Women Learning Thai… and some men too ;-)

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Sourcing a Thai language school in Pattaya… On moving to Pattaya one of my first orders of business was to find a decent Thai language school that could fulfill my two main requirements: provide me with a 1 year education visa and be able to teach me to speak Thai competently. While the Education Visa [...]

Learning Thai with Skype language exchange partners… For the past two weeks I’ve been writing about Skype and learning Thai. How to learn Thai via Skype was a brief introduction. I then interviewed my Thai Skype Teacher, Khun Narisa Naropakorn to share how she teaches Thai via Skype. Thai language school Study Thai Online graced [...]

Where to find Skype teachers… Teaching Thai via Skype is a growing industry. And learning languages via Skype is ideal because the students don’t need to be in the same exact location as their teachers. They can reside in the same city (like I do), or live on different continents. Being in different countries means [...]

The magic of learning Thai via Skype… Disclaimer: Having a series about learning Thai via Skype wouldn’t be complete unless I jumped in as well. I know that. But I was a bit leery about sharing my experiences because I didn’t want to swamp Khun Narisa, my Thai Skype teacher. But after hearing that a [...]

Study Thai Online… I am a long-time user of Skype and for many years used Skype-out credit to call friends and relations back in the UK. On the Skype website one day I came across a case study for toniks.com, a UK-based company providing online language lessons using Skype. Some further searching revealed that many [...]

Interviewing a Thai Skype teacher… When I got stuck into the research for this series, the basic benefits of learning Thai via Skype weren’t that difficult to suss. Especially for a hermit such as myself! But as I was fairly clueless about what happens on the other side of the connection, interviewing a Thai Skype [...]

The series: Learning Thai via Skype… Welcome to the first post on learning Thai via Skype. At this point I’m not sure how many posts will be in this series. Originally, I’d planned on just a handful: How to use Skype to learn Thai, my Thai Skype experience, an interview with a Skype teacher, finding [...]

Interviewing Successful Thai Language Learners… Name: Hamish Chalmers Nationality: British Age range: 30-40 Sex: Male  Location: Bangkok Profession: EAL Faculty Head Website/blog: Tweet Yourself Thai Twitter: @AjarnPasa What is your Thai level? In the language world we have two basic benchmarks between no language and full fluency. These are BICS (Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills) and CALPs [...]

The mystery of the red boxes… Waiting behind a long line of cars at a stop sign in Ari, I watched two tandem riding motorcycle cops drive onto the sidewalk. One policeman got off the back of the bike, opened a red box attached to a building, took something out, scribbled on it, and then [...]

Interviewing Successful Thai Language Learners… Name: Andrew Biggs Nationality: Australian Age range: Mid-twenties. Oh allright, 47. Sex: Male Location: Bangkok Profession: Writer, TV producer, Tv and radio emcee, school owner … you name it Website/blog: www.andrewbiggs.com Products (books, courses etc): Too many to mention What is your Thai level? That depends on how much sleep [...]

The Thai phrases you use most often… Moving to a county with a new foreign language to tackle, I depend on two sure-fire phrases. The first phrase I learn is ‘I don’t understand’. And the second phrase is ‘this does not work’. I also practice my blank stare. Why these three? Ok, I know from [...]

Interviewing Successful Thai Language Learners… Name: Ian Fereday Nationality: British Age: 50 next month (oh dear!) Sex: Male Location: Phuket Town, Phuket Profession: Semi-retired owner of Patong Language School Website: phuket-languageschool.com | study-thai-online.com | teflplus.com Products: Commenced studies at Patong Language School using the Ministry of Education series produced for Thai children studying in primary [...]

Learning the Thai Alphabet on YouTube… Clicking around YouTube, I came across new videos of Thai children practicing the Thai alphabet. The video below was so precious, I contacted Natcha to get permission to feature her daughter. And if that didn’t make you smile, I don’t know what will. More YouTube sweeties learning the Thai [...]

Interviewing Successful Thai Language Learners… Name: Doug Nationality: American Age range: 50-60 Sex: Male Location: Bangkok Profession: Computational linguistics Website: Sealang.net What is your Thai level: Intermediate/Advanced/Fluent or a combo? Combo Do you speak more street Thai, Issan Thai, or professional Thai? Semi-pro. What were your reasons for learning Thai? Living here, wanted to fully [...]