วีดีโอฆ่าดาราวีทยุ

I was having trouble finding streaming Thai radio that worked well in Linux. (I use Ubuntu.)

Then I found the Nation Radio Network. Still can't get streaming to work, but it has a very handy archive of recent programs stacked on the lefthand side.

I should figure out what they are...

เก็บตกจากเนชั่น
"Get your information from Nesoon"
ชีพจรโลก
"Pulse of the World"
เงินทองต้องรู้
"Money (you?) must know"
คู่หู คู่ข่าว
Hmm. Overly literally, it's "Pair of ears, pair of news" But คู่หู means "intimate" or "trusted", so it's probably some sort of pun. "Trusted Pair in News"?
ออโต้ เซอร์วิส
Since the first bit would mean "Throng of buffets", I bet this is someone's name.
คลีนิค คนรักบ้าน
"Home Lover's 'Clinic'"
ก้าวทันเทคโนฯ
"Progress in Technology" (not confident on this)
ทันสถานการณ์
"Catch up with the situation" (that's overly literal)
ลับคมธุรกิจ
"Smart Secrets in Business"
ฮอตไลน์ สายสีรุ้ง
"Rainbow 'Hotline'" (Sounds gay.)
SME Thailand
Inside Line
เวที วิถีไทย
I can't even hazard a guess on this one.
แนะแนว แนะน้อง
"Advice (from?) Nae Nong" Nong is a kin term.
สุขกาย สบายใจ
"Healthy and Happy"
ถอดรหัสชีวิต
"Deciphering Life"
ตำนานเพลง
Either "Historical Songs" or "A History of Songs".

The names of radio programs are bound to be riddled with slang, so I don't have a lot of confidence in most of these translations.

จีซัม โครว

มลรัฐเวอร์มอนต์ (Vermont) เป็นมลรัฐในสหรัฐอเมริกาตั้งอยู่ทางตะวันออกของประเทศ อยู่ในเขตนิวอิงแลนด์ ในอดีตรัฐเวอร์มอนต์เป็นที่อยู่อาศัยของอินเดียนแดงเผ่าอิโรควอยส์ เผ่าอัลกอนเควียน และเผ่าอเบนากิ โดยทางฝรั่งเศส*ได้ยึดครองมาในช่วงตั้งรกรากในสหรัฐอเมริกา และได้เสีย*ให้กับอังกฤษในช่วงสงครามในเวลาต่อมา

รัฐเวอร์มอนต์มีชื่อเสียงในด้านของวิวทิวทัศน์ที่สวยงาม และเป็นแหล่งท่องเที่ยวที่สำคัญแห่งหนึ่งรวมถึง*** สกีรีสอร์ตที่สำคัญหลายแห่ง**** เวอร์มอนต์ยังคงมีชื่อเสียงในด้านผลิตภัณฑ์จากวัวและเมเปิลไซรัป เมืองหลวงของรัฐคือ มอนต์เพเลียร์ และเมืองที่ใหญ่ที่สุดในรัฐคือ เบอร์ลิงตัน

ในปี 2550 เวอร์มอนต์มีประชากร 621,254 คน^[1]

Things I learned from the Thai wikipedia page on Vermont:

• Native Americans are called Red "Indian"s, อินเดียนแดง.
  
• I can read short Thai wikipedia pages without much difficulty! Holy shit!
  

Seriously, there were only a (large) handful of words I didn't get:

อดีต -former, previous
ยึดครอง -occupy, take possession of forcefully.
รกราก -residence
ดั้งรกราก -settle down, take up residence
ได้เสีย -gain and lose (interesting combination of two common words)
(วืว)ทิวทัศน์ -scenery
แหล่งท่องเที่ยว -Tourist location
รวมถึง -include
ผลิตภัณฑ์ -product/merchandise

Here is a stab at translating the entry. This is no doubt riddled with errors.

Vermont is a state in the United States, in the northeast part of the country. It's in the region of New England. In the past Vermont was home to the Native American tribes Iroquois, Algonquin, and Abenaki. France* occupied it during the establishment of the United States and lost it** to the English during the war afterwards.

