So I dropped working on Blender stuff a few months back and instead I have been learning the Thai language online. I don’t have any special reasons for doing so. It’s just that I’ve gotten into the habit of learning new things online all the time and I thought it’s time I tried a language next. It is one of the things people keep saying they intend to do and rarely get around to and I haven’t learned a new language since I learned French during my university years. Learning a new language is supposedly one of the best ways to keep your brain sharp and active as you age.

As for the choice of language itself, I suppose I wanted a non-European language and I didn’t want something horrifically difficult like Japanese. Given our proximity to Thailand, Thai is also a language that we have a reasonable chance of actually using with some regularity as it is a desirable and easily accessible getaway destination. One problem is that Thai is not a very popular language for learning online so there is a relative dearth of free learning resources compared to other languages. Duolingo for example doesn’t have Thai. Eventually I opted for ThaiPod101. While you can sign up for a free account there, you do need to pay to get a reasonable level of access to the content. In my case, I found the Flashcards feature to be invaluable and so I opted to pay for a Premium account. It’s honestly not so expensive considering how much time a serious student is going to spend on it but of course do search around for discount codes on the Internet.

I didn’t intend for this to be an advertisement for ThaiPod101 but I suppose I should at least explain a little how it works. There is so much content that it can be a little confusing how to get started. Lessons are organized into pathways and it’s great how they have curated ones that cater to specific levels, starting with Absolute Beginner and on up. Each lesson consists of an audio clip that is accompanied by a transcript, list of new vocabulary words, lessons notes and so on. I especially love how the vocabulary list interacts with the Word Bank and Flashcards system. In between the lessons there are quizzes to help track your progress. I believe that the essential strength of their platform is their vast, vast library of lessons. While the basic pathway doesn’t include learning the Thai alphabet, they do have a separate pathway for that. Although you can do without learning to read and write at first, the lessons do assume that you eventually pick it up and it’s impossible to get far in the language without some basic literacy.

ThaiPod101 does have its faults. The full set of features in each lesson is fantastic but I notice that not every lesson is fully featured, especially off of the main pathways. For example, in quite a few of the literacy lessons, you can’t even add the featured words to the deck of Flashcards. Some lessons are of questionable quality, such the set of reading exercises for absolute beginners. I think they’re supposed to be similar to very rudimentary children’s books to start one off on learning how to read but in practice, they’re not much than just a nicer way to present a list of basic words to add to your vocabulary. What’s worse is that the words don’t come with example sentences and many of these words can’t be added into the Word Bank. At least make more of an effort to have these simple books present some kind of coherent, if simple, narrative.

Another deficiency is that their technology when it comes to testing and interactive activities is mostly limited to multiple choice questions, as far as I can tell. There is quiz option that asks you to input the correct word in Thai script but I have difficulty using it without a Thai keyboard. But even their Flashcards system relies only on self reporting to see if you got it right. The same goes for their listening comprehension video series. There are plenty of other online learning platforms out there now and many of them have come up with all kinds of ways to add interactivity, even while a video is playing, so what they have here feels a little lacking in comparison. Finally the site is so big that this might itself be a detriment as it may not be easy to find exactly what you’re looking for. I’d would have loved for example having all the tone rule interactions summarized in one neat, easily printed page. Maybe it exists somewhere on the site but I couldn’t find one.

Overall however their content is excellent and there is so much of it. I can easily believe that this is currently the best online resource for learning Thai available. I note that the flow and design of the lessons is smarter than it seems at first as you’ll come to understand later. Similarly the early quizzes seem childishly simple, but the later ones are more intelligently designed and require you infer things you haven’t been explicitly taught. I presume this improvement will continue as you enter the more advanced stages. For example I hated the American accented voice in the earliest Absolute Beginner series as it is pointless to try to mimic Thai as pronounced badly by an American. But the next level after that features clips that all involve native Thais and those are just great.

Anyway I originally intended to write some observations of the Thai language, not a review of Thaipod101 but this has gone on for long enough I should leave it for another post. Do note that I’m still a beginner, having finished the Absolute Beginner series and maybe about halfway through the Beginner one, so who knows what the upper levels of the content is really like. Still I do love what I’ve seen so far and I’ve found that it’s worth paying money for. I’m still terrible at actually understanding spoken Thai but I’m starting to feel like I actually can make myself understood if I’m in Thailand and I just learned an entirely new alphabet system. That’s pretty amazing when you think about it.