Paul Garrigan's Blog, page 17

Painful Lessons while Ordering Pizza in Thai

Almost Week 12 of my Six Month Attempt to Speak Fluent Thai

If learning Thai is a battle, Wednesday night was my own personal Dunkirk. My task was straightforward enough, I just needed to order pizza in Thai over the phone. Things were going really really well up until the point when I started speaking, but then it all started to go downhill rapidly. When it was over, I felt like I’d made a complete twat of myself in front of room of about eighty people with thousands more watching the live stream in Google Hangouts.

The Battle to Speak Thai When the Other Person Wants to Speak English

If Stuart Jay Raj had not been there right next to me, I would have reverted to English within the first few seconds of the call. I sensed it as I said ‘สั่งพิซซ่าครับ’ that things were going to get bumpy – I was like the class whimp asking the most popular girl in school out for a date. I got the tones wrong, and I sounded too unsure of myself.

The operator then said something in Thai I couldn’t hear, and instead of just asking her what she said, I kept repeating in an increasingly desperate voice ‘สั่งพิซซ่าครับ’ like I was stuck in a loop. I failed the audition for the Thai operator within a few seconds, and I was automatically transferred to the English-speaking pizza professional.

I assumed the game was over, and I was ready to hand the phone back to Stu, but he wanted me to keep speaking in Thai. So I entered this battle of wills with the English operator where I was still trying to order in Thai while she tried to get me to speak in English. I made it to the end of the call, and I finished it off with a final mispronounced ‘ครับ’. Stu got everyone to give me a round of sympathy applause, but it was far from the proudest moment of my life.

Even before I ordered the pizza, I had a demonstration of my weaknesses in Thai. I got to the event a couple of hours early, and I had the chance to chat with Bingo from Duke Language School. He’s a great guy with the patience of an arahant. Bingo spoke to me for about 20 minutes in Thai. I could understand everything he said, but I struggled to provide him with coherent replies – my mind just kept on going blank (any less going on in my brain and I would have been drooling).

Thai Bites Live – The Road to Fluency

Overall, I really enjoyed this first Thai Bites live event. Stu is a total professional, and he created a quality experience with plenty of fun moments– he even had a proper film crew and a room full of complicated looking equipment so people could watch at home. My lessons with Stu have always been on Skype, so it was great to meet him in person. The guy is full of charisma, and it is motivating just being in the same room as him.

I also got to ask Mike Campbell from Glossika some questions, and he clarified a couple of things that are going to help me get more out of this program. He’s another charismatic character, and it is obvious he is passionate about his courses. I feel so lucky that his Thai fluency course became available a few weeks ago just when I needed it. I was exciting to hear about the plans for Glossika, Cracking Thai Fundamentals, and content from Duke Language School becoming available as part of one package – it sounds like an unbeatable combination to me.

One of the unexpected pleasures of Thai Bites Live was getting to put faces on people I’ve only ever know online. There was a great atmosphere at the event, and I think there were quite a few there who have had similar struggles when trying to learn Thai.

I left Thai Bites Live feeling glad I went but disappointed with my performance. I ended up getting lost in the Bangkok traffic for an hour, and this didn’t help my mood at all. I began to feel sorry for myself – why am I putting so much effort into this and not getting the results I expect?

I had a lot of time to think during my three hour drive back to Rayong, and the only thing I didn’t consider was given up. About halfway through the trip, I came to the conclusion that things couldn’t have worked out any better. I now have a much better idea now of my deficiencies and that has to be a good thing.

@jim__tompkins

Painful Lessons while Ordering Pizza in Thai

I don’t have any excuses for my dismal attempt at ordering pizza, but I’m not interested in excuses anyway. I only care about what I can do to improve and that is what I’ve been focusing on. The deficiencies this event has highlighted for me have been:

• My brain is hardwired to speak Thai badly because I’ve been doing it for years. This means that whenever I’m under pressure, I’ll revert back to my shitty Thai. I can’t get rid of those bad connections in my brain, but I can develop new stronger connections.

• I struggle when it comes to translating what I want to say into Thai during a real conversation – it is like the part of my brain where the Thai is stored become inaccessible. I need to develop my ability to translate my thoughts and ideas into Thai automatically so I can maintain a conversation.

I’ve made the following changes to my Thai learning schedule:

One of the most impressive things at Thai Bites was watching Stu translate what Mike was saying into different languages as Mike was speaking. You could tell Stu was doing this automatically because there just wasn’t time for him to think about what he was going to say. I want to be able to do this with Thai because it would mean I would have no problem saying what I want to say during a real conversation.

