Paul Garrigan's Blog, page 16

5 Factors that Improve My Ability to Learn Thai

Week 19 of My Six Months Attempt to Become Fluent in Thai

I’ve been thinking about the times when I’ve felt most productive and effective at learning Thai during these last few months, and I’ve come up with these five factors:

Curiosity

When I get curious, it noticeably boosts my ability to learn – it sends my brain into a different level of functioning. I can hear some new Thai vocabulary just once, and if it triggers my curiosity, I’ll be able to memorize it instantly. There are other words that I’ve heard hundreds of times, but I still have to grab for the dictionary to jog my memory – these are words that just don’t grab my attention for some reason.

The thought ‘I wonder why it’s like that?’ means I’m going to learn something that will be automatically filed away in my long-term memory. I can just wait for this curiosity to arise naturally, but this would mean hours of wasted learning where I’m not actually absorbing much. Instead, I can trigger my curiosity by actively questioning and looking for patterns.

Joy

There has been lots of moments during this six month challenge when I’ve experience real joy. This is often due to something simple like understanding a sentence that I would have struggled with before. It can also happen when I’m in the zone, and it feels like I’m pronouncing the words effortlessly and hitting the right tones. These episodes of joy refill my motivation tank, and I don’t think it would be possible to keep studying without them.

Variety

I’ve used lots of different approaches to learning Thai over the last few months. I don’t regret it because I think mixing things up keeps me motivated. In the past, I’ve tried to make myself stick with a learning approach long after I’ve lost interest in it, but this has just led to frustration and giving up. I don’t feel loyalty to any one method for learning Thai, they are just tools that I pick up and use as I need them.

Maybe the trick to making progress in a language is not just being able to choose the right tools but knowing when to stop using them. I know how easy it is to stick with something long after it has stopped being effective because it feels comfortable. It’s something I’ve tried to avoid doing this time.

Passion

It is my desire to talk about my experiences at Thamkrabok detox temple that has given me the motivation to spend up five hours a day studying. I’ve been learning Thai since 2001, but I’ve never felt as passionate about it as I do now. I think one reason for why a lot of us struggle is we don’t have a clear idea about what it is we want to achieve – or the goal just doesn’t make us feel passionate enough.

If you are passionate about learning Thai, you could probably become fluent by just using the free resources on the internet. If you lacking in passion, you might not make much progress even if you buy all the most expensive courses and hire the best teachers. Passion is key to success.

Mindfulness

A couple of years ago, I wrote a post for the ‘A Woman Learning Thai’ website called ‘How Mindfulness Can Help You Learn Thai’. Learning to live more in the present moment has positively impacted almost every aspect of my life – including my ability to learn Thai.

One of the reasons I struggle when speaking Thai is because of the mental chatter inside of my head. It means I’m engaging in two conversations at the same time – one of them in Thai, and one of them in English. The discursive thinking is often full of judgments like ‘he can’t understand you’ or ‘you’re making a fool of yourself’. Mindfulness is the ability to just be in the conversation without the inner commentary – it means I can speak Thai naturally and almost effortlessly.

Mindfulness also greatly boosts my ability to learn Thai. At the moment, I spend a couple of hours a day listening to the Glossika audio tracks while exercising. If I just focus on my audio and body movement, it means that I’m fully listening – I walk away from the session knowing that I’ve made progress. If I allow my thinking to run wild though, I might as well be listening to static for all the good it is doing me.

News The Farang Can Learn Thai Facebook Group now have their own e-magazine. It’s packed full of interesting stuff that may be of value for anyone learning Thai – there is also an interview with me. If you are not already a member of this group, it is free and easy to join.

