My 12 year old daughter was adopted from Thailand last year. Her English is coming along nicely but she is losing her Thai language skills. We experimented with a Thai tutor using a web cam, but she seemed embarassed at seeing herself on the screen.

Can anyone recommend games (Pokemon cards? board games? Trivial Pursuit?) that would put Thai in front of her? If these things are not available in the US, they would have to be ordered online. We don't speak Thai, but there are a handful of Thai families with teens and pre-teens in our area with whom she could play these games with.

These games won't teach her Thai, but it might keep her language fresh. We've ordered popular Thai music online. Like any pre-teen, she likes it then she doesn't then she likes it.

Any advice is appreciated.

Mark

I would get someone to send over some movies in Thai, Thai music VCDs, the best would be of course to visit Thailand. How about online chat in Thai, do you have a Thai keyboard for her?

What about a pen-pal, could your agency link you up with a child that is still here for her to communicate with? You could also look through through Learning Thai section on this site and see if there are any threads there covering educational games. From personal experience - we've got adopted kids - once you are outside their birthcountry it is very hard to maintain much language unless a parent or close adult (teacher, neighbour) speaks to the child regularly and using a variety of vocabulary.

Thanks for the suggestions. I've bought some CD's from eThaiCD, http://www.ethaicd.com/. I had asked them what is the Thai equivalent of Hannah Montana and they came back with Four + Mod and Lipz Project. My daughter really liked them. Movies might be harder because I won't know how they are rated. My daughter really likes the anime/manga stuff.

I'm intrigued by the chat idea, but who would she be chatting with? She plays on several pre-teen-centered websites which appear to be safe. The latest one is http://www.kidscom.com/. I wonder if there are any Thai language equivalents to a site like that.

Mark