Hi,

I am currently enrolled in Thai courses at the Walen school at the Times Square building in Bangkok. I heard today that they are opening up a satellite school in Pattaya. This may be good news for anyone living in Sin City who wants to learn Thai and obtain the 1 year education (ED) visa, and do NOT wish to travel up to Bangkok every week for their 4-hour Friday class.

I remember reading about this in another thread, in the visa forum, searched for it and here it is:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?s=...t&p=1784328

I would imagine that there are already some Thai language schools in Pattaya but I saw members suggesting to Macwalen a Pattaya branch and they will probably be happy to hear that it is in the works.

I also remember reading in some other thread that it is useful to build up a vocabulary before joining a Thai class and coincidentally I read this thread today about the 1,000 most frequently used Thai words:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=178570

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Maestro

Thanks for the references Maestro, the 1000 word list is useful, but more so for people at the pre-intermediate stage than beginners, I believe.

I also remember reading in some other thread that it is useful to build up a vocabulary before joining a Thai class

Although people's preferred learning methods differ, I am not so sure I would recommend it, generally.

When you learn a word without understanding which features of the word are important in a Thai listening context, you are very much tempted to internalize an incorrect pronunciation in terms of tones and sounds.

In other words, one may think one 'knows' a word, but if one pronounces it in a way that makes it difficult or impossible for a Thai to understand, it will not be very useful. Especially not in the beginning stage when one still has not learned the proper structures either, and tries to form sentences based on patterns from other languages.

To learn without first being aware of Thai phonology*, may lead to pronunciation errors which are more difficult to correct later, than learning words correctly from the start.

One needs to learn to listen for the right things, and ask the right questions.

*The knowledge of which sounds exist/are possible in the Thai language, the knowledge of which sound features distinguish meaning in the Thai language, the knowledge of how these sounds relate to each other and are separated from each other etc.