I'm still learning. I really don't want to live somewhere that I can't talk to anybody.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Gentlemen, don't give up! It's been said before but it's worth repeating, learn to read Thai, you can't learn to pronounce Thai correctly using English letters, some sounds in Thai simply can't be found in English. If someone asked you to play Purple Haze by Jimi Hendrix on the piano you'd rightly inquire as to how you're going to bend the notes and get the feedback.Moreover, Thai is by and large phonetic, once you can read it you know the tones and sounds, it gives your pronunciation a firm basis. It may look hard to read with its intricate letters but it's not really, you'll soon start to see the patterns. All it takes is time and motivation, believe me, I've been this route!

BambinA-ข้อยบ่เฃื่อเจ้าเว้าอีสานบ่เป็น

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I am learning to read right along with speaking. I don't see how anyone can think they know a language if they can't read it? That's all part of it.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I also disagree with you. 80% the forigners who could speak thai very

fluent that i have met, they just learned by practicaly speaking with

thais.

Let say, my Iranian friends whom they live here from 10-25 years,

they say, the major mistake is going to thai school before learning

little thai, so you can compare grammtical thai with street spoken

thai, and say the differnence better, without getting confused.

I used to disagree with them, because i thought they were lying to me.

But i was stupid, and went to thai school from begining and wasted so

much time, without being able to say a single decent thai sentance.

Let say, my Iranian friends whom they live here from 10-25 years,

they say, the major mistake is going to thai school before learning

little thai, so you can compare grammtical thai with street spoken

thai, and say the differnence better, without getting confused.

I used to disagree with them, because i thought they were lying to me.

But i was stupid, and went to thai school from begining and wasted so

much time, without being able to say a single decent thai sentance.

By 'Thai school', do you mean 'regular' Thai school for children, or a language school where foreigners learn Thai?

I have met many foreigners of different nationalities who are communicative in Thai.

Some of them learned the most of their Thai through doing an exchange year at Thai high school at age 17, and in some cases just one year was enough to be able to speak with largely correct tones and the basic vocab you need to get by. In some cases of these exchange students though, they hadn't progressed beyond the pidgin Thai spoken at the beach resorts and in the bars. Some six or seven of the Thai-speaking foreigners I know learned the major part of their Thai through formal learning at universities in Western countries (US, Sweden, Denmark, UK etc.).

I personally started with three years at Uni and proceeded with real-life practice in Thailand.

At this stage I can read contemporary novels and magazine articles with some difficulty (there will be a few words or phrases per page that I do not understand, and for those I need to consult a dictionary and/or a Thai friend), but it is generally too much of an effort to read a Thai language tabloid newspaper like Daily News or Thai Rath, even though I always get the general idea of an article and can hack my way through them with heavy use of a dictionary. This is probably because their newspaper jargon is riddled with slang and newspaper-specific vocab. Post Today and Matichon tend to be easier, but still require a lot of concentration from me.

I am not yet quick enough to fully decode the Thai subtitles on an average English-language film before they disappear, which is a goal I have set up for myself. Currently I am quick enough to process 40%-50% of each instance shown on the screen.

Once I am at the stage where I can process 100% I believe I should also be able to pick up a newspaper and read it without it feeling like hard work, but I am not sure what I need to do in order to pick up my reading speed when at my current stage.

If somebody else who has come further than I in this regard have any pointers to share in this regard it would be very much appreciated. Just to make it clear - I can already read, I know the basic rules for reading and I can get through a text ok - but I need to speed up. Any tricks, shortcuts, methods you recommend?

As with most languages, there is a marked difference between 'street Thai' (phasaa dtalaad) and the formal Thai (phasaa suung, phasaa thaang gaan) that is spoken on the radio and TV news and on other formal occasions. It is my personal view that learning the formal version of a language before the street slang makes good sense and gives you a better platform to build on, as well as rendering you more respect from Thais than starting from the other end. Both have their clear advantages of course, but most Thais I have met do not appreciate it when foreigners mishandle their language.

If you are too formal at the market you may come off as stiff and a convenient laughing stock, but the opposite - coming off as rude and uneducated in formal situations when you need to make an impression - is still worse.

Where you will learn Thai best is often a matter of personal preference and predisposition. If you are motivated and think the learning process is fun and/or rewarding, you will learn quite a bit no matter how you go about it.