Other posts in this series on learning Thai

Week 0- My Quest to Speak Fluent Thai in Six Months

Week 1 -Creating the Right Mental Conditions for Learning Thai

Week 2- Maybe Just Getting Out There and Speaking Thai is Not Enough

Week 3 – 5 Improvements in My Approach to Learning Thai

Week 4 – Generating Enough Passion to Learn Thai

Week 5 – Undoing the Damage from Speaking Thai Badly for Thirteen Years

Week 6 – Early Impressions of Glossika Thai Fluency Course

Week 7 – Introverts Can Learn Thai Too

Week 8 – Winning Strategy for Achieving Fluency in Thai

Week 9 – Thai Fluency in 10,000 Sentences

Week 10 – Problems with Staying Focused Prevent Me from Learning Thai

Week 11 – Importance of Cracking Thai Fundamentals

Week 12 – Painful Lessons while Ordering Pizza in Thai

Week 13- If I Can Become Fluent in Thai, So Can Anyone

Week 14 – How I Make Time to Study Thai

Week 15 – Redefining Fluency After Losing My Way While Learning Thai

Week 16 – My Learn Thai Fitness Challenge

Week 17 – Talking about Myself in Thai

Week 18 – No Need to Force Myself to Speak Thai

No Need to Force Myself to Speak Thai

Week 18 in my Six Month Attempt to Speak Thai Fluently

My attitude towards learning Thai has shifted significantly over the last week. Nothing dramatic has happened, but it just all feels easier somehow. Combining Glossika with exercise has made a huge difference, and I’m excited about making my video in Thai. There is less than two months left in this challenge, and it just feels like it is going to be all-downhill from here on in. One of the other factors in this change of perspective is the realization that I don’t need to force myself to speak Thai.

No Need to Force Myself Speak Thai

I’ve approached speaking Thai with about the same level of enthusiasm as my son did for his recent vaccine injection. I know it’s something I should be doing, and I’ve been making myself feel bad about not doing it. I even said in an earlier post that if I wasn’t speaking Thai every day with my neighbors by this stage, I’d consider this challenge a failure. So, why am I not waiving a white flag?

I no longer believe that it is a good idea for me to force myself to speak Thai. In fact, I think forcing myself to do anything is usually going to be a bad idea. It means that I’m switching from passion to willpower, and I’m turning something that should be fun into something that needs to be endured. I wouldn’t be able to complete this 6 month challenge using willpower alone, and it just isn’t necessary.

I’ve started to speak more Thai without even having to think about it. Sometimes the words just come, and there I am chatting away without any effort – I even find myself making jokes. In the past, where I would have just given a one-word mumbled reply, but now I’m talking in sentences. The responses I’m getting are in normal Thai, and I hardly ever see the look of panic on people’s faces (like I used to get when I tried to speak the language). I’m not having to force myself to do any of this, it is just happening naturally. It’s like I’ve stuffed myself so full of Thai that the language is finding its own way into my life.

Last Tuesday, I had to go and renew my driving license. Normally, I would hang onto my wife like a life-raft, and I’d get her to do all the talking. This time, she went off to eat breakfast, and I handled everything myself. It didn’t feel like a big deal at the time, but it’s a huge improvement for me.

The Importance of Faith and Intuition When Learning Thai

I think one of the challenges with learning Thai is it requires faith. I have to trust that what I’m doing is going to get me to my goal. This is tricky because there doesn’t seem to be a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to language learning, and what works for you might not work for me. I’ve needed to put faith in my intuition, and this seems to be paying off. I’ve benefited from the input of some superb teachers on this journey, but it is following my intuition that has kept me passionate. My gut kept on telling me getting out there and speaking Thai didn’t have to be such a big deal, and this does seem to be the case.

