Songs don't help me learn languages

The video above nicely illustrates the point I trying to make in this post, although from a program for small children it is quite funny.
So far songs don't seem to help me learn languages, nor do poems. I have found stories and jokes far more useful for learning Chinese so far and expect to find the same for learning Thai. I have been listening to and recording some Thai radio and over the last few days and have listened to quite a lot of songs, although I can identify a fair few words, they don't sound the same as in conversation so I can't use them as references for speaking.

One problem with songs is that they often use non-standard language and pronunciation particularly in tonal languages (which is possibly why I don't get on with them for learning). When I listen to English songs they don't usually seem to be very useful references for foreign language learners. Another problem for me at least is that although I can often remember a song quite quickly to the extent of being able to sing it (badly) I don't have ownership of the language to be able to use it elsewhere.

I can understand people enjoying songs and using them for study, maybe it is just I pick the wrong ones? In Chinese I gravitated towards punk and rock music and quite liked Shanghai rap (being in Shanghainese not much use for learning Mandarin). Possibly some kinds of folk songs make better learning material.

Thai by the numbers

How can just listening teach you anything?, actually I am a little impatient I help the process on by combining real Thai with lessons in my mother tongue, I don't get out a pen and paper or practice, or think too much about the lessons. Language is full of numbers so I find them a good hook in during the early stages. Islands of numbers that expand are just like the other islands of words and meaning that expand outwards.

A Thai lesson on numbers above, if you follow the link back to Youtube you can see part two. I have made no systematic effort to learn Thai numbers yet (I haven't sat down with a book or a lesson etc. and any lessons I listen to I am doing something else) but I have both listened to a lot of Thai and a fair number of lessons on numbers. I let the lessons wash over me, I pay attention to Thai when I think numbers are involved and now I am pretty comfortable with Thai numbers. I have to say pretty comfortable with them, I think mostly in Chinese numbers now and will probably stick to that. Both Thai and Chinese numbering systems are simple logical and powerful (Chinese more so because of the Thai et and yi). There will be another post on numbers soon, the language you think in when you think about numbers makes a big difference, there is a real reason why many Asian kids are so much more advanced in maths than Western kids of a similar age and it not because they work harder.

When I was a child (and I suppose still) you could buy those "painting by numbers" kits, you had to fill in numbered sections with selected colours. If it was a complicated one you didn't know what it was going to look like until you had filled in enough of the blanks (especially if someone hid the box from you ;)). Listening to Thai is a bit like the paintings it is blank, there is data and information there but you don't exactly what it represents, every blank you fill brings it closer until finally you get the complete picture.

In my post summarizing the first two weeks of learning Thai I included a video, I noted this about the video:

Early on she says a number, five hundred and fifty three, the first time I watched it I heard fifty three, but then I found out a meaning for that roi sound I like so now I hear five hundred and fifty three. Of course she may be saying a bigger number I have not got that far yet, in fact I have not actually deliberately sat down to learn Thai numbers in any systematic way at all.

Now I know the number IS bigger, I was hearing similar numbers all the time now she is clearly saying "year 2553", I have managed to work out that Thailand measures it's own year aside from the international year. This mirrors the way other words are growing into phrases.

One example from many: I hear "len footbun hai sannook" In a Thai radio broadcast. I guess this means something like "play football for fun", I don't know for sure that hai can be used quite like this, if I am wrong I will find out at some point.

This is how it works. The phrases will get longer, turn into sentences etc. It will depend on material and time.

Grammar go home

Getting too serious around here so I though it was time for a little Monty Python language learning. As in this video some people seem to focus too much on grammar and miss the message. I am not going to worry about learning Thai grammar, I may read about it little after the event but I didn't study or learn grammar for Chinese and I will not deliberately study it for Thai. It is a waste of my time.