Vermont is famous for its beautiful scenery and one important tourist location*** is the many ski resorts.**** Vermont remains famous for its dairy products* and "maple syrup". The capital of the state is Montpelier and the largest city is Burlington.

In the year 2007 Vermont had a population of 621,254.

*I'm not quite sure how to parse โดยทาง. I know the words, but the structure confuses me. I'm going to assume it basically means "by"- I think it says "By France it was occupied" but there's no passive marker.

**While ได้เสีย has the interesting "lose and gain" translation, on second look I'm assuming that ได้ is marking aspect, to match the previous clause's ได้ยึดครอง.

*** First time around I neglected to realize that แห่ง was a classifier (for locations).

**** This sentence took me a while to crack. (If I even have.)

* Literally "products from cows." A similar word is ผลิตภัณฑ์นม, "products from milk". I have no clue what difference in meaning they have.

คุณผู้ฟังที่รัก

Thai music came. I really love DOObaDOO. Modern Dog is more standard alt-rock but it's defiently listenable.

I obviously can't understand much of the lyrics; it sounds like a babble of vaguely familiar words. The only phrases I've gleamed on early listens is กี่วันกี่คืน ("How many days? How many nights?") and the ubiquitous ฉันรักเทอ ("I love you"). More will come...

เกาะ

Quick update:

Still working through Thai for Advanced Readers. Just finished 1st go at the last reading; now it's on to newspaper articles, translations not included. It's been going pretty well; the vocabulary is difficult but I've been able to grasp most of it. Once in a while there's a sentence I can't grok even after checking the translation, but it's really just once in a while.

As for listening: currently watching Rak Nee Hua Jai Rao Jong; the two characters are stranded on a desert island. Wacky hijinks ensue. Still only grasping words here and there.

Bought two CDs from eThaiCD.com. Doobadoo and Modern Dog. Putting some Thai music in my iPod rotation should help things.

ทามโบย

I'm on the 5th episode of a Thai "lakorn" (prime-time soap opera mini-series?) called หัวใจ (heart of) Chocolate. Started watching to improve my "ear" for the spoken language and it's helped a lot. But I've also honestly gotten sucked in to the story. The destied couple is kind of boring but I like the tomboy and the "wacky" guy that talks fast.

I mostly read the subtitles and try to anticipate what will be said. They're fan-made and sort of overly literal, which is actually a bonus. I can now "hear" common phrases pretty consistantly,. (Noticing a lot of english loanwords peppered in- "tomboy" being one!) Any sentence longer than a few words and I can only catch bits and pieces. Which is to be expected, obviously. My vocab is scant and even if I know every word in a sentence, that doesn't mean I can parse the grammar quickly enough. ANOTHER problem is the frequent use of names as pronouns, so you have to remember each character's name. Which are usually short and mistakable for words. But getting tuned to the sounds is making my reading faster and that's helping the other areas. Still should do some vocab drills though! Half-assed and haphazard is right.

Also argh I learned ร as a trilled [r], knowing it sometimes was pronounced [l], but it seems [l] is more common so I need to adjust for this. The dropping of the 2nd consonants in consonant clusters also vexes me. But OH WELL that's the way language works, there's no "standard."

Been reading on linguistics recently. I'll try to write some posts connecting the things I'm learning to Thai. Some of it is esoteric and more interesting than useful to me, but some of it really helps snap things into focus. Obviously you can learn a language while knowing nonce about how it works: all children aquire spoken language automatically. But as busy adults, I'm starting to think a passing knowledge in linguistics really helps.

ลึลๆ ในใจ

This is the first Thai song to get stuck in my head. I found it on eThaiMusic and on first 23 listens I didn't understand anything but the chorus. But yesterday I combed through the lyrics and realized there was only a handful of words I didn't know. Otherwise, after one read-through, I could comprehend the lyrics completely. I think this has been very helpful in connecting the written word to the spoken.

As for the written word: I've gotten to the point where the Doraemon comic book is starting to actually seem like the children's comic book it is. Parts are still challenging, but I'm taking a break from it. I picked up Thai for Advanced Readers for the first time in a while and was surprised to find how much easier it is. I'm confident my reading is good enough to work through it until the end. (I'd made it about halfway before.)