I have been in Thailand 7 months on an ED visa.  I decided to take a vacation to Cambodia for a few days.  Got a reenntry permit and left. 

 

Upon entering the immigration section the guy looked at my passport and asked if i spoke thai. 

 

I said lit noi and he took me to supervisor. 

 

Now despite attending classes i suck at thai.  People will probably say you should know more etc but i try my best. 

 

He demanded i write some things in thai and i can a little as i know the alphabet etc. He wouldnt accept spoken thai but only written. 

 

Then he talked to me..  For 1 hr 30 minutes.  Why would anyone want to learn thai because you cant make more money... Why foreigners lie and wish to stay long in Thailand etc. 

 

He said if only i told him the truth he'd have let me through now he will deport. 

 

Weird thing is i told him the truth!  He asked why i got my ED Visa i said because i love thailand the culture and people and id like to stay and learn the language and the people.  

 

He said weighing what i wanted more language or the country which i prefer. I said country not the language. 

 

He let me through. 

 

So yeah be repared to answer in Thai and write thai even on a reentry permit.  He scared the <deleted> out of me. 

 

He also talked to me in this demeaning way which is hard to describe. I definitely felt like a criminal. 

Your Ed Visa is to study Thai? You did not say.

 

If it is one would have to admit the IO would be somewhat justified to question you. When I was back in Newcastle early this year there was a TV program about abuse of the ed visa system in the UK. I ma not saying you have abused it but the IO may have just been doing his job?

20 minutes ago, Dtay777 said:

I said lit noi and he took me to supervisor. 

You should have said nit noi..

17 minutes ago, MRToMRT said:

but the IO may have just been doing his job?

So, the IOs job is to accuse all foreigners to be liars and making life very difficult on a land border in the middle of nowhere. Are you foreigners all insane? Being treated like <deleted> on all entries by immigration and still staying. If this would happen to me in any country I'd be gone for good.

18 minutes ago, Vacuum said:

You should have said nit noi..

isn't it nid noi ? 

16 minutes ago, Dnyy said:

So, the IOs job is to accuse all foreigners to be liars and making life very difficult on a land border in the middle of nowhere. Are you foreigners all insane? Being treated like <deleted> on all entries by immigration and still staying. If this would happen to me in any country I'd be gone for good.

He has the dfuty to make sure you are what you claim to be.

6 minutes ago, sillyfool said:

isn't it nid noi ? 

The Thai is "นิดหน่อย ". n, short i over the n, d, consonant class changer (also called "h"), n, tone mark, o, y. BUT while there are many INITIAL consonant sounds in Thai, everything collapses to one of 7 TERMINAL sounds at the end of a syllable. So a terminal d always becomes a t. Hence "neet noy". (This is a westernized view of what happens; only 1 of my Thai students ever expressed it that way, and he had rich Thai-Chinese parents who sent him to a British-international school).

Did you cross at Poipet?

 

43 minutes ago, MRToMRT said:

I ma not saying you have abused it but the IO may have just been doing his job?

That he asks him a bit, sure why not. But OP wrote he talked with him for 1.5 hours, this is clearly over the top.

Especially because there is no minimum requirement of Thai language skills.

The rules simply state that you need to attend a minimum amount of classes, this doesn't mean you actually have to learn anything there. If he suspects OP of not attending the required classes he should investigate the school.

It seems that Thai immigration officers job is to assume that you are doing something dodgy and then ask questions to see if they can confirm as such. It must be incredibly easy for them to see if someone is studying Thai language or not from 2-3 minutes of conversation. And if you don't know your gaw gai from your kaw kai then it's pretty obvious you aren't studying. Next time study astrophysics.

The foreign staff here repeatedly asked the university for Thai language lessons, all of which were a disaster. The second instructor they procured for lessons told us "Just ignore the tones, they don't matter at all" (hence the standing joke that the name of the main campus, "หาดใหญ่", means "Big Beach"). Another used the standard practice: teacher says a phrase, all 40 or 50 students repeat it in unison, so no one can hear if anyone is saying it correctly (most likely no one is saying it correctly, thus when the foreigner later tries to talk to a Thai nothing can be understood). I have seen English being "taught" this way in Thai elementary schools, and the poor English that you hear in Thailand does not surprise me at all. Yet, this instructor told us, "This is the way the Thai government says that all language must be taught, so it can't possibly be wrong".