Some people may say that Chinese and Thai have a relatively simple grammar anyway (and yet the grammar books in various series of grammar books seem to be a similar size to other languages), I think that is is just that their grammar is different and we have a tendency to think about grammar in a western way (because we caught it from the Greeks and Romans). I won't know for sure until I study a European language though. This blog will not have any posts detailing how I am learning grammar for sure though, if it doesn't get adsorbed along with everything else I am in trouble... :)

Grammar is not even that important (yes you heard me correctly). if you get the pronouciation correct and the words right then for casual conversation in most language grammar mistakes will not stop you being understood (think about learners of your language you have talked with). Many languages it seems even the natives don't worry to much about their own grammar when talking.

If you think I am wrong then I would be happy to hear your opinion.

Firm conversation base

Summary

I have already established why I think conversation in Thai will be important to me, however it will only be a small (yet significant) part time wise. I don't live in Thailand, the easiest way to gain Thai language experiences is by being prepared to speak a little Thai (if you have other easy or even hard ways then please let me know).

Conversation also provides a firm base to build language around I can acquire words and concepts randomly via other input means but conversation provides a necessary focus to build a connected set of language.

Thai only meal

Last week on lunch-time I treated myself to a Thai meal at a restaurant near where I work, managed to not speak a word of English. The waiter helped a lot by not getting too chatty, but also by accepting that I speaking Thai and only using Thai. I managed to go outside the basics a little, asked where the toilet was (even though I didn't actually need it) also asked whether I could have the mussaman curry with chicken (the menu only said beef prawns and pork) but Chicken was fine. Actually I just said 'mee gai mai krap?' but it worked. Thai restaurants are going to be important, I expect to and am trying to build up a strong base of food and restaurant related language and then work out from there. Chinese was different, the menus are hard to read, the staff often don't speak Mandarin etc. for Chinese, Chinese medicine shops were a much better base. From the base, need to work outwards. Having had some success in Thai restaurants I can in theory (my theory of course) leave off the conversation until I have accumulated enough knowledge to strike up more interesting conversations with the staff. However sometimes an opportunity presents....

Local Thai opportunity

There is small Thai eating place just near where I work, I have worked out the following, in the evenings it opens just about the time I leave work. if I pick the busy Friday evening I can pop in for a coffee or beer, (can't regularly spend money on meals). There will usually be three Thai staff in there with nothing really to do until the customers pick up. They are happy to help me with questions etc. My objective isn't to speak only Thai (that dries up too quickly) but to ask questions, try things out etc. For example I know 'wan atit' is Sunday but occasionally hear 'atit' in things I listen to. I don't know if this is short for Sunday (often it seems not) or another word with the same sound and tones etc. etc. After asking it appears that is does actually mean sun (but usually combined with something else when talking about the sun directly). I am used to listening out for 'patet' to try to pick up country names but have a radio recording where the word 'patet' ends a sentence. I asked about this and the person I asked couldn't think of another word that had the same sounds or why this word would be on the end of sentence (although I am aware that when I get asked questions like these about English often nothing comes to mind until later). Since then I have head the word for abroad (I would understand if I heard it but can't quite remember, as I need a bit more exposure). I guess you could end a sentance with something like bai XXXXpatet "go abroad", there are probably other examples.

Wind up

I hope this continues to show how I will be using conversation to learn Thai, it is significant but I am by no means "talking myself towards fluency" I am as always mainly "listening my way towards fluency". There will be more no listening in my next post.

Also I have noticed that some preparation goes a long way, I didn't have to think or struggle to speak Thai in the restaurant, I had spare capacity to listen and concentrate on what the waiter was saying, having Thai sounds in my head doesn't guarantee that I speak perfectly but I can honestly say that so far in my Thai speaking experiments I have not been misunderstood once, not withstanding that mostly the scope for what I may be trying to say is fairly limited I am pleased about that.

Lastly and most importantly, I am using language to describe language, I don't actually believe that atit means sun or that patet means country. It is possible that they map exactly to those English words in connection with the internal meanings in my brain but highly unlikely, there is still a lot more to learn.