I’m going to start devoting some time every day to translating English into Thai as it is being spoken. There are thousands of videos on YouTube for people who want to learn English, and I’m going to use these – the BBC learning series The Flatmates seems to be ideal for this purpose. Here is how I intend to do it:

• I’m going to listen to a video once and try to translate what is being said into Thai

• When the video is over, I’m going to try to recall the things I wasn’t able to translate – I’ll do this without looking back over the video

• I’ll work out how to say those things in Thai

• I’ll play the video and try to translate more than the first time

• Repeat until I feel I’ve done a good job of translating the episode into Thai

I need to do more to overcome my habit of speaking bad Thai (I’m finding out that it is much harder to unlearn than it is to learn). A good way of doing this would be for me to develop a realistic accent, so then it would be almost like I’m changing into a different character when I’m speaking. I think สรยุทธ สุทัศนะจินดา from morning TV would be a good choice for me – there are hundreds of videos of him speaking on YouTube, and he is there every morning. Here is how I plan to start imitating his voice:

• I’m going to make short audio recordings of him saying interesting sentences

• Catherine from A Woman Learning Thai found a great resource called the Come Again Tool which makes it easier to work with short sentences

• I’m going to work with these files until I am able to imitate the voice of สรยุทธ to a reasonable degree (I’m shit when it comes to imitating people but apparently it is something anyone can become good at with persistence and patience)

I’m not sure if it is possible for an introvert to speak Thai at the level I’m aiming for. All of the people I’ve met who are fluent in Thai are outgoing and sociable. So, I need to act like more of an extrovert. After ordering pizza on stage while being filmed, and in front of a crowd of people, speaking with my neighbors should be a walk in the park – it’s not like they can transfer me to an English speaker.

One of the other changes I’m making is to cut down Glossika to 10 sentences per day. Mike Campbell says this is a reasonable amount, and it’s not like I need to rush to finish the course. If I can reduce the amount of time I spend on Glossika to one hour, I’ll have more time to devote to work on some of the key weaknesses.

Will There Be Another Attempt at Ordering Pizza in Thai?

Stuart Jay Raj wants to try ordering the pizza again in a couple of months. He is going to work with me, so I can hopefully get to a stage where speaking in Thai isn’t painful for the operator taking the call. I’m definitely willing to try again – I want another opportunity to get this right.

If you missed Thai Bites Live. You can watch the video on YouTube. It’s worth watching the whole thing, but my battle with pizza professional begins at 45:00 minutes

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

Importance of Cracking Thai Fundamentals

Week 11 of my Six Month Challenge to Speak Fluent Thai

I have benefited from so much good fortune during this quest to achieve fluency in Thai. It is like everything I need to make this happen is just falling in my path. The Glossika Thai fluency course is perfect for my needs and that was only released a few weeks ago. I’ve also been lucky enough to find new Facebook communities like Farang Can Learn Thai Language and the Glossika Discussion Group.

The most fortunate thing to happen so far on this journey was Stuart Jay Raj reading my first post in the series. He is an incredibly talented language teacher and polyglot, and he offered to coach me for free. He also gave me access to his Cracking Thai Fundamentals (CFT) course, and this has turned out to be the missing link I needed to become unstuck. If I’m honest, I probably wouldn’t have made much progress without this input from Stu. I would have ended up just gravitating back to the language learning tools I’ve used in the past, and this would have been an exercise in frustration and disappointment. Not that there was anything necessarily wrong with these methods, just they were not enough to get me to the next level.

CFT (including Thai Bites) has worked well for me because it explains things in a way that I can understand. My wife and son have been correcting my pronunciation and tones for years, but I just didn’t get what they were saying. I used the excuse of being tone deaf, but I actually had no problem hearing the tones – I just didn’t know how to accurately reproduce them using my vocal equipment.

The great thing about CFT is it simplified everything, and Stu told me exactly what I needed to do to speak Thai more like a Thai. I began training my vocal system to produce sounds the same way a Thai does rather than trying to produce these sounds using vocal muscles designed for speaking English. I spent weeks doing pronunciation drills, hours every day, and it felt more like going to the gym than learning a language. I still make mistakes because of old habits, but I can now speak Thai using the right tones and sounds so long as I don’t slip into speaking too fast (something I’m still prone to do, but I’m getting better).

Stu also gave me a sneak preview of the new module 6 of CTF, and this has also had a huge impact on my progress. He shared this material with me over the course of one lesson on Skype and by the end of it, I had internalized all the tone rules. I can now look at most Thai words and know the tone instantly most of the time. This makes a huge difference to me because up until now there has been so many words I could recognize in writing, but I didn’t know how to pronounce properly because I just ignored the tone.

No Right Way to Learn Thai

What is happening during this six month challenge to learn Thai is I’m picking up the right tools to help me achieve fluency. A mistake I’ve made in the past is that I’ve assumed there is one right way to learn Thai – an easy mistake to make considering so many claim this to be true. I tried to follow the advice of the language experts and when their approach didn’t work, I blamed it on lack of effort or my inability to learn. This was a mistake. I now know that the problem wasn’t my ineptitude for Thai, but my failure to find the right tools that would work for me.

We are all different, and it is naive to suggest that what works for one person is going to work for somebody else. I have no problem believing a person can become fluent by just getting out there and spending a lot of time imitating native speakers, but it doesn’t mean this approach is going to work for me too. In fact, I know it isn’t because I tried it for years. Some of us are good at imitation and some of us suck at it, but thankfully imitation isn’t the only way to learn a language. I have found a combination of different approaches works best for me because this is what is producing results.