I am learning to read right along with speaking. I don't see how anyone can think they know a language if they can't read it? That's all part of it.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Not sure I agree. My three year old nephews speak better Thai than I, but neither knows how to read a single word....

(I too am trying to learn to read, but I'm not sure it helps learning Thai as much as knowing how to read helps in other languages.)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Sorry, I should be more clear. I meant that in learning a 2nd language I think reading is important. Growing up and speaking is different and even if you learn enough to speak well, you'd be better at it if you know how read it.

I should also add my personnal view that if a person learns to speak a language but not read it, then you don't "know" the language, only half of it. Speaking and writing are two different things goverened by two different sets of rules.

Let say, my Iranian friends whom they live here from 10-25 years,

they say, the major mistake is going to thai school before learning

little thai, so you can compare grammtical thai with street spoken

thai, and say the differnence better, without getting confused.

I used to disagree with them, because i thought they were lying to me.

But i was stupid, and went to thai school from begining and wasted so

much time, without being able to say a single decent thai sentance.

By 'Thai school', do you mean 'regular' Thai school for children, or a language school where foreigners learn Thai?

I have met many foreigners of different nationalities who are communicative in Thai.

Some of them learned the most of their Thai through doing an exchange year at Thai high school at age 17, and in some cases just one year was enough to be able to speak with largely correct tones and the basic vocab you need to get by. In some cases of these exchange students though, they hadn't progressed beyond the pidgin Thai spoken at the beach resorts and in the bars. Some six or seven of the Thai-speaking foreigners I know learned the major part of their Thai through formal learning at universities in Western countries (US, Sweden, Denmark, UK etc.).

I personally started with three years at Uni and proceeded with real-life practice in Thailand.

At this stage I can read contemporary novels and magazine articles with some difficulty (there will be a few words or phrases per page that I do not understand, and for those I need to consult a dictionary and/or a Thai friend), but it is generally too much of an effort to read a Thai language tabloid newspaper like Daily News or Thai Rath, even though I always get the general idea of an article and can hack my way through them with heavy use of a dictionary. This is probably because their newspaper jargon is riddled with slang and newspaper-specific vocab. Post Today and Matichon tend to be easier, but still require a lot of concentration from me.

I am not yet quick enough to fully decode the Thai subtitles on an average English-language film before they disappear, which is a goal I have set up for myself. Currently I am quick enough to process 40%-50% of each instance shown on the screen.

Once I am at the stage where I can process 100% I believe I should also be able to pick up a newspaper and read it without it feeling like hard work, but I am not sure what I need to do in order to pick up my reading speed when at my current stage.

If somebody else who has come further than I in this regard have any pointers to share in this regard it would be very much appreciated. Just to make it clear - I can already read, I know the basic rules for reading and I can get through a text ok - but I need to speed up. Any tricks, shortcuts, methods you recommend?

As with most languages, there is a marked difference between 'street Thai' (phasaa dtalaad) and the formal Thai (phasaa suung, phasaa thaang gaan) that is spoken on the radio and TV news and on other formal occasions. It is my personal view that learning the formal version of a language before the street slang makes good sense and gives you a better platform to build on, as well as rendering you more respect from Thais than starting from the other end. Both have their clear advantages of course, but most Thais I have met do not appreciate it when foreigners mishandle their language.

If you are too formal at the market you may come off as stiff and a convenient laughing stock, but the opposite - coming off as rude and uneducated in formal situations when you need to make an impression - is still worse.

Where you will learn Thai best is often a matter of personal preference and predisposition. If you are motivated and think the learning process is fun and/or rewarding, you will learn quite a bit no matter how you go about it.

You've given us a very good functional description of your proficiency in Thai, Mead, something the silly poll that started this thread didn't frame very well. I'd like to see another poll using the standard international 5-point proficiency scale that we've discussed in other threads in this forum branch.

I wish I had some shortcuts to share, but I've found only two ways to improve at Thai. One is to work really hard at it, and the other is take a lot of years to practice. Preferably both!

I started reading Thai newspapers (only the well-written stuff, back then Siam Rath, nowdays I'd recommend only Matichon, the weeky edition of which I read regularly, and occasionally the daily edition as well) from my first year of university study and even though it was mental torture at times, it really helped a lot when later I was able to read newspapers for fun instead of for a grade.

