British Teachers To Improve Thai Youths' English Skills

[NoshowJones]

Neeranam is right, you should never speak Thai when teaching English, If the other teachers or the School Director found out, they would soon have something to say.

[rct99q]

From their website here are some of the inclusions and exclusions;

Applicants will need to cover:

Return airfares

Cost of Thai Visa

Insurance

In return they are provided with:

Orientation programme in Bangkok with accommodation

Transport between Bangkok and their workplace at start and end of contract

Accommodation at or near workplace

meals/meal allowance

a monthly allowance of 10,000 baht (around 215 GBP)

[theajarn]

I've lived in Mae Sariang for two and a half years. Although not a qualified teacher and not utilising more traditional methods, I have taught a few Thai people here, both youngsters and the not so young, basic English skills and still help them to develop their language skills through every day chats. Initially teaching individual words and moving on to phrases and sentences. The chance to teach some more would be nice, but so far my applications have been rejected. Can anyone in this area assist with possible contacts or vacancies ?

That's the whole problem: YOU TEACH. Effectively. But more than anything else -- are you young, good-looking and white? That's the first thing Thais look at, amongst other things. Actual teaching technique is at the bottom of their 'priorities'. Substance doesn't matter a thing in Thailand. IMAGE is EVERYTHING. You can dress up a piece of turd to make it look all nice and Thais will accept that over anything else.

[theajarn]

In return they are provided with:

Orientation programme in Bangkok with accommodation

Which consists of a hastily-put-together Powerpoint presentation that fails all the time, resulting in the 'orientation' being adjourned to an early coffee break ... then lunch.

Transport between Bangkok and their workplace at start and end of contract

Pocket money good enough for the non-airconditioned busses.

Accommodation at or near workplace

...and dare you not kiss enough bottoms, you will be thrown out, and your things possibly locked up (including your passport and travel docs).

meals/meal allowance

Enough for the food down the soi.

a monthly allowance of 10,000 baht (around 215 GBP)

Which every 'native English speaking Filipino' knows is less than what they make

Edited March 8, 2013 by theajarn

[chiangmaikelly]

Neeranam is right, you should never speak Thai when teaching English, If the other teachers or the School Director found out, they would soon have something to say.

I taught at a number of government schools. Never had a director. Had a Principal. Ate lunch with them almost every day. No one ever asked me anything or talked about teaching. A student teacher asked me to put some tone marks on one of her English papers for college and I told her the English language didn't use tone marks and that was the last time she talked to me. She was cute too. Too bad I disagreed with her professor. He thought English was tonal. I think the people posting in this thread have taught at private schools. Most government school students don't know how to say, "where is the toilet after 8 years of English (IMHO)." If the Principal had asked me what my goals and methods were I would have told him or her that I was teaching the students how to say, "where is the toilet for the first year and where is the bus station the second year."

Edited March 8, 2013 by chiangmaikelly

[Mudcrab]

I have to chuckle when I see Westerners constantly bashing Thai people for their poor English skills... yet I know almost no farang that can speak more than three words of Thai, even the ones that have lived here for years. If it's so damn easy to pick up a language, then how about picking up the one in the country you reside in before you rip into them for not learning your language.

totally agree - on my infrequent visits (thankfully) to the UK.....I am astounded by how many people cannot speak their own language..much preferring some mixture of jamaican, gansta rap, or other bastardisation, unitelligible dribble...including many long lost relations. I think that perhaps the only surviving "English" speakers are alive and well, living in Thailand,posting on Thai Visa and moaning about the inabilty of a nation to speak their preferred language while making very little effort to learn the native languageof the country that has genrously allowed then to see out their twilight years in some level of comfort on a meagre taxpayer supported lifestyle.

Edited March 8, 2013 by Mudcrab

[Mudcrab]

Its going to be a bit of a battle for the students, and 8 weeks is nothing in time, as it flies by. At least there is a recognition, even if the initial steps are a little faltering.