Thai Bites Live with Stuart Jay Raj

Stuart Jay Raj is hosting event this week in Bangkok along with Mike from Glossika and Arthit Juyaso from Duke Language School. It’s free to attend, but you need to let them know in advance. Stuart is going to be using me as his guinea pig, so I’m a bit nervous because I’ve no real idea what to expect. I do worry I might make an arse of myself, but it has been my reluctance to risk making a fool of myself that also stopped me from making progress in Thai for a long time. It is much better for me to look bad trying than to be bad because I’ve stopped trying.

You can find out more about this event here: Thai Bites Live – Road to Fluency

It’s also going to be broadcast live on Google Hangouts, and I expect the video will later be available on YouTube.

Phil form Ajarn.com is also working hard to get his Thai skills up to scratch, and you can follow his exciting journey here – My struggles with the Thai language part 1

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

100 Tips for Building a Great Life after Addiction

I have written hundreds of blog posts about my new life since giving up alcohol eight years ago. It’s been an incredible journey so far with amazing highs and some extreme lows. I’m still here, and I’m a much happier, calmer, and far more serene individual than I was when I started. Here are my 100 tips for building a great life following addiction:

1. Learn to follow to your intuition

2. Expect to change your beliefs and opinions on a regular basis

3. Hold onto your beliefs lightly, and abandon them when they stop being useful

4. Understand that every belief limits you in some way, so you need to choose your beliefs carefully

5. Overcome negative inner-dialogue by developing self-compassion

6. Accept that you are probably never going to get answers to the big questions in life, but you can learn to love the mystery

7. Stop trying to resist your feelings because this is the real source of your pain

8. Understand that the most effective thing you can do to change the world is to change your perspective

9. Don’t expect special treatment from the universe

10. Don’t use your history of addiction as an excuse for behaving badly

11. Understand that being grateful for what you already have is the path to real happiness

12. Be prepared to leave your comfort zone on a regular basis because this is the only way you can ever reach your potential

13. Stop saying ‘should’ because this word is too often just a way to make yourself feel bad

14. If you want other people to think you are great person, tell them how great they are and not how great you are

15. Be skeptical about your own beliefs and opinions but don’t see it as your job to change the beliefs and opinions of other people

16. Don’t judge other people too harshly – none of us asked to be here

17. Understand that there is no ‘right way’ to recover from addiction

18. Don’t take yourself too seriously

19. Try to do at least one good deed every day, as this can be liking planting positive karma seeds that will ripen in the future

20. Do not allow relapse to be an option in your life because otherwise staying sober will be struggle

21. If you want to be forgiven for you past mistakes, you need to be willing to forgive other people

22. Offer yourself the same level of compassion as you would give to a good friend

23. Understand that it can be comforting to pray even if you don’t believe in a God

24. Be extremely cynical when reading about any ‘cure’ for addiction

25. In order to fully commit to recovery, you must completely let go of the idea of ever being able to drink or use drugs again in the future

26. Thinking can be the source of most of our problems, so stop trying to think your way out of problems

27. Take up a practice like mindfulness so you can become less of a slave to your thoughts

28. Follow your passions because your motivation will be high enough to achieve amazing results

29. If your life feels like it is getting harder, it means you need to make some changes

30. Judge your progress in life by the amount of time you spend thinking about other people (being critical of them doesn’t count)

31. Understand resentment only ever hurts you

32. Be careful around memories because there is a tendency to glamourize the past

33. Accept that most of your limitations in life have been put there by you

34. Consider the worst case scenario – by figuring out how you could survive this, it allows you to approach the future with less fear

35. Don’t expect life to make sense or to be always fair

36. Understand that the most anyone can ever expect of you is for you to do your best

37. Remember you can never be a loser so long as you keep trying

38. Try practicing loving-kindness (metta) meditation for a few months if you suffer due to self-loathing and a negative inner-dialogue

39. Don’t waste time defending your beliefs and opinions because it easily lead to dogmatism and rigid thinking – don’t take your beliefs so personally

40. Eat well because this has a huge impact on your energy levels, mood, and general sense of well-being

41. Try to exercise every day because this boosts your energy levels, mood, and general sense of well-being

42. Keep a journal (or start blogging) because this can lead to amazing insights and it allows you to track your progress

43. Understand that it is okay to be just normal – you don’t have to achieve anything special for you to be a special human being

44. Realize all humans are in the same boat – we all have it tough at times

45. If you don’t have something good to say about a person or situation, it might be best to say nothing at all

46. Sometimes the best thing you can do is not say what is on the tip of your tongue

47. Treat life in recovery as an amazing journey that is going to have many unexpected twists and turns

48. Know that the hardest days can be the ones that benefit you the most

49. Often what the universe gives you is much better than what you originally wanted, but you may not see this if you are too focused on your original goal

50. Understand that the bravest thing you can do is to be vulnerable and open about your feelings and fears

51. Know that you can only experience love to the extent that you are willing to be hurt – you can’t protect your heart from pain and experience the fullness of love

52. Treat life like a gift and rediscover the wonder of a child

53. Be careful not to self-handicap – this is where you don’t try your best because you don’t want to try your best and fail

54. If your mood is low you need to avoid the tendency to isolate – the last thing you need is to be alone with your thoughts

55. Don’t just dismiss stuff because of what the skeptics say – if something works for you, this is all that matters (so long as it is not harming other people)