Other posts in this series on learning Thai

Week 0- My Quest to Speak Fluent Thai in Six Months

Week 1 -Creating the Right Mental Conditions for Learning Thai

Week 2- Maybe Just Getting Out There and Speaking Thai is Not Enough

Week 3 – 5 Improvements in My Approach to Learning Thai

Week 4 – Generating Enough Passion to Learn Thai

Week 5 – Undoing the Damage from Speaking Thai Badly for Thirteen Years

Week 6 – Early Impressions of Glossika Thai Fluency Course

Week 7 – Introverts Can Learn Thai Too

Week 8 – Winning Strategy for Achieving Fluency in Thai

Week 9 – Thai Fluency in 10,000 Sentences

Week 10 – Problems with Staying Focused Prevent Me from Learning Thai

Week 11 – Importance of Cracking Thai Fundamentals

Week 12 – Painful Lessons while Ordering Pizza in Thai

Week 13- If I Can Become Fluent in Thai, So Can Anyone

Week 14 – How I Make Time to Study Thai

Week 15 – Redefining Fluency After Losing My Way While Learning Thai

Week 16 – My Learn Thai Fitness Challenge

Week 17 – Talking about Myself in Thai

Why Living in the Moment Works – No Bullshit

In this video and podcast, I talk about my experience of trying to live in the present moment. It is an incredibly simple thing to do yet totally life changing.

Press play to watch the video, and you’ll find the podcast of this episode below.

Press play to listen to the podcast.

Talking about Myself in Thai

Week 17 of my Six Month Attempt to Speak Fluent Thai

My goal for the remaining couple of months of my challenge is to prepare for a YouTube video where I talk about my experiences at Wat Thamkrabok (a Thai temple where people go to get help with addiction problems). I understand that not everyone is going to be interested in hearing about this type of adventure, but it is something I feel passionate about, and I’ve learned that following my passion is the best way to stay motivated.

Talking about Thamkrabok

Wat Thamkrabok is a detox temple located in Saraburi. I ended up there eight years ago in a desperate attempt to quit alcohol. I was an extreme alcohol enthusiast from a young age. I entered my first rehab at age 19, and I was in and out of treatment programs like a yo-yo for years afterwards – at one point I even ended up living on the streets. I had almost lost all hope of recovery when I discovered the unique treatment program at Thamkrabok. I tell the story of what happened to me there in my book Dead Drunk.

So why do I feel this need to tell my story in Thai? I remember back in 2006 desperately searching for solutions for my drinking problem. I was living in village in Phitsanulok at the time, and I felt certain I was going to die there. I’d already been told my liver had been damaged a few years before that, and I was expecting the worst. Every night, I would go online looking for answers, but I kept on getting the same advice – the stuff I already knew wouldn’t work for me. My search felt completely futile, just something I did when I was drunk, but then I came across a web forum where somebody mentioned Thamkrabok. I arranged to go there the next day, and for the first time in years I felt hope.

There are thousands of YouTube videos about addiction available in English but very few of them are in Thai. Most Thai people seem to know what Thamkrabok is already, but there isn’t much information about what actually happens there, and more importantly, what happens afterwards. It would be better if there were Thai people making this type of video but there just isn’t. By sharing my experience, I can feel like I did my bit. Even if nobody ever benefits from hearing about my experiences, I’ll still benefit from the act of sharing it.

Beginning of My Thamkrabok Story

I’ve been working on my talk about Thamkrabok for about two weeks. I’ve made an audio recording of what I’ve done so far, so I can get some feedback from you guys. Here is the transcript, and you’ll find the audio below.

สวัสดีครับ วันนี้ผมอยากพูดเกี่ยวกับประสบการณ์ของผมที่วัดถ้ำกระบอก แปดปีที่แล้วผมไปที่โน้นเพราะต้องการเลิกดื่ม แอลกอฮอล์ ผมรู้สึกขอบคุณมากกับการบำบัดของวัดถ้ำกระบอก มันทำให้ผมรู้สึกดีขึ้น ผมอยากอธิบายว่าทำไมจำเป็นต้องไปที่โน่น

ผมเกิดที่ประเทศไอร์แลนด์ ตอนเป็นเด็กมีความสุขมากแต่ชอบวิตกกังวลและคิดไปเอง ตอนอายุสิบสี่พ่อแม่หย่ากัน ผมหดหู่มาก คืนหนึ่งผมขโมยขวดวอดก้าจากตู้พ่อแม่ ผมดื่มจนเมามากและอาเจียน ผมชอบเพราะว่าตอนเมาไม่ต้องห่วง หลังจากนั้นผมหาเพื่อนใหม่ชอบดื่มแอลกอฮอล์ด้วยกัน เวลานั้นผมคิดว่าแอลกอฮอล์วิเศษเพราะว่าทำให้ผมมั่นใจและสบายใจ เมื่อก่อนนั่นผมเรียนรู้เก่งที่่โรงเรียนแต่ตอนเริ่มดื่มแอลกอฮอล์ไม่สนใจโรงเรียน ตอนอายุสิบห้าผมถูกไล่ออกจากโรงเรียน