I also studied Thai classical literature and a small amount of classical poetry. I can't say this helped my everyday Thai per se, but it did help me understand Thai culture a little more (the ideal version at least), and offered a few reference points for when characters from Thai lit comes up in conversation. Certainly the language of epic and classic/poetic Thai is as irrelevant to modern Thai as Chaucer is to modern English. Thais are impressed when I tell them I read Phra Aphaimani from start to finish, so it's a conversation sparker at least. I don't tell them how tedious it was for me ....

Studying Pali and Sanskrit can boost your Thai of course but that may only be true in the early stages of learning Thai. I was a keen Sanskrit student for a couple of years at uni, and having a broad knowledge of Skrt roots helped me decode a lot of Pali-Sanskrit-derived Thai, and still does today on the rare occasion.

Interesting measure, your talking about Thai subtitles. I don't usually have a problem catching all or most of the Thai subtitles for the average foreign film (or karaoke video, etc). I think it helped that I worked as a Thai interpreter/translator in San Francisco for three years in the 1980s, mostly translating floor-to-ceiling piles of Thai birth, marriage and death certificates, business contracts and letters written by Thais incarcerated in US prisons. As a result I can decipher bad Thai handwriting better than my Thai wife can, in many instances. The courtroom interpreting was a big aid to speaking and comprehension.

I suppose I understand nearly all spoken Thai, whether it's TV news or dinner table conversation or a Buddhist sermon. Fast-moving Thai comedy acts bring me down to earth though, as I miss a healthy percentage in rapid-fire comedic dialogs. Soaps are fine, but Dara Cafe-type repartee is humbling ...

I'm more or less happy with my speaking ability in Thai, and have always made time for plenty of opportunity to practice since my main interests in coming to Thailand in the first place were Thai culture and religion. I think it's fair to say that most farang showing up to live in Thailand nowadays have more hedonistic pursuits in mind (and I'm not knocking that, it's just an observation). I continue to spend most, usually all in fact, of an average day speaking only Thai. The only English practice I get is writing on this forum or writing email or writing for publication, come to think of it. My English is actually suffering as a result, guess it's what applied linguists called 'language loss' as a result of using a second language more often than the first. (It's getting so bad I find I have to edit posts on this forum three or four times, as a result of making errors of spelling and grammar I would never have made before I immersed myself in Thai; could be age, too )

Another continuing kick in the boot is the occasional invitation to lecture at Thai universities around the country, in Thai, and I've done some consulting at Government House with ministerial staff (again, in Thai). I'm currently the only non-Thai (so I'm told, and thus far I've not seen another) serving on a Rajabhat U directory council (officially as a กรรมการสภามหาลัยผู้้้ทรงคุณวุฒิ - kammakaan saphaa phuu song khunawut, roughly 'consulting univerity council member). The 24-member council meets all day once a month to decide on issues such as the uni budget, the selection of individual faculty chairpersons, etc. which keeps my academic Thai reasonably challenged.

I mention the preceding examples only to emphasise that I think it's important to seek out ways to keep your Thai sharp and improving. Without continually working at it, I think it fades. A lot of expats, I think, make the mistake of thinking they only need to study for the first year or three they move to Thailand, then just absorb the rest through osmosis thereafter. I think that works up to a point, but only to the point where you have enough language to get by, at which point you hit a plateau (fossilisation, the linguists call it). If you don't want your Thai to fossilise - or worse, fade (as I've seen happen in some cases) - I think you have to make a real effort to create situations where you're forced to be in a little bit over your ahead on a regular basis.

My writing remains considerably weaker than my speaking and reading skills. I have no trouble filling out forms or taking multiple-choice exams, and I'm OK at personal correspondence, eg, email and letters, but to write a properly thought-out essay of say, 2000 words or more in Thai remains a challenge and I have to call on help from Thai friends. The vocabulary and spelling is there, but I'm still short of mastering true Thai discourse style(s) as a writer, even though when reading Thai, I've figured out how Thai discourse works for the most part. I think that's what's called passive, rather than active, mastery of a language sphere.

I don't agree with the view that reading is not important to learning a language but I suppose it depends on whether you're talking about learning the second lx as a child or as an adult. A child can pick up the exact phonology of a language almost entirely by ear, while the typical adult does not have that ability. I have several Western friends who have lived many years in Thailand and who can speak reasonably good Thai in terms of vocabulary and grammar, but their pronunciation immediately gives their lack of reading ability away.