56. Understand that you don’t have to defend the stuff that works for you unless you are trying to promote it to other people

57. Realize that you don’t need to have an opinion about everything – for most things, the best response might be ‘I don’t know’

58. Accept that all humans have their flaws, just like you, but try to have compassion for them anyway

59. Don’t follow a spiritual path in the hope of becoming a different person, but instead follow this path to learn more about who you are

60. Learn from other people, but try not to put them on too high a pedestal

61. Accept that the answers you find for dealing with life’s problems might not work for other people

62. Don’t just dismiss the magical – the fact that we are here at all is magical in itself

63. Be careful of people who never seem to change their beliefs and opinions

64. Always listen to any criticism carefully to see if there is anything you can learn from it

65. Never say ‘it’s the just the way I am’

66. Be mindful of the words you use – try to use positive words because this can improve your mood and energy levels

67. Accept praise because this can boost your energy levels so you can achieve more

68. Say ‘sorry’ as soon as you can after you have behaved badly

69. Focus on the part you have played in a bad situation rather than trying to pass the blame onto other people – maybe you will learn something that is going to benefit you in the future

70. If you feel overwhelmed by racing thoughts, try to focus on the sensations being created in your body rather than the actual thoughts

71. Don’t be too proud of your intelligence – it could be your greatest liability

72. Philosophers have been arguing about the existence of free will for centuries, and there might never be an answer to this puzzle, but it is best to act as if you have free will

73. Even if you don’t believe the universe sends problems your way to teach you valuable lessons, it is better to act as if this is the case

74. Remember that positive action is far more likely to get results than magical thinking

75. If you feel overcome by worry, start taking action to solve the problem – even if the action you take doesn’t lead to a solution, you will feel better for being active

76. Understand that if you allow worry to overcome your thinking, it will sap your motivation, cloud your thinking, and increase the likelihood of things getting worse

77. Realize that most upset occurs because things don’t turn out the way we expect them too – unfortunately (or fortunately) things hardly ever turn out as we expect them too

78. Understand that the things that annoy you most about other people can tell you a lot about yourself

79. If you expect things to turn out badly, you can create the conditions for them to turn out badly (clever people refer to this as a self-fulfilling prophecy)

80. Be careful because we regularly mishear things or misinterpret things – appreciate that a lot of the information in your brain may be flawed

81. Don’t be too surprised if some of the worst days in your life occur after you get sober – it almost seems as if the universe is able to recognize your improved ability to handle stuff by sending you harder challenges

82. See your goals as just something to aim for and don’t get too obsessed by them – the journey could take you to somewhere even better if you let it

83. Understand that the first step to getting back on track in life is to admit that you are lost

84. If you want to enjoy a better life, spend more time helping other people

85. Don’t set higher standards for other people than you have for yourself

86. Remember that you are going to die and use this thought to motivate you to get the most out of each day

87. Always be willing to forgive yourself after you mess up

88. Focus on learning from your mistakes rather than beating yourself up

89. Learn to accept your past because it was needed to get you where you are today

90. Remember to sometimes laugh at the absurdity of life

91. Treat each day like a new start

92. Understand that the best you can do to make up for your past mistakes is to be a better person today

93. Do daily activities where you are focused on your body rather than your thoughts

94. Appreciate that life is already enough – nothing special has to happen for you to be happy

95. If religion gives your life meaning then this is a special gift but don’t push it on people

96. Don’t just dismiss other people’s feelings, beliefs, or experience because you think you know better – you probably don’t

97. Be careful of ‘black and white’ solutions to the problems in the world

98. Don’t demonize other people because they think differently than you – we are all working with the cards life has dealt us

99. Don’t pretend to be ‘super-spiritual’ or a ‘holy-joe’ because ultimately trying to be something you are not is the path to misery

100. Try to treat every person and every situation as a potential teacher

Problems with Staying Focused Prevent Me from Learning Thai

Week 10 of my Six Month Attempt to Speak Fluent Thai

It has become apparent to me this last week that it is my inability to stay focused that has been my biggest barrier to learning Thai. I’m easily distracted, and I can zone-out for disturbingly long periods of time without even realizing it. It means during my study time, I can be automatically clicking on web pages and reading social media updates or just generally ‘away with the fairies’.

All of my previous attempts to achieve fluency in Thai have failed due to lack of focus. I always start off bursting with enthusiasm, but after a few weeks or months, this motivation starts to vanish. This happens because I stop making much progress, and it all starts to feel like a huge waste of time.

This week I almost fell into the same trap. I’ve been starting to zone-out a lot more while I’m studying. There have been a couple of days in particular where I spent six hours doing stuff, but it didn’t feel like I’d anything to show for it. This is because I was just going through the motions and not actually staying focused enough to learn anything. I have the books open and audio playing, but the fact that I’m daydreaming means I’m just kidding myself if I call this learning.

Revamping My Schedule for Learning Thai

My usual response to realizing I’m too distracted is to just press ahead in the hope my focus will return later on – it never has. The problem is this just means my motivation gets less and less until I can’t even be bothered to pretend I’m studying Thai. It is to be expected that I’m going to have days when my focus is a bit below par, but I think when this goes on for more than one day, it is a warning that my there are problems with my approach.