When I was studying Thai, I also found it a great help to learn to read Thai, so perhaps one area where the younger students could help is in teaching some basic vocabulary that is related to reading basic English - it needs to be some key areas, and not just assuming that they can learn by rote - so there is the likely problem.

perhaps the problem is not learning by rote. As a four year old kid in the UK many years ago we sat around the classroom looking at pictures on the wall and repeating..A is for apple (noun), B is for bat (noun) , C is for come (verb) etc etc. It sunk in and stuck. Maybe this could work...everyTthai kid would recognise a cat or a D for dog and learn the english letter and word at the same time.

I rwalise this is the old fashioned way of learing ...but it worked then.....has the modern way of learning worked? From my experience with my own kids, the modern or enlightened methods (then in Oz) perhaps not...generally speaking, spelling etc is atrocious

[NoshowJones]

Neeranam is right, you should never speak Thai when teaching English, If the other teachers or the School Director found out, they would soon have something to say.

I taught at a number of government schools. Never had a director. Had a Principal. Ate lunch with them almost every day. No one ever asked me anything or talked about teaching. A student teacher asked me to put some tone marks on one of her English papers for college and I told her the English language didn't use tone marks and that was the last time she talked to me. She was cute too. Too bad I disagreed with her professor. He thought English was tonal. I think the people posting in this thread have taught at private schools. Most government school students don't know how to say, "where is the toilet after 8 years of English." If the Principal had asked me what my goals and methods were I would have told him or her that I was teaching the students how to say, "where is the toilet for the first year and where is the bus station the second year."

I never taught at a private school, I first taught at a High school and it was a Director, the following two terms I taught at a primary (Prathom) school, and it was a Principle. The High school I worked at arranged for the staff in our staffroom to go on a weekend trip tp Hua Hin. we were all sitting having our lunch close to the beach, it was a full moon, and we were talking about how beautiful it was. I said to one of the older teachers "you and I could go for a moonlight swim together", that was the last time she spoke to me. I've got to say though, I got on well with the Heads of the English Departments, and the Director and Principle of the two schools I worked at.

[RamblingSam]

I have just been looking at some English (UK) to Thai dictionaries, thesaurus's and dictionary the right and wrong way of using English ..... I have to say that the greatest failing of all of these is that they do a very poor job of describing how words and letters of the alphabet are pronounced. Without that very fundamental being taught first, all the rest is going to be a huge waste of time

As for 8 weeks of (hopefully!) intensive tutoring being of any use, they are living in cloud Cookoo-land, even if those being taught already (by Thai standards) a good standard of written and spoken English.

OK I'll willingly accept that Brits are bloody lazy when comes to learning ANY other language and some Europeans (eg the Dutch) speak better English than most Brits do!!!

[Psych01]

One of the problems here in the Thai schools is where the Thai teacher teaches English, they teach ABC instead of teaching the correct phonics at an early age.

The Thai's teach the Thai alphabet by it's sound, as in sara 'a' or ด d as in do dek (child). This is not done when teaching the English alphabet, the sound used for an A can sound like, aaa, ah, or ae for apple, but they do not teach the three sounds of the letter A.

There are for example there are many words that have the same spelling in Thai, but have a different sound, the difference is in the tone. They are however taught the correct way to pronounce each letter of their alphabet.

Edited March 8, 2013 by Psych01

[NotEinstein]

I was a volunteer at a small (130 students) P1 - M3 government school for 5 years.

One teacher could speak English well enough to teach, the other were poor at best.

P1 were learning E (eee) - Elephant etc.

The students were typical, in that they talked incessantly, were completely disinterested, and only responded to filling in a book exercise to be marked (they boys preferring to copy).

For the final 3 years the school were allocated 2 student English teachers per year, none of which could hold a conversation and didn't take up the opportunity to practice.

I wasn't getting anywhere attempting to teach, so I offered to take over the computer room and, after learning about Windows XP, got rid of the games and viruses and locked down the settings, so the students could only use programs. I installed a proxy server to manage web-site access and set about developing a web server based English learning suite.

I took M1 - 3 computer class and then Computer-based English. No teacher took the slightest bit of interest in what I was doing. I took it upon myself to make interactive tests of past ONET papers, but OCR software is far from perfect with Thai, and I couldn't get any teachers to proof read them.