Once you get into the adult world, I think it's safe to say that illiterates rarely speak as grammatically or clearly as those who can read.

Let say, my Iranian friends whom they live here from 10-25 years,

they say, the major mistake is going to thai school before learning

little thai, so you can compare grammtical thai with street spoken

thai, and say the differnence better, without getting confused.

I used to disagree with them, because i thought they were lying to me.

But i was stupid, and went to thai school from begining and wasted so

much time, without being able to say a single decent thai sentance.

By 'Thai school', do you mean 'regular' Thai school for children, or a language school where foreigners learn Thai?

I have met many foreigners of different nationalities who are communicative in Thai.

Some of them learned the most of their Thai through doing an exchange year at Thai high school at age 17, and in some cases just one year was enough to be able to speak with largely correct tones and the basic vocab you need to get by. In some cases of these exchange students though, they hadn't progressed beyond the pidgin Thai spoken at the beach resorts and in the bars. Some six or seven of the Thai-speaking foreigners I know learned the major part of their Thai through formal learning at universities in Western countries (US, Sweden, Denmark, UK etc.).

I personally started with three years at Uni and proceeded with real-life practice in Thailand.

At this stage I can read contemporary novels and magazine articles with some difficulty (there will be a few words or phrases per page that I do not understand, and for those I need to consult a dictionary and/or a Thai friend), but it is generally too much of an effort to read a Thai language tabloid newspaper like Daily News or Thai Rath, even though I always get the general idea of an article and can hack my way through them with heavy use of a dictionary. This is probably because their newspaper jargon is riddled with slang and newspaper-specific vocab. Post Today and Matichon tend to be easier, but still require a lot of concentration from me.

I am not yet quick enough to fully decode the Thai subtitles on an average English-language film before they disappear, which is a goal I have set up for myself. Currently I am quick enough to process 40%-50% of each instance shown on the screen.

Once I am at the stage where I can process 100% I believe I should also be able to pick up a newspaper and read it without it feeling like hard work, but I am not sure what I need to do in order to pick up my reading speed when at my current stage.

If somebody else who has come further than I in this regard have any pointers to share in this regard it would be very much appreciated. Just to make it clear - I can already read, I know the basic rules for reading and I can get through a text ok - but I need to speed up. Any tricks, shortcuts, methods you recommend?

As with most languages, there is a marked difference between 'street Thai' (phasaa dtalaad) and the formal Thai (phasaa suung, phasaa thaang gaan) that is spoken on the radio and TV news and on other formal occasions. It is my personal view that learning the formal version of a language before the street slang makes good sense and gives you a better platform to build on, as well as rendering you more respect from Thais than starting from the other end. Both have their clear advantages of course, but most Thais I have met do not appreciate it when foreigners mishandle their language.

If you are too formal at the market you may come off as stiff and a convenient laughing stock, but the opposite - coming off as rude and uneducated in formal situations when you need to make an impression - is still worse.

Where you will learn Thai best is often a matter of personal preference and predisposition. If you are motivated and think the learning process is fun and/or rewarding, you will learn quite a bit no matter how you go about it.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You've given us a very good functional description of your proficiency in Thai, Mead, something the silly poll that started this thread didn't frame very well. I'd like to see another poll using the standard international 5-point proficiency scale that we've discussed in other threads in this forum branch.

I wish I had some shortcuts to share, but I've found only two ways to improve at Thai. One is to work really hard at it, and the other is take a lot of years to practice. Preferably both!

I started reading Thai newspapers (only the well-written stuff, back then Siam Rath, nowdays I'd recommend only Matichon, the weeky edition of which I read regularly, and occasionally the daily edition as well) from my first year of university study and even though it was mental torture at times, it really helped a lot when later I was able to read newspapers for fun instead of for a grade.

I also studied Thai classical literature and a small amount of classical poetry. I can't say this helped my everyday Thai per se, but it did help me understand Thai culture a little more (the ideal version at least), and offered a few reference points for when characters from Thai lit comes up in conversation. Certainly the language of epic and classic/poetic Thai is as irrelevant to modern Thai as Chaucer is to modern English. Thais are impressed when I tell them I read Phra Aphaimani from start to finish, so it's a conversation sparker at least. I don't tell them how tedious it was for me ....

