Learning a foreign language that doesn’t use the Latin alphabet, such as Thai, is challenging. I admit it. But hey, don’t be daunted! There are a lot of ways to improve your Thai language skills.
I’ve seen many people have no problem with reading Thai, but when it comes to writing Thai, they are all at sea. If you’re one of those people, you’ve come to the right place! Because in this blog post, you will learn how to improve your Thai writing skill with six tips.
If you’re a total beginner, I advise you to take a look at one of our previous blog posts about the Thai alphabet. After you learn Thai characters, come back here to improve your Thai.
How Do You Improve Your Thai Writing Skill?
1. Practice The Thai Alphabet
Learning a non-Latin alphabet takes time, and mastering it takes even more time. You’re more likely to forget it since you’re only familiar with Latin letters.
That’s why you need to practice the Thai alphabet as much as possible until you feel comfortable writing the characters without any hesitation.
There are 44 Thai consonants and 28 Thai vowels in the alphabet. I know it sounds like a lot of letters to learn. But you can make a simple Thai alphabet chart to practice writing each character. If you want to learn the Thai alphabet fast, we’ve given several tips for impatient language learners like you in this blog post.
2. Keep Learning New Vocabulary
I’m saying this as a language learner myself, there is no such thing as enough vocabulary. You should learn as many new words as you can to move your language proficiency to the next level.
Vocabulary is the core skill of a language, and that’s why you need to take it seriously and never stop learning new words. The more Thai words you know, the better you write in Thai.
3. Read Thai To Write Thai
A good writer is also a good reader, right? Reading books in your target language can teach you a lot. Not to mention new words but also the sentence structure and idioms.
So, you should start reading any kind of text in Thai regularly so that you can learn new Thai words and get used to the sentence structure of the Thai language. Also, don’t hesitate to take notes on the pages. You can jot down English meanings or new grammar structures you discovered.
Keep in mind that the written material shouldn’t be too above your current language level. Otherwise, it won’t give you anything but boredom.
4. Keep A Journal In Thai
Keeping a journal or diary in your target language is the best way to improve your writing skill. It doesn’t matter if you make mistakes. Think of it as a practice area in which you can actually use what you know in Thai.
Get yourself a notebook and turn it into a Thai journal and start journalling today!
Use Writing Prompts
How do you improve your Thai writing skills further? Writing prompts are topics that guide you in your writing process. This way, you don’t have to think about what to write about. It can be about your favorite band, the place you want to visit, and so on.
You can prepare a writing prompt yourself for 30 days. Or you can find one online. There are various useful writing prompts on the internet that can save you time.
5. Get Your Writing Checked By A Native Thai Speaker
Feedback is a crucial part of learning. Since you’re a learner, you make mistakes, and it’s totally okay. However, if you don’t fix your mistakes, it is not okay.
The most reliable and easiest way to see your mistakes in your Thai writing is to get them checked by a native Thai speaker. They can give you useful feedback about your writing and language use so that you can learn from your mistakes.
If you don’t have any native Thai friends, you can consider booking lessons from a Thai tutor.
6. Use Social Media To Improve Your Thai
There are thousands of Thai language learners like you out there. Why don’t you connect with each other and share your language experiences?
I really like connecting with other language learners and sharing my learning journey. It has a motivating effect on me, and seeing other people studying my target language inspires me to study more.
Write Your Captions In Thai
To improve your Thai writing, you can write your captions in Thai when you post something on Instagram. You can also add hashtags in Thai. This way, you can engage with native Thai speakers and other Thai learners.
Follow Thai Content Creators Or Influencers
Just consider creating a new social media account only dedicated to language learning. Make sure to follow Thai influencers or other accounts that create content in Thai or related to Thailand. Thus you can immerse yourself in the Thai language.
Pay Close Attention Here!
If you want to see how Thai people speak, you should check out some Thai content creators or influencers. They can give you a great idea of how native speakers use the language in everyday conversations. However, finding misspelled Thai words in videos or social media posts is common. Is the Thai language complicated, huh? Oh yeah, even Thai people themselves sometimes spell the word wrong.
One of the most commonly misspelled words is “กะเพรา (gà prao),” which means a basil leaf. Did you know that Thai people enjoy having stir-fried Thai basil for lunch? It’s quite delicious! But you know what’s interesting? Even though they love it so much, they often misspell it. Thai people usually write this word as “กระเพรา (grà prao),” but the correct spelling is actually “กะเพรา (gà prao).“
I suggest going for a more official platform that uses correct spelling, like The Standard Pop, for entertainment news. You can totally access both YouTube and Instagram!
I hope these tips will help you improve your Thai writing skills. While working on your writing, don’t lose focus on other skills! Try the Ling app to master all language skills at the same time.
Learn The Thai Language With Ling!
If you are interested in learning Thai or any of the other 60+ languages offered in the app, then you will absolutely love the Ling app!
Ling is a language learning app designed to help all learners in their language learning journeys. With so many engaging activities to choose from, such as writing and listening exercises, mini-games, quick quizzes, and an AI chatbot to practice conversation with, the Ling app is the perfect all-in-one language learning resource.
If you think you learn better when guided by a tutor, you can also get Thai lessons from native Thai tutors through Ling!
You can find everything you could ever need in this app to master all 4 language skills. Even better, you can try the app out for free today by downloading it from the App Store or Play Store.
Start learning Thai or another new language by downloading the Ling App today!