Successful entrepreneurs are fascinating people, and one of the skills they usually possess is the ability to swerve. In plain English, this means their commitment is to achieve a goal rather than strictly sticking to their plan for how to achieve this goal. This because a plan might only get us so far, and if we don’t come up with a new plan, we won’t make any more progress. In the past, I’ve sabotaged my own chances of success because I’ve been too stubborn about sticking to the plan (I’m not just talking about learning Thai here).

I know what is going to happen if I just stay with my old schedule, so I’ve made some significant changes to it:

• The ดรุณศึกษา pronunciation drills have made a huge difference to my ability to speak Thai, but I’m now on auto-pilot when I do them. I’m going to continue with some drill practice, but I’m cutting this down to about five minutes per day (I was doing over an hour). Stu Jay Raj suggested I could still one longer session once per week.I can’t stress enough how much these drills have helped me, and I definitely recommend them to anyone who is serious about speaking Thai like a Thai.

• I am cutting down to just 20 new Glossika sentences per day. I think 20 sentences is the optimal number because it means I can progress at the same pace as the Glossika GSR tracks (two per day).

• I’m now typing out all the new Glossika sentences into a spreadsheet

• I’ve been zoning out too much while listening to Glossika recently, so I’m spending most of this week just revising the last 200 sentences.

• I’m devoting more time to building my collection of 10,000 sentences because it is fun, and I’m usually fully absorbed while I’m doing it.

I initially felt resistant to the idea of slowing down with Glossika. I had my heart set on finishing the three books well before the end of my six month challenge, but it doesn’t look like this is going to happen now. Still, there isn’t any point in rushing through this course if it means failing to absorb half the content.

I don’t fully understand why, but I seem to get more from typing Thai than writing it by hand – maybe it is something to do with the fact that I spend about 10 hours a day using a keyboard? The other nice benefit of typing is I have a lovely spreadsheet with all the sentences I’m learning, and I much prefer this to the book. The only benefit of writing things down was it meant I could add some handy tone glyphs, but I’m getting so much better at recognizing the tone automatically that I hardly ever need to do this now.

I heard somewhere that Glossika is mostly meant to be about listening, but I’ve started using my sentence spreadsheet when doing the GSR audio. It isn’t so much that I need this to help me remember the words – it is more like a visual anchor that stops me from zoning-out.

Don’t Get Despondent if Your Progress is Slow

I’m sure that there are going to be many days in the months ahead when it feels like I’m not making any progress. It is only when I look back to where I was at the beginning of this challenge that I appreciate the changes that have taken place – I’ve made huge progress. I already take for granted stuff like my ability to accurately reproduce Thai tones even though a few months ago I’d almost given up hope of ever being able to do this. If you feel your progress is slow, like back to where you were a few months ago, and you might be amazed.

News update: Stuart Jay Raj is teaming up with Mike Campbell of Glossika for an event in Bangkok next month – I’ll also be taking part. It is a really exciting project and you can find out more about it here Thai Bites Live – The Road to Fluency

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

6 Things Depression Has Taught Me about Happiness

I find it harder to talk about my experiences with depression than I do my battle with alcohol addiction. This is because I know my alcoholism is behind me, but I don’t yet feel the same confidence when it comes to declaring victory over depression. I’ve definitely become better at managing the dark cloud when it arrives, but it would be better if it never visited at all.

I fear depression, but it has also been my greatest teacher. Here are six of the important lessons it has taught me:

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1. Most of My Suffering is Due to Resisting My Feelings

The turning point in my relationship with depression happened last year when I stopped trying to resist how I was feeling and instead just started to observe what was happening. When the low mood came, I noticed a lack of energy in my body, and some mental sluggishness, but it wasn’t anything too terrible. Instead of reacting, I just sat with those feelings and nothing bad happened to me. Best of all, this period of depression lasted far less time than usual – a few hours instead of a few days.

I discovered most of the symptoms of my depression were due to me just not wanting to feel the way I was feeling. The low mood would trigger a chain of thoughts involving all my failures and fears for the future. I would get angry at myself for feeling so weak and negative, but this only made me feel worse than before. I’d get caught up in this downward spiral where all I wanted to do was sleep and escape my thinking.

I’ve discovered that it isn’t only depression that occurs due to resisting my feelings – it is the cause of most of my suffering. It always starts with the idea ‘I shouldn’t be feeling way’, but this is a crazy way of thinking because what is there is there. The feelings themselves are never so bad, it is more often the resistance to these feelings that is causing the problem.

Lesson one – happiness is about accepting what is there right now and dealing with it

2. Thinking is Not the Key to Happiness

The more depressed I’m feeling, the faster the thoughts speed around in my head. I’ve never been able to think my way out of depression, it only makes things much worse. In fact, it is the patterns of thinking that arise in response to my low mood that are the real source of my suffering. I’ve also noticed the happiest times in my life all involved being completely caught up in the moment and not thinking too much about anything.

I don’t consider myself particularly intelligent, but I do think too much, and this has been a real barrier to my happiness. I have no real control over the thoughts that appear in my head, but I do get to decide how much of a part they play in my life. I no longer look to my intellect for answers on how to find happiness – I trust my intuition instead.

