Hello!

I'm amazed at how active this forum is and how many passionate posters there are! I'm planning on moving to Thailand in August, and I was just wondering if it would be possible to exhange English lessons for Thai lessons. Thailand must be full of people who want to improve their English, but possess at least enough basic English that they would be able to teach me to speak Thai. Does anyone have an idea of how I might go about that?

Jonathan

It doesnt work overly well to have a teacher that can't explain,

and since i also get the impression you are under 50,

you may as well go a ED visa class, tho that teacher will likely be incapable at explaining as well

Thanks for your comment, Poanoi! The idea is to learn a bit of Thai before I get to Thailand. An ED visa would kinda defeat that purpose, wouldn't it?

It was my understanding that many people in Thailand know at least a little bit of English. This would be more than enough, since I don't know any Thai at all. That means that it would be extremely useful to have a Thai person explain how to say things like:

How are you?

Thank you.

My name is ...

What's your name?

etc.

I'm really just hoping to get the very basics of the language down properly. Nothing complicated, nothing requiring the use of more than extremely broken English. Pronunciation is the biggest thing there, and that doesn't require any English at all to correct. As far as the other half goes, if they can speak a little bit of English, then there will be enough grammar and pronunciation errors for me to correct that I will be able to make myself quite useful.

Looks like www.mylanguageexchange.com is a good website for what I'm looking for. Anyone had any experience with it?

I'm really just hoping to get the very basics of the language down properly.

This is the catch, without a good teacher, you may end up in a bad habit that is difficult to break.

I have a word that i learned long ago, but i pronounced it wrong,

and after having been reminded of it 4 years or so,

i now on occasion remember to make a pause and pronounce it right,

but still mostly do it wrong cause i didnt learn it right.

Of relevance is where will you stay ?

in nakhon nowhere you will find it tuff, noone speak a word english in countryside.

in Bkk or pattaya you'll be mostly ok

It's true, that can be a danger. But I will simply be imitating the native Thai speaker I happen to be working with, so I won't be pronouncing words wrong, I'll just possibly be learning a dialect. But I'm planning on working with several different Thai people at once, so any mistakes that I get from one person should be canceled out by the others. If one person is bad at something, I can just move to a different topic where they have more to teach me.

I'm hoping to stay in Chiang Mai, so I imagine there will be English all over the place. That's unfortunate, actually, because I think I'd learn better Thai once I got there if there weren't any English speakers around to deal with.

get a used iPad , lots of simple Thai language Apps that are free for the first part ,

and they "talk" to you too, so you can keep repeating a word or phrase until you get it.

it will teach you simple phrases that you will use everyday

That's a great idea! I have some other things that I could use the iPad for too.

You should have no problems doing language exchange - I never do. In Thailand, the value of english lessons from native english speakers are worth 2 or 3 times the value of Thai lessons, just as an indication. Personally, I prefer to learn grammar from books, and conversation from native speakers. You're on the right track. As for there being a lot of english in Chiang Mai - who cares. I spend a lot of time in Pattaya, where there is more english, but only speak Thai. It's all up to you.

Edited December 8, 201213 yr by leosmith

Only advice to you is spend some time reading Thai while you learn.This way you can know the tones and different vowel sounds and get right first and then you will progress easy, then all it is really up to having a good memory. Much better than making many mistake and later have to try to reset the bad habits, as the other poster did say.

If he did learn to read first then its really impossible to make a mistake you will repeat for many years, especially if you double check often with sound bytes or apps.

For a small amount of time that it take to learn basic reading you have many benefits.

I definitely plan to read while learning Thai. I've begun email conversations with a couple Thai natives, which will hopefully turn into a voice chat or two so I can hear the sound of the language. I also ordered a basic Thai course so I can start working on grammar and things that might be harder to get explained. It's good to know the value of English lessons. I suspected it, which is why I knew it had to be possible to exchange English lessons for Thai lessons in the first place.

It's as if my native English background gives me an unfair advantage in the world, to go where I please as long as I'm willing to teach English when I get there. :-)

My experience over the past 7 years:

My best teachers were college educated women who spoke passable English and wanted to improve their language skills. They weren't teachers.

I had 4 years of Latin/Spanish in high school, 2 terms of German, and 2 years of Chinese through the US military. I have a pretty good idea of what I want to learn and what methods of teaching work best for my learning skills.

I exchange 1-2 hours of English for the same in Thai. I don't require the women to create any lesson plans for me....I download what I need (currently using the excellent lessons at http://thairecordings.com/) and ask the women to use the same methods of teaching me Thai that I use to teach them English: Let me read, correct me when I make mistakes and let me try to figure out what the mistake is by myself, ask me lots of comprehension questions about what I've just read, and correct my writing skills.

The 3 Thais who I've had over the past few years all seem more than willing to employ the teaching methods that I ask of them.......they're happy, I'm happy. One hour of one on one is worth 5 in a class....IMO

I don't require the women to create any lesson plans for me....I download what I need (currently using the excellent lessons at http://thairecordings.com/)

thank for sharing this link, exactly what I was looking for