THAI LANGUAGE

Mandatory course of the B.A. program in Languages, Cultures and Societies of Asia and North Africa with India and Southeast Asia.

Learning goals within the area of language, culture and humanities.

Knowledge and understanding:

- Basics of Thai language, spoken and written
- Anthropological notions that are useful to the study of Thai language

Applying knowledge and understanding:

- Engage in conversations at a basic level
- Write and read brief texts at a basic level
- Comply to cultural norms in conversations at a basic level
- Identify basic grammatical categories and their properties

Basic Level (A1) of the CEFR: “Can understand and use familiar everyday expressions and very basic phrases aimed at the satisfaction of needs of a concrete type. Can introduce themselves and others and can ask and answer questions about personal details such as where they live, people they know and things they have. Can interact in a simple way provided the other person talks slowly and clearly and is prepared to help.”

Interest in Thai language, culture and society.

This course develops basic grammar and communication skills that pertain to daily situations, such as greeting, introducing individuals, describing one's language abilities, shopping, expressing one's needs, ordering food, identifying countries and nationalities, describing individuals physically, and speaking about housing, family relations and professions.

The course also introduces the phonetic system, and the Thai writing system (the vowels, the diphthongs, the tone system, key consonants from the three classes, tone modifiers, ending consonants, live/dead syllables, and consonant clusters).

COURSE TEXTBOOKS

Yuphaphan Hoongchamlong. 2007. Thai Language and Culture for Beginners 1. Distrubuted by University of Hawai’i Press

Edoardo Siani. 2022. La scrittura thai: Sistema e cultura. Libreria Editrice Cafoscarina


FURTHER READINGS

Smyth, D. 2002. Thai: An Essential Grammar. London and New York: Routledge

Songkran Bunjarat e Sabattini, Mario. 2017. Grammatica essenziale della lingua thai. Venezia: Libreria Editrice Cafoscarina

The exam will involve one single test (written and oral) with first appeal in the May-June exam session. The written test will last one hour, immediately followed by the oral test (both written and oral tests must be taken within the same day). The final mark will be determined by the average of written and oral results.

This exam is same for students of Thai as a first language (enrolled to the India and Southeast Asia curriculum) as well as for students of Thai as a second language (enrolled to other curricula). It is also same for students who attend and who do not attend classes.

Frontal teaching and exercises.

Italian

written and oral