Press play below to listen

My Learn Thai Fitness Challenge

Week 16 of my Six Month Attempt to Become Fluent in Thai

It is kind of incredible the way my perspective can change so dramatically over the course of a few days. This time last week, it felt like I’d stopped making progress in Thai, but this week I’m back firing on all cylinders again. I attribute much of my renewed enthusiasm to setting a clearer goal (make a video where I talk about my life), but I’ve also made some dramatic changes to my study routine.

My Thai Fitness Routine

I need a minimum of 60 minutes of moderately intense exercise most day, or I start to feel like crap. I work on a computer for about 10 hours per day, and if I don’t get enough exercise, I start to transform into this grotesque computer slug. My usual exercise routine is to go for a 90 minute walk and jog on the beach, but I’ve been skipping this so I can use that time for studying Thai. I’ve been still managing about 30 to 40 minutes of light exercise at home most days, but it just isn’t enough to maintain my fitness.

The obvious answer to getting back into shape would be to resume my daily visits to the beach – I can still listen to some Thai audio on my iPhone. The only problem with that it’s now the rainy season in Thailand, and it just isn’t possible most days. This is why I’ve decided to create a home exercise routine that is not only going to get me back up to a good level of fitness but also help me learn Thai.

My plan is to step, run, and skip my way through the Glossika Thai Fluency course. The GSR part of the program contains about 80 hours of audio, and my plan is to exercise my way through this at least once by the end of my challenge. I’ll be doing review lessons as well, so if I can manage 90 minutes of exercise per day – that will be 110 hours of Glossika. I’m also writing out all the 3,000 sentences on a spreadsheet, and I listen to the GSM A files in the car for about 50 minutes every day.

I’ve been doing my Thai exercise routine for a week, and so far it’s working really well. I just seem better able to absorb material when my heart is pumping – my focus is much better. Perhaps my enthusiasm will begin to wane, but I love these type of challenges.

Telling My Story in Thai

As I mentioned in my last post, my main goal for this challenge is for me to be able to make a video where I tell my story in Thai. I expect this to be about 15 to 20 minutes in length. I’m spending about an hour a day figuring out what I want to say and practicing how to say it. I will be doing a lot of rehearsal beforehand, but I want this video to sound as natural as possible – I won’t be reading the words. If I can make this video, and Thai people can understand what I’m saying, this six months of intense study will be well worth it for me. I plan to post audio of my progress in future posts, so I can get some feedback from you guys.

Other posts in this series on learning Thai

Week 0- My Quest to Speak Fluent Thai in Six Months

Week 1 -Creating the Right Mental Conditions for Learning Thai

Week 2- Maybe Just Getting Out There and Speaking Thai is Not Enough

Week 3 – 5 Improvements in My Approach to Learning Thai

Week 4 – Generating Enough Passion to Learn Thai

Week 5 – Undoing the Damage from Speaking Thai Badly for Thirteen Years

Week 6 – Early Impressions of Glossika Thai Fluency Course

Week 7 – Introverts Can Learn Thai Too

Week 8 – Winning Strategy for Achieving Fluency in Thai

Week 9 – Thai Fluency in 10,000 Sentences

Week 10 – Problems with Staying Focused Prevent Me from Learning Thai

Week 11 – Importance of Cracking Thai Fundamentals

Week 12 – Painful Lessons while Ordering Pizza in Thai

Week 13- If I Can Become Fluent in Thai, So Can Anyone

Week 14 – How I Make Time to Study Thai

Week 15 – Redefining Fluency After Losing My Way While Learning Thai

Stop Thinking and Start Living

In this video and podcast, I discuss how much better my life becomes when I spend less time thinking.

