Over the past few weeks, a music video for the song 'Fragile Heart' 玻璃心 by Malaysian Chinese singer / songwriter / producer Namewee (黄明志 Huáng Zhì Míng) and Australian Chinese singer Kimberly Chen (陳芳語 Chén Fāng Yǔ) has gone viral all over the world - especially amongst Chinese communities living outside of
If you've been following over the past few months on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn or Jcademy.com, you will have noticed some big changes are afoot. If you're receiving this article in your inbox, you too are a part of that big change, and I'd be honoured to have you continue
When speaking Spanish, Thai, Indonesian, Italian, why can some people roll their R's with their tongue and some find it impossible? In this clip not only will you once and for all be able to roll your R's... or explain to someone else how to do it, but you'll also
How to learn any LanguageThere are many theories of how we as humans learn languages, and going through all the data it seems to come down to two key ideas: You can't learn what you don't understand.You can't repeat what you can't hear.The good thing being an adult
In this clip I answer many of the questions that people have been asking about MINDKRAFT, including: What actually IS MINDKRAFT?What skills will I / my children learn from the course?Will you be actually teaching any specific languages?What if I want to learn a language that's not included
Stuart Jay Raj is an author, public speaker and multinational business management strategist. He holds a degree in Cognitive and Applied Linguistics from Griffith University, Australia and has fluency ranging from competent to native in over 15 languages including Mandarin, Cantonese, Thai, Indonesian, Spanish, Sanskrit, Danish and other languages predominantly
Wire your Brain to Learn LanguagesExploiting Brain States for Enhanced Neuroplasticity Mindkraft Language - Brain Builder I is the first in a series of 'Brain Building' programmes developed by linguist Stuart Jay Raj that are designed to not only give you a robust foundation in key languages like Chinese, Korean,
I mentioned in the 'politeness' post the other day that I have been coaching a friend who is getting his Thai citizenship, so that he can get through the Interview process in Thai. Another part of getting Thai citizenship is having to assume your new Thai identity under a new
I have been coaching a friend lately who is going for their Thai citizenship and is drilling interview scenarios to make sure that: 1. He responds appropriately; 2. He projects the right 'image' of himself through HOW he responds in Thai; YOU MAY BE A SUM OF THE WORDS YOU
In the spirit of controversial and thought provoking posts, I hope that the discussions spurred from this post will act as memory pegs for everyone and by the end of it, nobody will use the Thai word กว่า 'gwà' interchangeably with the '-er' (big, biggER ... biggest) in English.
Why doesn't Thai use spaces? Surely it would be easier to read if spaces were put between words? Really? ... maybe you'll have a different opinion after watching this clip. If you haven't watched part 1 yet, here's the link https://stujay.com/debunked-thai-is-the-worlds-most-complicated-writing-system/ The Part 1 'Debunked' clip caused so
There is one clip on Youtube that has probably done more to destroy the spirit of people learning Thai than any other. 'The World's Most Complicated Writing System' (Thai) by Youtuber Xidnaf came out about 6 years ago and while at first the clip just frustrated me through its preposterous
I'm sure there will be some differing opinions out there on this one, but for me personally, one of the things that I have seen really stunt learners' development of gaining a deep and broad facility in Thai (and other languages) has derived from asking 'How do you say [WORD
Learning the Thai script - consonants, vowels, tones, tone markers ... I know this is probably preaching to the choir, flogging a dead horse - and many other overused idioms ... but as I read through discussions here, on Youtube and in other groups, I realised when I put my clip out
On the topic of Pitch Paradigms from mother tongues interfering with tones and prosody / natural sounding rhythms when speaking Thai, I've just put this visual representation together of how many learners of Thai - or just visitors to Thailand pronounce สวัสดี sawat dee (khrap /kha) - In English when
THE 'LISTING' PARADIGM ... 1→(N-1)=RISING ; N=FALLINGIf you're a native speaker of English or other European language, count to 10. ... ... Now count to 5 ... Chances are that you'll notice some subconscious 'Pitch Paradigms' or 'Pitch Envelopes' come into play. In English when we list things off - like when
Many new-comers to Thailand make the mistake of asking 'How do you say 'Yes' and 'No' in Thai?' The reality is that there's no such word as 'Yes' as we have it in English. To answer in the affirmative, just repeat the verb back. ใช่ châi means 'it
When writing Thai letters, ALWAYS start from the location of the main loop - even in writing styles where the loop is missing, your pen will still start from that place. There are only 2 Thai letters without a loop - ก and ธ. You will see many fonts out
How long does it take to learn a language? How fast can you learn Russian? How much language can you learn in two weeks? If you've been following my posts and YouTube videos of late, you will have seen that due to recent cervical spinal surgery, my left vocal nerve
One of the worst things that could ever happen to a linguist / polyglot / facilitator / musician has just happened do me. Spinal surgery has resulted in my vocal nerve being badly damaged and as a result, my voice is gone. They say it could take up to a year to come
