charliebadenhop

Not sure of all the countries in Asia, but young children in Japan and Hong Kong, who invariably sleep in between their parents, have a much lower incidence of crib death. This is well documented.

The reason given is that sleeping in close proximity to the parents helps the child's nervous system to develop more robustly.

In Japan they even have a special term for this arrangement of father-baby-mother.

To me it very definitely makes the most sense, and that is what I did when I lived in Japan.

In regard to how many hours it would take to learn Thai, before deciding to give up…

Perhaps you (sorry but I don't know your name) didn’t get any answers because there seems to be several beliefs built into your question, that would need to be addressed.

Maybe one of those beliefs is “Thai is difficult to learn."

As I am sure we have all noticed, Thais do an excellent job of learning Thai.

I haven’t met a Thai person yet that is not fully fluent. :-)

So why not you and I as well?!

I lived in Japan for 30 years and I do know that learning a very different language system can be a challenge.

But here is a very interesting example-

A person needs to learn about 3,500 kanji characters to be able to read the newspaper. 

Most foreigners give up long before reaching that plateau. 

But there is a well known foreigner that was able to read the newspaper after studying for three months!!

An amazing achievement.

And then he went ahead and put his system into a book, so others could duplicate what he did. 

I think the only reason to give up learning Thai, is if one never comes up with the proper system for studying.

When I say “proper” I mean some form of mnemonic system to make what you learn “stick”. If you have a mnemonic system in place that works for you, most words you learn, you will only have to see and hear once or twice before you have them in short term memory. And then after the info is in short term memory, a bit of light repetition helps to shift the info into long term memory.

I just got my ED visa paperwork back this week, and it clearly states 160 hours a year. 

I was told that this is the minimum. 

Hi to all,

My situation might be vaguely similar so I am asking in this thread.

I am a US citizen and I entered the country on May 28, 2014 without getting a visa anywhere prior to coming.

Is this called a "visa-exempt" entry?

I have just gotten my second extension a few days ago making the run from Chiang Rai. The stamp is good until August 22. So I need to leave the country by then as far as I understand.

I want to get an Education visa but in reading on the Thai government site it says that my passport has to be valid for 18 months to get a one year visa. My passport only goes through to Sept. 1 2015.

SO, if I were to fly out of the country (perhaps to Malaysia) would I be able to apply for a double tourist visa and then come back in and line everything up for a proper ED visa, which would include me renewing my passport?

All advice appreciated!

Regards,

Charlie