I’ve written a couple of blog posts on this topic recently:

Meeting My Guru in a Pub at Age 17

The Miracle of Not Thinking

Press play to watch the video, and you’ll find the podcast of this episode below:

Press play to listen to the podcast:

Redefining Fluency After Losing My Way While Learning Thai

Week 15 of my Six Month Attempt to Speak Fluent Thai

This hasn’t been a great week study-wise. For the last couple of days especially, it has just felt like I’ve been going through the motions. I also missed a couple of opportunities to practice speaking because I wasn’t in the mood. I experienced a similar loss of focus six weeks ago, and I see it as sign that I need to make some adjustments to my approach.

My drop in motivation has been triggered by the realisation that I’m doing lots of stuff there isn’t a clear reason for why I’m doing it. I feel a bit like the guy who is in the middle of running an ultramarathon but suddenly realises he doesn’t know in which direction the finishing line is to be found. It is this lack of a clear direction that makes me feel like I’m just going through the motions.

Feedback from Last Audio

I received some useful feedback on my last audio over at Farang Can Learn Thai, and the thing that stood out most was the observation that my way of speaking Thai is ‘unnatural’ in these recordings. One of the commentators suggested I start recording real life conversations, and while I sort of like the idea, I don’t feel much passion to do it – at least at the moment.

I enjoyed making the last two audio clips, but I’ve decided to change the way I do them in the future. I need a clear goal so as to reignite my passion, and this means that any future recordings will need to be part of a larger project. In one of my early posts, I mentioned my dream of being able to make some videos in Thai about my experiences of addiction, and I think directing the remaining three months of this challenge towards turning this into a reality would be a much better use of my time.

This yearning to make my addiction videos in Thai might sound a bit pretentious – why should local people give a damn about anything I’ve got to say on this subject? My goal here is not to become any type of saviour, but I want to make these videos out of gratitude. I ended a 20-year alcohol addiction with the help of a temple here in Thailand, and I want to be able to share my story. In the past, when I’ve been given the opportunity to share my experiences publicly, I’ve relied on somebody else to translate my words into Thai – I feel embarrassed by this.

I know my goal should be that I’m able to spend hours each day chatting with my neighbours, while at the same time ordering pizza on the phone, but these possibilities just don’t make me feel passionate enough. Don’t get me wrong, I do want to be able to do these things, but if they happen, they will be more of a side-effect of my progress rather than the actual goal.

In my first post in this series, I wrote down my criteria for the different levels of Thai. My description of fluency included the ability to hold a long conversation on the phone with the other person believing I was a native speaker. I still think this would be a good way to determine fluency, but to be honest, I have no interest in working towards this as my goal (although, I would like another chance at ordering pizza in the future). A more suitable definition of fluency for me would be the ability to tell my story in Thai, and this is what I now want to put my effort into working towards – this is what makes me feel passionate again.

The Miracle of Not Thinking

Every second I don’t spend caught up in thought is a victory for me. It means for that one second, I am truly alive and experiencing the world around me. It’s a simple thing, but these periods of not thinking are a treasure I never knew I had.

I fell in love with alcohol because getting pissed gave me a way let go of all my worries and concerns – it felt like I was wearing this bulletproof outer-skin and nothing could touch me. There were so many days when I walked around in a dreamy haze – not giving a shit about anything – and in the beginning, the negative aspects of drinking, like hangovers, felt like a small price to pay for this ability to let go.

I began seriously drinking at age 16. I absolutely loved the way it made me feel and how it gave me a reprieve from the tyranny of my thoughts. I always felt so different from the people around me– like everyone else had been given an instruction manual on life, but they had forgotten to give me one. Drinking switched my brain into autopilot, so I no longer needed to worry about lack of instructions.