Studying Pali and Sanskrit can boost your Thai of course but that may only be true in the early stages of learning Thai. I was a keen Sanskrit student for a couple of years at uni, and having a broad knowledge of Skrt roots helped me decode a lot of Pali-Sanskrit-derived Thai, and still does today on the rare occasion.

Interesting measure, your talking about Thai subtitles. I don't usually have a problem catching all or most of the Thai subtitles for the average foreign film (or karaoke video, etc). I think it helped that I worked as a Thai interpreter/translator in San Francisco for three years in the 1980s, mostly translating floor-to-ceiling piles of Thai birth, marriage and death certificates, business contracts and letters written by Thais incarcerated in US prisons. As a result I can decipher bad Thai handwriting better than my Thai wife can, in many instances. The courtroom interpreting was a big aid to speaking and comprehension.

I suppose I understand nearly all spoken Thai, whether it's TV news or dinner table conversation or a Buddhist sermon. Fast-moving Thai comedy acts bring me down to earth though, as I miss a healthy percentage in rapid-fire comedic dialogs. Soaps are fine, but Dara Cafe-type repartee is humbling ...

I'm more or less happy with my speaking ability in Thai, and have always made time for plenty of opportunity to practice since my main interests in coming to Thailand in the first place were Thai culture and religion. I think it's fair to say that most farang showing up to live in Thailand nowadays have more hedonistic pursuits in mind (and I'm not knocking that, it's just an observation). I continue to spend most, usually all in fact, of an average day speaking only Thai. The only English practice I get is writing on this forum or writing email or writing for publication, come to think of it. My English is actually suffering as a result, guess it's what applied linguists called 'language loss' as a result of using a second language more often than the first. (It's getting so bad I find I have to edit posts on this forum three or four times, as a result of making errors of spelling and grammar I would never have made before I immersed myself in Thai; could be age, too )

Another continuing kick in the boot is the occasional invitation to lecture at Thai universities around the country, in Thai, and I've done some consulting at Government House with ministerial staff (again, in Thai). I'm currently the only non-Thai (so I'm told, and thus far I've not seen another) serving on a Rajabhat U directory council (officially as a กรรมการสภามหาลัยผู้้้ทรงคุณวุฒิ - kammakaan saphaa phuu song khunawut, roughly 'consulting univerity council member). The 24-member council meets all day once a month to decide on issues such as the uni budget, the selection of individual faculty chairpersons, etc. which keeps my academic Thai reasonably challenged.

I mention the preceding examples only to emphasise that I think it's important to seek out ways to keep your Thai sharp and improving. Without continually working at it, I think it fades. A lot of expats, I think, make the mistake of thinking they only need to study for the first year or three they move to Thailand, then just absorb the rest through osmosis thereafter. I think that works up to a point, but only to the point where you have enough language to get by, at which point you hit a plateau (fossilisation, the linguists call it). If you don't want your Thai to fossilise - or worse, fade (as I've seen happen in some cases) - I think you have to make a real effort to create situations where you're forced to be in a little bit over your ahead on a regular basis.

My writing remains considerably weaker than my speaking and reading skills. I have no trouble filling out forms or taking multiple-choice exams, and I'm OK at personal correspondence, eg, email and letters, but to write a properly thought-out essay of say, 2000 words or more in Thai remains a challenge and I have to call on help from Thai friends. The vocabulary and spelling is there, but I'm still short of mastering true Thai discourse style(s) as a writer, even though when reading Thai, I've figured out how Thai discourse works for the most part. I think that's what's called passive, rather than active, mastery of a language sphere.

I don't agree with the view that reading is not important to learning a language but I suppose it depends on whether you're talking about learning the second lx as a child or as an adult. A child can pick up the exact phonology of a language almost entirely by ear, while the typical adult does not have that ability. I have several Western friends who have lived many years in Thailand and who can speak reasonably good Thai in terms of vocabulary and grammar, but their pronunciation immediately gives their lack of reading ability away.