Lesson Two – I can’t think my way to happiness

3. The Only Losers in Life Are Those Who Are Afraid to Play

When I’m feeling low, it can open the door for all sorts of negative shit to take over my thinking. The recurring theme is that I’m loser who is never going to amount to anything. This mental chatter steals all my motivation, it can get so bad I can’t even work, so I’ve had to learn how to combat it – I have a family feed.

So long as I keep playing this game called life, I haven’t lost yet. Amazing things do happen, and who knows what is around the next corner. Getting up each day and trying my best is all that can be expected of me – it’s all I have to give – and as long as I keep doing this I am a winner at least in my own eyes.

Lesson 3: So long as I keep on trying, I will never be a loser

4. The Importance of Self-Compassion

If I spoke to other people the way I allow my inner-voice speak to me, I’d be in jail or in a box. Nobody in their right mind would put up with that level of abuse and negativity. I used to believe that this inner-soundtrack was motivational, but it is actually the ravings of a sadistic bully who loves it when I fail.

Depression has shown me the importance of self-compassion. This means that instead of beating myself up for feeling bad, I self-soothe instead. I’m only offering myself the same level of compassion as I would offer a friend – don’t we all deserve that?

Lesson 4: I need compassion when I’m struggling and not criticism

5. Life is Always a Matter of Perspective

One of the most important lessons depression has taught me is that my perspective is has a more significant impact on my level of happiness than what is actually happening in my life. If I get out of bed on the wrong side, even the slightest niggle can send me on a downward spiral that lasts the whole day or even longer. On the other hand, if I wake up in a good mood, I can put up with a lot of shit that would normally have me feeling overwhelmed.

This understanding about perspective has changed my relationship with the world. I’m a bit sceptical when it comes to stuff like the ‘law of attraction’, but I’ve no doubt that my level of happiness is determined by my perceptions and not my possessions.

Lesson 5: The problem isn’t the world, it is my current perspective

6. Life is Tough for Everyone

People can rub me the wrong me the wrong way, and there are certain personality traits that bug the shit out of me, but my depression has made me more compassionate. I understand we all have our struggles and none of us asked to be here (at least I don’t remember asking). We all have feelings, and we share far more in common than our differences.

Lesson 6: We all suffer and we all deserve compassion

5 Tips for How to Stop Drinking Alcohol without Becoming a Dick

I have done things while sober that are almost as cringe-worthy as the stuff I did while drunk. Most of these episodes of being a jerk happened due to my naivety or ignorance, but they could still be a source of annoyance for other people. Here are my five tips for how you can stop drinking alcohol without becoming a dick.

1. Don’t Offer Unsolicited Counselling to Your Friends and Family

My family and friends put up with a lot of shit because of me. I was a mess and I blundered from one disaster to another. These people put up with my character flaws, when they could easily have just cut me out of their lives, so it must have come as a shock to them when I’d get sober and start lecturing them on how to they should be living their life.

The process of getting sober does lead to amazing insights, but it is probably best not to be overly enthusiastic about lecturing family and friends. If people see that we are getting our act together, there is nothing to stop them from asking us for advice.

2. Don’t Use Your Sobriety as a Bargaining Chip

I remember when I was in my early twenties, I tried to convince a girlfriend that she was putting my sobriety at risk by arguing with me. I was a jerk, but I’ve heard people who are twenty years sober making similar statements – “she shouldn’t speak to me like that, doesn’t she realize I’m a recovering alcoholic?” I got sober for me, so using my sobriety as a bargaining chip is about as logical as threatening to cut of my own arm.

3. Don’t Expect Special Treatment in Life

Life is hard for everyone. We all have to deal with stress and uncertainty, and we are all going to have times when it feels like the whole universe is against us. The fact that we’ve stopped destroying ourselves with alcohol doesn’t mean we are entitled to a free pass in life. It can also be a mistake to treat the normal ups and downs on life as a special problems only faced by recovering alcoholics – it is the human condition.

4. Don’t Blame All Your Problems on Alcoholism

During my years of addiction, alcohol acted as a handy scapegoat for all of my bad actions – “I’m sorry I treated you so badly, but I’m an alcoholic”. It meant no matter how rotten my behavior, I was always the victim. Even after I got sober, I continued to try to use my ‘alcoholism’ as an excuse for doing wrong. I could only start to improve my life when I took responsibility for my own actions rather than blaming it on my ‘disease’.

5. Don’t Claim to Have Found the Right Way to Quit Addiction

Back the nineties, I gave up alcohol with the help of Alcoholics Anonymous. I went to a meeting every day for two years, and I became a bit of a Big Book fanatic. At the time, I was staying in a dry house, and I remember telling the other clients that they were certain to relapse unless they started going to AA meetings. I thought I was being helpful, but I can see now that I was just being a dick – many of these guys remained sober long after I relapsed.

I think it is understandable that we develop a special affection for the recovery solution that works for us, but there is no approach that works for everyone. I think if we want to help people struggling with addiction it should be about what they need and not about what we want to promote.