Alcohol gave me an artificial experience of letting go, but it came with too high a price. The periods of escape from thinking became shorter over the years, and the turmoil I’d face when sober intensified. Eventually, I reached a stage where drinking stopped working completely. The only time my thoughts weren’t tormenting me was when I drank myself unconscious – it wasn’t a nice way to live

I made a silly mistake, but it was an easy one to make. I wasn’t wrong to want to escape my thoughts, but the tool I used to accomplish this state just wasn’t ultimately effective. Drinking to escape my thoughts was also completely unnecessary because all I ever had to do was change my focus. The freedom I yearned for could have been experienced at any time – only this would be the real thing with no unpleasant side-effects.

The Miracle of Not Thinking

I got out of bed this morning, and I felt my bare feet touching the floor. I continued to feel my feet touch the floor as I walked from the bedroom towards my office. I heard my son getting up, and I stopped for a few minutes to chat with him about the book we had read the night before. It was a nice father-son moment, but it is not something that normally happens. I usually wake up with a head full of thoughts, and I’m too busy thinking to hardly acknowledge my son until it is time to take him to school.

When I drove my son to his school this morning, I could feel my hands on the steering wheel. There was something so calming about feeling in control of the car. I’ve been driving this route for 16 months, but I spotted things I’ve never seen before. It seems like every time I drive the car recently, I notice new things that I just missed before.

Every second that I’m not thinking is a victory for me– I’ve had many victories lately, and I’m experiencing a way of living that I once believed was only available through a bottle. I’m a lucky man.

How I Make Time to Study Thai

Week 14 of My Six Month Quest to Become Fluent in Thai

For years, my favorite reason for not putting enough effort into learning Thai has been lack of time. This wasn’t just some feeble excuse. I need to work up to 12 hours per day just to pay the bills, and most weeks I don’t get to take a full day off. I’ve lots of commitments, and before learning Thai become a priority, I just didn’t have time for it.

I know plenty of expats who would do want to improve their Thai, but they just don’t have the time. Living here is not the same as coming on holiday, where you can spend hours every day on the beach practicing Thai with the som tam sellers, and life has a habit of stuffing commitments into any free time we might have.

At the moment, I’m devoting on average about five hours per day to learning Thai – although, less than three hours of this now involves ‘head in the book’ study. I’ve had a couple of expats ask me about how I can afford to spend so much time on this project, and the answer is I’ve needed to make many sacrifices.

The Sacrifices I Make to Learn Thai

Devoting so much time to learning Thai is a gamble for me. I’m betting that the sacrifices I make now will lead to a bigger pay-off later on. I’m not talking here about any type of financial pay-off, but I do expect my increased proficiency in the language to improve my life, and the life of my family.

There are paying-projects I could be doing now rather than devoting so much time to learning Thai. My finances are far from secure, and I do worry taking so much time off is going to be something I later regret, but it just feels like the right thing to do. I had the same qualms a few years ago when I took a few months off to train full-time at Muay Thai – on one level, it was a financially reckless thing to do, but it changed my life in many positive ways. I always suffer when I don’t follow my intuition, and I just have to trust this is going to be worth it.

One of the other sacrifices I’ve made is I no longer have time for my 90 minute afternoon walks on the beach – it actually takes over two hours by the time I get there and come back. I spend all day working on a computer, so these walks are needed to maintain my sanity and health. At the moment, I’m exercising at home, so I can spend more time doing Thai, but it’s not the same as my walks on the beach. I’m reducing the amount of ‘book work’ Thai study, so hopefully I’ll be able to return to my walks soon, and I can listen to my Glossika audio files on the beach.

Giving up all forms of English entertainment felt like a sacrifice at first, but I hardly notice the difference now. It was my birthday last Wednesday, so I decided to give myself a reprieve and allow English music and TV in the evening. I got bored in less than an hour, and I ended up watching a Thai horror movie instead.

Why My Sacrifices is Worth It

Life is unpredictable, but it looks like I’ll be spending the rest of my life in Thailand. I would be happy enough to move back to Europe, and I do get days when I miss it, but my wife would find it struggle, and my son is happy here. I moved to Thailand when I was 31, and I’m now 45, so I’ve already spent a huge chunk of my adult life here. I feel at home, but it doesn’t feel like my home, and one of the main reasons for this has been my limited ability to speak the language.

