

FAQs for Intermediate/Advanced Thai Language Learners in Singapore

How do you memorise the Thai alphabet?

To give some perspective, students learning Thai language in the National University of Singapore (“NUS”) will take 1 entire year to learn the full Thai alphabet 🤯 (it is learnt across the 2 beginner modules LAT1201 and LAT2201). During my era, students will commit 6h/week to learn Thai within the classroom setting. This alone will show you that learning the Thai alphabet is no mean feat. This is why I am offering once-off lessons to help you get started with learning Thai reading, writing and texting.

FYI: Thai vowels (32 Thai alphabets for vowels) can be split into 2 groups – regular (24 vowels) and special (8 vowels). Thai consonants (44 Thai alphabets for consonants) can be split into 3 groups – mid (9 consonants), low (24 consonants) and high (11 consonants). 😣

I learnt the Thai alphabet in NUS (Thai 1, LAT1201) the classroom style – in which we learn the 24 regular vowel sounds, the mid consonants and half the low consonants. I learnt the remainder on my own in Thailand through reading and writing out Thai songs from deungdutjai.com.

After I learnt the Thai alphabet through a long hard route, I realised there is a more entertaining approach to memorise Thai alphabets using Thai poetry which kids in Thailand use. For example, the low consonants go by: ไก่ จิก เด็ก ตาย บน ปาก อ่าง – (chicken pecks child dies on the rim of the basin) and high consonants go by: ผี ฝาก ถุง ข้าว สาร ให้ ฉัน – (the ghost left a bag of milled rice for me). You can google online for videos teaching Thai alphabet – I’ve watched the one by #ครูนกเล็ก (Teacher Noklek) and it’s pretty entertaining 😂

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aexNhuzFt34

What are Thai tone marks and when are they used?

Thai words only use tone marks when they deviate from the tonal rules of the consonant + vowel + ending particle. For example:
– วัน (day, pronounced “wan”) has no tone marks. It follows the tonal rules whereby mid consonant + short vowel + live ending (non P/T/K) = no tone.
– อ่าน (read, pronounced “arn”) has a tone mark. It deviates from tonal rules whereby mid consonant + long vowel + live ending (non P/T/K) = no tone. With the tone mark it now has a low tone.
The Thai writing system is complex and confusing. You can read here for more details on the classification of Thai consonants and how they define the tone rules.

How long does it take to learn Thai fluently?

I took 2.5 years to speak Thai fluently, read and write Thai (essay length). It varies from person to person, but constant exposure and effort on your part will definitely help you pick up Thai more quickly.

Even though you are based in Singapore, you can still be exposed to the Thai language through watching Thai dramas, listening to Thai songs or even watching their variety programs [without subtitles, challenge yourself!💪]

One of the Thai variety shows I started watching is “I can see your voice” which is available on YouTube. I also watch interviews of Thai celebrities with and without subtitles 💪Enjoy!

Advanced Thai listening – see how much you can understand without subtitles!

Win Methwin Opas-iamkajorn Interview – Try watching without English subtitles!