 

If you have any kind of hearing impairment, even just old age, small differences in Thai sounds may be difficult or impossible for you to distinguish, let alone reproduce. There are electronic aids for this, but they tend to be overly technical.

 

Most Thai instruction seems to start off with stern warnings to NOT read and write. Sure, that's a huge task, but are you a two week tourist or a serious long term student? But while a handful of courses use something like IPA, the temptation to make up your own writing system appears to be irresistible. Thus a new student still needs to learn a writing system, which he then throws out and starts all over again with real Thai when he becomes "advanced" enough. Meanwhile, Thai dictionaries are useless to him, and he is "locked in" to learning only what is in his particular brand of textbook (Microsoft used to love locking people in to their software -- same, same in my opinion). Come on, even the Saturday Night Live parody of Rosetta Stone was able to use real, actual Thai script, like "ลูกปิงปอง" (ball ping pong).

 

So I would say, do not discount the efforts of the OP to learn Thai: a lot of other factors may have unnecessarily got in his way, and not been his fault. And he is apparently still here, and still wanting to learn, which I think is excellent. My opinion of the <deleted> immigration officer who hassled him is vastly lower: what a <deleted> ambassador for Thai culture, for the IO to dump on a friendly foreigner who likes and appreciates Thailand for an hour and a half.

Edited October 17, 20196 yr by dave s

And if you don't know your gaw gai from your kaw kai then it's pretty obvious you aren't studying. Next time study astrophysics.

Gaw gai/kaw kai? What kind of transliteration is that? Please stick to astrophysics.

Ok I have a freind who is now doing a ED visa but learning Russian and says he has no hassle at immigration so far. He has left the country and return in the last 12 months but he didn't say when he changed to Russian but did say it was the school idea as cant get Thai. His next Trip is not till next March. I told him they may not let him back in.

2 hours ago, jackdd said:

Did you cross at Poipet?

 

That he asks him a bit, sure why not. But OP wrote he talked with him for 1.5 hours, this is clearly over the top.

Especially because there is no minimum requirement of Thai language skills.

The rules simply state that you need to attend a minimum amount of classes, this doesn't mean you actually have to learn anything there. If he suspects OP of not attending the required classes he should investigate the school.

It was at suvarnabhumi airport

2 hours ago, jackdd said:

Did you cross at Poipet?

 

That he asks him a bit, sure why not. But OP wrote he talked with him for 1.5 hours, this is clearly over the top.

Especially because there is no minimum requirement of Thai language skills.

The rules simply state that you need to attend a minimum amount of classes, this doesn't mean you actually have to learn anything there. If he suspects OP of not attending the required classes he should investigate the school.

It was at suvarnabhumi airport

The only thing you would have needed is a written document from your school, that you´ve attended all the classes during your period of studying. Try that next time, if there will be a next time.

Just now, Dtay777 said:

It was at suvarnabhumi airport

The other thing is i need one more extension before im heading to America anyway.  I am worried that i will get the same treatment at chaeng wattana.  I really hope not. 

 

All i can say is i have tried my best.  Language has always been an achilles heel of mine.  Despite having a thai girlfriend and going to classes it just doesnt stick with me. 

 

I get that immigration might just say well dont bother with an ED visa if you wont learn.  But honestly i wonder how long it took them to learn English?! 

 

I would say my progress is slow but at least i know all the thai alphabet,  have a couple hundred word vocabulary, can count... I think it is ok for 7 months honestly. 

2 minutes ago, Matzzon said:

The only thing you would have needed is a written document from your school, that you´ve attended all the classes during your period of studying. Try that next time, if there will be a next time.

So the guy tells me "i wont call your school because they will lie.  The school gets money from you so they will lie for you"

 

I had pictures of me in school,  texts with the school that my end date letter is for next month... 