Thai Fluency in 10,000 Sentences

Week 9 of My Six Month Attempt to Speak Fluent Thai

I had a couple of days last week where it felt as if my brain was rebelling against learning Thai. I expected there to be times like this, so I too wasn’t alarmed. I just gave my mind a bit of a rest by focusing more on revising rather than trying to cram more stuff in there. This approach worked and whatever was clogging up the system is now gone.

I keep making alternations to my study schedule in response to my progress. I devote a huge chunk of my time on the Glossika material, but I think this is time well spent. It feels like the right thing to be doing, and I continue to enjoy this course. Last week I was learning 30 new sentences per day, but I’ve cut this back down to 25. I’m now half-way through book 1 of the Glossika Thai fluency course.

10,000 Sentences for Thai Fluency

I heard about the 10,000 sentences approach a few years ago on the A Woman Learning Thai website. I no longer believe that just reading alone is enough to guarantee fluency, but I believe reading out loud can be – so long as I’m using proper pronunciation. By the time I’ve complete the Glossika course, I will have learned 3,000 sentences – and I’m also collecting more sentences to bring this up to 10,000.

My favorite place for mining useful Thai sentences is the Pantip Web Forum – I particularly like the ‘ปัญหาชีวิต’ (life problems) section. I think these posts are the nearest thing we can get to spoken Thai in the written form, and the content is stimulating enough to keep me fascinated (e.g. คุณ รีด กางเกงใน กัน ไหม ครับ ‘should I iron my underpants?). I’m collecting and sentences that interest me, and I add them to a spreadsheet. I then practice reading these sentences out loud – this is in addition to the Glossika material.

Falling Asleep to the Sweet Sound of Thai

I watch Thai TV or movies on my iPad in bed already, but I’ve decided to make more of this period just before sleep. I got the idea from Catherine over A Woman Learning Thai, she has been listening to the Glossika c-files last thing at night. Apparently providing the brain with this material just before going to sleep gives it something to digest for the rest of the night – it makes sense to me.

I’ve taken Catherine’s idea one step further by combining it with a technique I use to encourage lucid dreaming. It basically means putting the body asleep while staying alert through a process of targeted muscle relaxation. My hope is the change in consciousness associated with this state will make it easier for me to absorb some additional Thai – that’s the theory anyway. I’ve been doing this for about five days so far, and it does definitely feel as if the Thai words come easier to my tongue when I wake up – this morning my first thoughts were in Thai, so I take this as a good sign.

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

Do Not Expect Life to be Fair

In this video and podcast, I talk about why it is unrealistic to expect life to be fair when it is so obvious that it isn’t. If we believe the universe owes us something, it can lead to disappointment and depression. Press play to watch the video, and you’ll find the podcast of this edition below:

Press play to listen to the podcast:

I Am Not Your Guru

I get periods where it seems as if I’ve finally figured out how this thing called life works. These episodes of feeling in control can last weeks, sometimes even months, but eventually the universe comes along and changes the rules.

It doesn’t matter how intense my feeling of serenity have been, or how long my equanimity has lasted, it only takes a few things going wrong for me to turn into a complete basket case.

I don’t know if there is any human who has managed to completely rise above the bullshit. I know there are plenty who claim to have achieved this, but why should I take their word for it? I do know we can get long periods where they are functioning incredibly well, but I’m just not sure this is ever sustainable.

This feeling of control is always going to be based on some idea about the universe that is inherently flawed because of the limits of the brain’s comprehension ability.

I suspect the reason so many self-development and spiritual gurus end up disgraced is they mistake a temporary reprieve from the storm as a sign of some lasting attainment. I imagine that once you have made public your discovery of the key to happiness, it would be hard to back down and say you were mistaken – “oops, I’ll be returning the donations”. I don’t think most these guru-types ever set out to be deceitful, they just weren’t prepared for the fact that the universe was fucking with them.

The Lies We Tell Ourselves

We use stories to help us make sense of the world, but these artificial constructions can also be the source of most of our suffering. The problem is no story can ever accurately depict reality – in fact, too often the stories in our minds are in conflict with reality. A great example of this would be ‘black and white’ thinking when most things fall into a gray area. Our stories are too often based on the human need for certainty when the one thing we do know about the universe is that nothing is certain.

The story that gets me into most trouble involves the crazy idea that my life is meant to be inspiring for other people. I’m this guy who came close to losing it all due to an alcohol addiction, but managed to turn his life around and begin living his dreams. I’m the guy who got kicked out of school at fifteen, but went on to get a postgraduate qualification in his twenties. I’m the guy who went from homelessness to qualifying as a nurse. I’m the guy who spent the most of his adult life living in horrible bedsits in shitty neighborhoods but now lives beside the beach in a tropical paradise.

I’ve had it tough, but mine is the journey of a hero (the comeback kid), and it is now my job to inspire other people to do the same. That’s the story inside my head, but of course it is all bullshit. There are lots of true facts mixed in there for sure, but it is the way they have been weaved into a story makes them wrong.

Deluding myself with this story wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for the fact it becomes a source of pain. This view of my life creates impossible expectations. It is the story of someone who was lost but now is found, who was sick but now is well, and who was bad but now is good. The reality is I get days when I feel found, and days when I feel lost, I get days when I feel well, and days when I feel sick, I get days when I behave good, and days when I behave badly. Life is like that.