If you visit any of the Thai-related web forums, you will likely notice how many of the regular posters are suffering from chronic culture shock. These are the guys who are always complaining about Thailand and engage in daily Schadenfreude at any misfortune in the Land of Smiles. I suspect a lot of these people just don’t want to be here anymore, but they feel trapped – maybe, they burned some bridges back home. Despite how vocal these posters can be about all issues related to Thailand and ‘Thainess’, they mostly don’t speak the language at more than an intermediate level, and this is probably one of the prime reasons they feel like disgruntled outsiders. I don’t mean to sound judgmental because I’ve been guilty of the same type off thinking.

There is just something sad about living in Thailand but not learning the language. For years, I only watched English TV, listened to English music, and read English books – there were even days when I used Streetview in Google maps to virtually walk around the streets of my home town. Is it any wonder that I felt out of place here? I don’t want to continue living this way, and this is why I need to improve my Thai.

The reason I’m able to free up so much time for learning Thai is it has become a priority in my life. I need to do this, and it is this need that means I’m able to free up some time. If learning the language didn’t feel so vital to me at the moment, I just wouldn’t have the time to do it. If you feel you must learn Thai, you will be able to do find the time – it’s that simple.

My Second Thai Audio Conversation

I got some fantastic feedback from my first Thai audio – I’d like to especially thank those who left such informative comments on the Farang Can Learn to Speak Thai Language Facebook Page. The feedback highlighted a number of problems with my first audio:

• I spoke too fast

• My low tones were off

• I aspirated the ‘ต’ sound when it should be unaspirated

• My falling tone sounded unnatural

• I didn’t roll the ‘r’ sound

• There was a problem with my pronunciation of the vowel ‘โ-’

I’ve tried to work on these issues over the last week, and I hope there are some improvements. Preparing these audio files is proving to be a much harder challenge than I expected, but it is definitely benefiting me. If I kept working on these audio clips, I’m sure I could eliminate most of the mistakes, but I feel it is important to give myself a deadline to have them completed, and this helps to keep me focused.

This week’s Thai audio is a stress-relief technique I found from the Thai Department of Mental health called ตอน สุขใจ สบายกาย – I’m using the relaxation technique at 2:30. I’m still suffering from the trauma of ordering pizza in Thai, so I’m hoping this technique is going to return me to inner-tranquility – the nature of the topic should also mean I speak more slowly (that’s the plan anyway). Here is the transcript for the audio, and you will find the actual audio below. I’d be delighted if you leave any feedback as a comment here or on Facebook/Twitter – my wife and son have already spotted a couple of mistakes.

