Americans would say 'what's your major?' but others would just say 'what are you studying?'. How would you say this if talking to a Thai university student? Also if you wanted to ask a graduate what they studied, what would you say?

Always a pleasure to talk to Thai university students

What are you majoring in? - คุณเรียนวิชาเอกอะไร

What did you major in? - คุณจบวิชาเอกอะไรมา

The only problem I see with this, is when they tell you in Thai what their “wicha” is or was, you won’t be much further along.

Edited February 26, 201214 yr by villagefarang

The only problem I see with this, is when they tell you in Thai what their “wicha” is or was, you won’t be much further along.

That's the easy part. IT is IT. Anything that begins วิศวกรรม is engineering, anything that begins ภาษา is languages and the individual languages are easy to learn anyway, ธุรกิจ is business. That must be at least half the undergraduates in Thailand. You could learn the rest just by visiting a university website. Or did I misunderstand your meaning of "much further along"?

And many thanks to Peppy.

Edited February 26, 201214 yr by edwardandtubs

Get a better line.

Okay I get it. You know lots of individual words, you just don’t know how to string them together to make sentences or ask questions. Sorry for underestimating your abilities and perhaps your intent.

One of the big flaws in the available Thai language learning material is that it's either functional (like 'can you please kindly give me directions to the nearest post office') or grammatical (like 'that woman is not my younger sibling, but my elder brother's teacher's daughter'), whereas what I most want to learn is simple conversational expressions that I can use to chat with people. I need lots of example sentences on topics like work, study, holidays and hobbies. The kind of things that Thai people actually say to each other when they're chatting. Maybe I'll start a new thread on conversational questions.

Edited February 27, 201214 yr by edwardandtubs

Have you eaten yet?

How much did that cost?

Your skin is white.

You are fat.

How much money do you make?

Done. You know 95% of conversational Thai.

You forgot: how much for short time?

Have you eaten yet?

How much did that cost?

Your skin is white.

You are fat.

How much money do you make?

Done. You know 95% of conversational Thai.

Have you eaten yet?

How much did that cost?

Your skin is white.

You are fat.

How much money do you make?

Done. You know 95% of conversational Thai.

You're obviously hanging out with quality people.

Have you eaten yet?

How much did that cost?

Your skin is white.

You are fat.

How much money do you make?

Done. You know 95% of conversational Thai.

You're obviously hanging out with quality people.

you think it's that inaccurate?

Depends on who you choose to hang around with. For my close Thai friends it is laughably inaccurate.

Depends on who you choose to hang around with. For my close Thai friends it is laughably inaccurate.

that's promising.