I’m Not Your Guru

I’ve never been one to suffering in silence, but I sometimes feel by sharing the less positive things about my life, I’m letting people down. I’m also harming my chances of becoming some type of recovery guru who is making millions from his books, online courses, and lecture tours.

If I’m not this guy who has gone from being a complete fuck-up to becoming a blissed-out-high-achiever, why would anyone care about anything I say? Shouldn’t I be focusing only on the positive stuff so I can encourage people caught up in addiction to stop?

I will never be a guru because the best I believe we can ever hope for in life is reasonably long stretches of feeling like ‘master of the waves’. This is more than enough, but it is not what most of us are looking for. Instead we devote our lives to searching for the ‘holy grail’ and become easy prey for those who profit off this need for permanent escape. This search may be futile because any sense of the world is going to be based on a story, and these stories are always going to be ultimately bullshit.

Stories can be the source of great happiness, so long as I don’t mistake them for absolute fact. I need to be prepared for the cracks to appear in my narrative,so my arse doesn’t hit the ground too hard when I land. If I become too invested in any of my these stories, I can expect a lot of heavy turbulence in my future.

Winning Strategy for Achieving Fluency in Thai

Week 8 of My Six Month Attempt to Speak Fluent Thai

This is a great time to be learning Thai because there are now so many great resources out there. The only problem is I’m tempted to use all of it, but this wouldn’t be practical, and it could even get in the way of my progress. It’s also not necessary. I think the key to success is to pick just a few quality language learning resources and stick with them until they are no longer needed.

I feel like I’ve hit upon my winning strategy for achieving fluency in Thai – I say ‘mine’ not because I’ve invented anything new, but because this approach might not work for everyone. I read somewhere that the polyglot Adam Bradshaw became fluent by reading Thai out loud for an hour a day, and this seems to be the solution I’m moving towards.

I should have spent close to 1,000 hours studying Thai by the end of this six months. This period of intensive study is working for me. I do get days when I feel disheartened, but there is no doubt that I’m making significant progress. I no longer feel those previous 13 years of learning Thai the ‘wrong way’ were wasted. It is just that this period of intense learning was needed for it all to come together.

The Beauty of Reading Thai Out Loud

I see the work I’ve been doing with Stuart Jay Raj as similar to learning how to play chords on the guitar, and the pronunciation drills have been like trying to master different music scales. I’ve still more work to do in both of these areas, but I feel ready to move onto playing some actual songs, and I think this is what reading out loud is all about.

I know the texts in Thai for Advanced Readers by Benjawan Poomsan Becker well from using this book in the past. I used to record myself reading this content years ago but that was back when I thought enthusiasm could make up for lack of proper tones and pronunciation. I am now going back to these texts with a different attitude – I seem them as like songs I’m trying to add to my repertoire.

Reading the material in Thai for Advanced Readers is like revisiting old friends. It is a wonderful feeling to be able to read these texts and know I’m getting the tones and pronunciation right. It’s like playing a song and hitting all the right notes (not that I’ve much experience with this) – it just flows. As soon as I’m able to read a chapter all the way through while hitting all the right notes, I’m ready to move onto the next one.

I know it is possible to be able to read Thai to a fairly high level and still not be able to communicate, but this is not the same as reading out loud. It seems to me that reading aloud is the next best thing to going out there engaging in conversation. I suspect at some stages in our learning it may even be better to read aloud, so long as we are getting the tones and pronunciation right.

I see the work I’m doing during this six months as like a bridge to a more sustainable way of learning Thai. It’s all about making learning the language a natural part of my life, so that further progress doesn’t require so much effort. Some of the changes I’ve made are going to be permanent –it was crazy that I was living in Thailand but focused so much on English language media and entertainment. I also like the idea of reading out loud for an hour a day as my main technique for formal study – by then I’ll be ready for more natural content like newspaper stories.

My Study Routine for Week 8

I continue to love the Glossika approach to studying Thai. I’m learning 30 new sentences per day, and this feels like about the right pace for me (you can check out my exact routine in my last post ).

As part of my Glossika workout, I’m writing out the sentences really fast while listening to the audio and not pausing. One of the unexpected benefits of writing so rapidly is that it is making it easier for me to comprehend Thai handwriting. It’s like that by being forced to write so fast is moving me towards a more natural way of writing – although my own handwriting still looks like the scrawl of a seven year old with attention deficit disorder (a diagnosis I once earned).

BTW – Glossika has generously provided some free lessons on iTunes, so you might want to check these out. You can find some sample GMS lessons and some sample GSR lessons.

I’ve been spending a bit less time on the ดรุณศึกษา pronunciation drills and more time on reading actual texts out loud – 90 minutes a day was starting to feel like a bit too much. I found other pronunciation drills on the Learn Thai from a White Guy website, and I might mix things up by using these as well. I’ll continue with these drills for at least another month, to make sure the tone rules, and proper pronunciation of consonants and vowels, is firmly imbedded in my mind.

I’m still using Cracking Thai Fundamentals to keep me on the straight and narrow – there is an awful lot to the CTF course, so I expect to keep on returning to it.

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