Women Learning Thai… and some men too ;-)

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Tip Number 1: Take your time, enjoy your studies…
“Why does it have to be sooooooo hard?”
“Why does it have to take sooooooo long?”
Maybe we need a little attitude adjustment…? Maybe we need to listen more carefully…? Most of us do have nearly excellent hearing skills for normal conversational volume… BUT, most of us have [...]

Talking Thai on the telephone…
It probably took me ten years before I could understand anything anyone said on the telephone here in Thailand. It’s not the language. My wife had the same problem in English when she got to America. It is just really hard dealing with a disembodied voice and not seeing the person [...]

How do YOU learn languages?…
Much depends on your own understanding of your own skills in “learning how to learn” for yourself… That is, are you aware of your own learning “style”?

Do you know how you learn fastest/ easiest in most subjects?
Are you a visual or auditory or kinesthetic learner, or what kind [...]

Tips and suggestions needed…
Last week I received an email asking for help:
Question: I’m currently an exchange student living in Thailand. I’ve had an issue where I can’t seem to learn any more Thai, and when I try my minds strays and I get tired very quickly. I was just wondering, do you have tips to [...]

Ten steps to learning Thai…
Note: This is dedicated to people like Catherine Wentworth who are working their patooties off trying to grasp this outlandishly difficult language. Good luck to you all.
When I started learning Thai I was told that it was one of the hardest for an English speaker to learn. That was 40 years [...]

Talking about the weather…
What better way to break the ice and start a conversation than to talk about the weather? I know it is a bit cliché-ish but, hey, it works. And in Thailand, the sentence, “The rainy season sure is late this year” is a much better conversation starter than “What’s your sign?” [...]

Have I got a Thai typing tutor game for you…
While I was adding thai-language.com’s logo to the top of WLT (glance up and over to your right) Glenn was happily showing me his new toy developed with Josh Sager: TLC’s Thai Typing Tutor Game.
Waiting for the countdown to 2010, I contacted Josh to get instructions.

Start [...]

Interviewing Successful Thai Language Learners…
Name: Peter Montalbano
Nationality: World citizen with a U.S. passport
Age range: 60+
Sex: Male
Location: Bangkok, Thailand
Profession: Musician/writer
Website/blog: montalbano.org/peter (out of date!)
What is your Thai level?
I have problems with using the word “fluency” linking me and the Thai language. I am extremely facile on some levels, but quite dorky and clumsy on others. [...]

Thai music goes from classical, to country, folk, popular, and more…
A while ago I was reading in one of those Thai expat blogs. You know, the ones that answers all you questions about visas and have all these complainers whining about Thailand, its people and culture. One person said that he thought Thai music was [...]

Interviewing Successful Thai Language Learners…
Names: Jonas Anderson and Christy Gibson
Nationality: Swedish-British and Dutch-British
Age range: 20-30
Location: Thailand
Profession: Lookthung performers
Website: Jonas & Christy Official Site
Jonas and Christy, were you put in local Thai schools, or schools with more of an expat focus?
Jonas: During most of my early school years my family was living in upcountry Thailand [...]