Once you get into the adult world, I think it's safe to say that illiterates rarely speak as grammatically or clearly as those who can read.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

An incisive contribution, Sabaijai, your point about listening to Thai comedy acts hits home; but we shouldn't despair, only a native speaker can instinctively grasp the cultural signals to understand double entendres. I've been in conversations with fellow English speakers and Thais who have lived abroad for 10 years or more and when we start punning the Thais stare, (justifiably) and say, 'what on earth are you talking about?'

Example,-' John was carping on today about too much fish on the menu'

'He should change his school'

'But where would you plaice him, he always rises to the bait.'

One could learn English for 30 years and not get the above without considerable effort,(ok, I admit it might not be worth it!)but undoubtedly it's the same for us comprehending Thai humour.

bannork

Sabaijai, that was a very interesting post, thank you for sharing your experiences. I guess I will just have to make more time for all aspects of the Thai language in my life. Otherwise I face stagnation.

I am learning to read right along with speaking. I don't see how anyone can think they know a language if they can't read it? That's all part of it.

(I too am trying to learn to read, but I'm not sure it helps learning Thai as much as knowing how to read helps in other languages.)

It is certainly helping me to learn to read & write during the Pratom 1 & 2 stages. According to Becker et. al. it's generally felt to be more useful to learn speaking/reading/writing at the same time.

An incisive contribution, Sabaijai, your point about listening to Thai comedy acts hits home; but we shouldn't despair, only a native speaker can instinctively grasp the cultural signals to understand double entendres. I've been in conversations with fellow English speakers and Thais who have lived abroad for 10 years or more and when we start punning the Thais stare, (justifiably) and say, 'what on earth are you talking about?'

Example,-' John was carping on today about too much fish on the menu'

              'He should change his school'

              'But where would you plaice him, he always rises to the bait.'

One could learn English for 30 years and not get the above without considerable effort,(ok, I admit it might not be worth it!)but undoubtedly it's the same for us comprehending Thai humour.

bannork

Good point, Bannork, now I feel better about the comedy.

Mead, I do think one has to make an effort to keep moving forward or at least not to slide back. I remember a Brit I met in Chiang Mai after I moved here some years ago. I remember thinking his Thai was very good (he had recently finished a year's course of study at CMU), and he was married to a Thai woman with whom he mostly conversed in Thai. Nevertheless he got very little practice outside the home other than ordering meals, and over the eight years or so I've known him, I've noticed he's starting to lose his Thai. It's remarkable when you think about it.

This relates to the reading aspect, too. When you can read Thai it means that all you need to do to practice, learn new vocabulary, etc, is to stick your nose in a newspaper or magazine.

Joining some sort of regular social, political, religious or sporting association made up of all or mostly Thais is also a good way to maintain, I think.

If I've been living in LOS for a little while I am a 4, but if I leave the country for more than a couple of months I regress to a 3+.

When I am drunk though, I reckon I may hit the 4+ scale.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Of course, being drunk is always an advantage when speaking a foreign language.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I hate the part of the Thai weddings where the drunk Thai man has suddenly achieved fluency in English due to his level of inebriation and decides to converse with the white guy.

"Hello ... you ... you ... I am Thailand ... my name is your name ... I go ... Good ... OK ... you ... you ... Beer Chang"

I would rate this man as nearing the 4 level as he can speak for hours.

If I've been living in LOS for a little while I am a 4, but if I leave the country for more than a couple of months I regress to a 3+.

When I am drunk though, I reckon I may hit the 4+ scale.

Of course, being drunk is always an advantage when speaking a foreign language.

I hate the part of the Thai weddings where the drunk Thai man has suddenly achieved fluency in English due to his level of inebriation and decides to converse with the white guy.

"Hello ... you ... you ... I am Thailand ... my name is your name ... I go ... Good ... OK ... you ... you ... Beer Chang"

I would rate this man as nearing the 4 level as he can speak for hours.

I mention the preceding examples only to emphasise that I think it's important to seek out ways to keep your Thai sharp and improving. Without continually working at it, I think it fades. A lot of expats, I think, make the mistake of thinking they only need to study for the first year or three they move to Thailand, then just absorb the rest through osmosis thereafter. I think that works up to a point, but only to the point where you have enough language to get by, at which point you hit a plateau (fossilisation, the linguists call it).

Too true. The worst thing that can happen is you get a girlfriend/wife who speaks fluent English, Thai friends who all speak fluent English, and a job where everyone demands you speak English so they can practise their comprehension! That's what happened to me.