Learning Thai: My Honest Experience After 22 Years

I always tell people moving here to learn the language. So I should be honest about my own Thai.

How good is my Thai?

I'd call myself intermediate. I'm probably better than most at my level in certain areas, like food and work, because that's what I deal with every day. I know a lot of words and can get a decent sense of what's being said.

Where I struggle is speaking: putting those words into a sentence that makes sense to someone else. If I try a bit of Thai, people quickly realise their English is better than my Thai, and we switch back to English. To be honest, it's pretty poor.

How did I learn?

When I first arrived, I went to a language school in Pattaya for one-to-one lessons. We covered the Thai alphabet and sentence structure, the basics. Over the years I've picked up more words and phrases.

Then I stopped. I didn't feel I was progressing, and if I'm honest, I got busy and a bit lazy.

What's the hardest part?

The tones, without question. The same sound can mean five different things depending on the tone. You think you're saying one thing, but get the tone slightly wrong and you've said something completely different. The classic example is "ma", which, depending on the tone, can mean "come", "horse" or "dog".

What would I do differently?

Stick at it. If I'd kept going, even for just a couple of years, life here would have been a lot easier. Back then, I didn't realise I'd still be here 22 years later. It's easy to say in hindsight, but that's the lesson.

If I were starting again, I'd still take lessons, but I'd probably do them online at my own pace rather than in a classroom, one-to-one or in a group.

What should a newcomer learn first?

The numbers, for prices, taxis and markets. That said, most Thais can do numbers in English, so it matters less than you might think.

After that, the basic courtesies: please, thank you, excuse me and the other everyday niceties. As I wrote in the cultural mistakes foreigners make in Thailand, even a little Thai shows people you're not just a tourist.

For more, read what I wish I'd known before moving to Thailand and retiring in Pattaya.