วันนี้ ผม ขอเสนอ เทคนิค การคลายเครียด

ด้วยการควบคุม ลม หายใจ แบบ ง่ายๆ

ขั้น แรก ให้ เรา นั่ง ใน ท่า ที่ สบายๆ หลับตา

เอา มือ ประสาน ไว้ บริเวณ ท้อง

จาก นั้น ก็ ค่อยๆ หายใจ เข้า

พร้อมๆ กับ นับ เลข หนึ่ง ถึง สี่ เป็น จังหวะ ช้าๆ

ให้ มือ รู้สึก ว่า ท้อง พอง ออก

กลั้น หาย ใจ เอา ไว้ ชั่วครู่

นับ หนึ่ง ถึง สี่ ช้าๆ

เหมือน ตอน หายใจ เข้า

หนึ่ง สอง สาม สี่

ค่อยๆ ผ่อน ลม หาย ใจ ออก

โดย นับ หนึ่ง ถึง แปด อย่าง ช้าๆ

หนึ่ง สอง สาม สี่ ห้า หก เจ็ด แปด

พยายาม ไล่ ลม หาย ใจ ออก มา ให้ หมด

สังเกตุ ว่า หน้า ท้อง จะ แฟบ ลง ทำ ซ้ำ อีก จน กว่า จะ รู้สึก

ผ่อนคลาย ครับ

Other posts in this series on learning Thai

Week 0- My Quest to Speak Fluent Thai in Six Months

Week 1 -Creating the Right Mental Conditions for Learning Thai

Week 2- Maybe Just Getting Out There and Speaking Thai is Not Enough

Week 3 – 5 Improvements in My Approach to Learning Thai

Week 4 – Generating Enough Passion to Learn Thai

Week 5 – Undoing the Damage from Speaking Thai Badly for Thirteen Years

Week 6 – Early Impressions of Glossika Thai Fluency Course

Week 7 – Introverts Can Learn Thai Too

Week 8 – Winning Strategy for Achieving Fluency in Thai

Week 9 – Thai Fluency in 10,000 Sentences

Week 10 – Problems with Staying Focused Prevent Me from Learning Thai

Week 11 – Importance of Cracking Thai Fundamentals

Week 12 – Painful Lessons while Ordering Pizza in Thai

Week 13- If I Can Become Fluent in Thai, So Can Anyone

Meeting My Guru in a Pub at Age 17

When I was 17 years old, a guy in a pub back in Dublin made the following observation about me -’you think too much’. I’ve spent the last 24 years listening to gurus, following the advice of experts, doing spiritual practices, participating in recovery programs, and reading the self-help books, but none of it has improved upon that observation by a guy in a bar who was most likely drunk when he gave it. If anyone is deserving of the title of ‘my guru’, he has to be it.

The powerful insight given to me by my guru was flawless, but in the style of a Zen master, he left it to me to work out the implications. His words initially fell flat on my ears – at the time they seemed about as helpful as the recommendation ‘to cheer up’ given to somebody battling severe depression, but I never forgot what he said. In fact, my guru kept appearing to me at regular times throughout my life in the form of friends, girlfriends, and strangers all offering the same wisdom. It has taken me all these years to unravel the amazing truth my guru handed me that day.

Looking for Something Tasty in a Pile of Manure

If I had fully reflected on what my guru told me that rainy afternoon back in Dublin, I could have saved myself a lot of suffering. Maybe, if I’d understood that the problem was actually my thinking, I would have avoided wasting so much time looking to my thoughts, and the thoughts of other people, for answers. Instead, I went on a futile hunt in the world of thought not realizing that this was just fueling the problem.

At this point, I think it is important to distinguish between two different types of thought. There is type of thought that is needed to do stuff like figuring out how to use squat toilet. This flavor of thinking is incredibly useful, I couldn’t survive without it, and best of all, it is under my control – I give my brain a problem, and it has the job of producing a solution. I would also include creativity under the category of ‘good’ thinking although this is less under my control. I would say that much less than 1 per cent of my thinking involves this type of useful thought.

There is another type of thought that is more sinister, and it is there as a constant soundtrack playing in my head (people who meditate refer to this as the ‘monkey brain’). This inner-voice is always make judgments about me and the outside world, and it has an opinion and beliefs about everything – it is this type of thinking that my guru was referring to when he said I do too much of it.

Shit My Brain Says

Thinking too much has at times made my life a living hell. It has been the source of my episodes of depression, and I spent almost two decades as a habitual drunk in an attempt to escape this constant mental chatter. In the past, my response has been to add even more thoughts, beliefs, and opinions into the mix but of course this was the last thing I needed – it was like trying to put out a fire using a flame-thrower.

The key to escaping my suffering is to stop thinking so much. Unfortunately, I can’t just tell my brain to just shut up, but I can put my attention wherever I want it to be. I do this by switching my focus to physical movement and sensations in my body. Right now when I’m typing this, I can feel my fingers hitting the keys. When I’m walking, I feel the soles of my feet coming into contact with the ground. When I focus like this, I’m free of my thoughts, and the more I do it, the freer I become.

This simple change in my approach to the world is far more powerful than any spiritual/religious/therapeutic advice I’ve ever been given – it makes all that stuff seem meaningless and surplus to requirements. I can’t use thoughts to convince you how much better this could make your life, but I invite you to try it for yourself. I’d like to thank my guru for sharing this wisdom with me, and I hope he was able to benefit from it himself.