 

The guy seemed to really be intent on harassing me.

2 hours ago, sillyfool said:

isn't it nid noi ? 

He should have said: Nit noi, ghin kau, yang? ????‍????

Just now, Dtay777 said:

So the guy tells me "i wont call your school because they will lie.  The school gets money from you so they will lie for you"

 

I had pictures of me in school,  texts with the school that my end date letter is for next month... 

 

The guy seemed to really be intent on harassing me.

Now all that said he let me through.  I suppose he could have deported me but why waste so much tine harrassing me to just let me pass anyway?! 

1 minute ago, Dtay777 said:

So the guy tells me "i wont call your school because they will lie.  The school gets money from you so they will lie for you"

 

I had pictures of me in school,  texts with the school that my end date letter is for next month... 

 

The guy seemed to really be intent on harassing me.

Welcome to Thailand ???? Some are like that today, but it´s not their fault. That you can thank all the people trying to live in Thailand on the wrong kind of visa for.

3 hours ago, Vacuum said:

You should have said nit noi..

I know little about the little you know. 

3 hours ago, sillyfool said:

isn't it nid noi ? 

นิด - nit

หน่อย - noi

Even if one sucks in Thai, I guess that after 7 month one should be able to have a simple conversation. They won`t discuss about physics with you, but saying nid noi killed it. Like always in Thailand they would have lost the interest after 3-4 answers in Thai. Moreover Thai ppl are super impatient. Whenever I am lazy to speak Thai and they know I am able a "phuud cha cha khap" makes them loose the interest:) 

4 hours ago, Dnyy said:

So, the IOs job is to accuse all foreigners to be liars and making life very difficult on a land border in the middle of nowhere. Are you foreigners all insane? Being treated like <deleted> on all entries by immigration and still staying. If this would happen to me in any country I'd be gone for good.

you're kidding right? Ever watch the Can./U.S./U.K./Aus border patrol shows? You think Thai imm. is stringent now wait till they really get rolling and catch up to their world wide counter parts. You ain't seen nothing yet..

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-50067575

1 hour ago, Dtay777 said:

It was at suvarnabhumi airport

 

The real purpose why most people get education visa in Thailand is to stay long term and not to study.

 

Immigration meets thousands if not millions of people every month and they must have met quite a number on education visa who could only utter 'sawatdee kap', numbers etc after learning Thai for several months.

 

So you can understand why they are wary of people who hold 'education' visa learning Thai.

 

I know of several people who have been in Thailand for nearly 10 years and still can't read/write Thai and can only speak kindergarten Thai.

 

 

Edited October 17, 20196 yr by EricTh

4 hours ago, Vacuum said:

You should have said nit noi..

Most Thai students get the tones wrong and not the consonants wrong. 

3 hours ago, jackdd said:

 

The rules simply state that you need to attend a minimum amount of classes, this doesn't mean you actually have to learn anything there. If he suspects OP of not attending the required classes he should investigate the school.

I know of a few who attended the classes and not miss a lesson but when it came to exam day, he purposely went missing.

 

 

3 hours ago, jackdd said:

 this doesn't mean you actually have to learn anything there. If he suspects OP of not attending the required classes he should investigate the school.

It does mean that you have to learn something, that is why they test you.

1 hour ago, Dtay777 said:

 

 

I get that immigration might just say well dont bother with an ED visa if you wont learn.  But honestly i wonder how long it took them to learn English?! 

 

 

The average Thai people actually learn a minimum of 11 years of English and they still can't speak basic English with proper grammar. I met one Thai guy on the bus who said 'same, same' ... I was wracking my brain to understand him which I think he means 'I am going to the same place as you'.

 

It's just that Thai and English are so different grammatically and vocabulary wise, that it is difficult for either party to learn in a short time.

 

I heard that Chinese students have a much easier time because their languages are similar.

 

 

Edited October 17, 20196 yr by EricTh

17 minutes ago, FritsSikkink said:

It does mean that you have to learn something, that is why they test you.

Can you point me to an official source which sets such a requirement or did you just make this up by yourself?