When there was a problem with my teacher's licence waiver renewal, I decided I had given enough. I did provide IT support for the school for about a year technically illegally, including configuring and installing software and server systems on another computer room that they received, but decided it was time they understood and accept the reality of IT admin and support.

The Thai education system simply doesn't work and any attempt to improve anything from within it is futile.

[theajarn]

The problem with teaching English here is not the teachers, it's THE GODD*MN COUNTRY. Look at the Philippines -- ALL the locals possess at the least rudimentary English skills. It's because English is everywhere, but most importantly, on the ONE thing they're glued to most -- THE TELLY.

Even in this age of information, most Thais are STILL glued to their TVs -- watching something in Thai. If not, they're glued to FessBooook or YouTube -- WATCHING OR READING SOMETHING IN THAI.

You can't change the internet, but you CAN reach out through the idiot box.

Of the NUMEROUS Thais I've interviewed -- those who CAN speak English have one or more of the following things in common:

1.) THEY DIDNT LEARN ENGLISH IN SCHOOL

2.) They listen to ENGLISH music

3.) They watch movies and cartoons -- IN ENGLISH

4.) They READ English comic books or novels

I even had the HONOUR of meeting a BUS DRIVER -- (really, no sh*t, and some of you guys in MoChit might know him too) who spoke near-PERFECT English! This person proved to me that there IS hope for all Thais -- if ONLY the COUNTRY would allow it.

So the million dollar question (which I raise again and again) is this: WHY DOESN'T THAILAND DO IT -- public media broadcasts with a GOOD mix of English?

Answer: It's because it WILL work, and it WILL kill the education industry's #1 money-maker: the ENGLISH PROGRAM (EP) that schools these days sell.

Why educate the masses for free when the masses are willing to pay top-baht for sub-quality education?

[rbrooks]

I have to chuckle when I see Westerners constantly bashing Thai people for their poor English skills... yet I know almost no farang that can speak more than three words of Thai, even the ones that have lived here for years. If it's so damn easy to pick up a language, then how about picking up the one in the country you reside in before you rip into them for not learning your language.

A good point. An ex student of mine who was an exchange student in Germany for one year, came back, now fluent in German.

Her English was always good, because she loves languages. She also speaks Laos and some Khmer.

You're damn right, most people here explaining about Thais' poor language skills, and can't even order a freaking noodle soup at a restaurant.

I've met many guys living here for 15- 20 years, without any Thai speaking skills.

My Thai isn't very good, but i can easily get around without any help in daily life situations.

My ex student was asking me: " What do you call a person, who only speaks one language."? Her answer was: " An American." I'm pretty sure that many speak Spanish as well.

Ah here we go again, blame and the chastise the Americans for a majority of the Thai people's inability to converse/comprehend a foreign language. Personally I (American) speak/read/write English, German and can converse/comprehend some Thai, Korean, Tagalog and Spanish of course.

[Thaddeus]

So the million dollar question (which I raise again and again) is this: WHY DOESN'T THAILAND DO IT --

Because they have all been raised by the 8am 'you are perfect' indoctrination system.

Shed that, there's hope,

[I Like Thai]

If the system doesn't work, then a second language will never be taught successfully to any great degree. Try looking at systems around the world that had failed miserably, but who then changed their system, to where now a second language is spoken fluently by the students.

I am a native English speaker in Ireland, same as everyone else, as English is the spoken language. When I went to Primary and Secondary school, Irish was a mandatory subject. We were all taught Irish from age four to eighteen. All our teachers were fluent in both English and Irish. They were all fully qualified teachers with very high standards of education.

Very very few people from my generation and all the generations before me can speak Irish. It's never used because it's rare to meet anyone that can speak Irish.

A few months back I was at a family wedding where I was speaking to some of my nieces and their friends for a few minutes (they were coming to their parents looking for money) they were about 13, 14,15 years age group. I was absolutely astounded that they could all speak fluent Irish with each other and their English was also of an equally high standard, It was a lot better than the English you'd hear from children at a "regular" school.

I remembered that they were attending a Gaelscoileanna, this is a school where the students have "Language Immersion" as its teaching method. These schools started out at a small level, with only a handful around the country. Due to their success, their numbers have been growing rapidly. Here is some information on them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaelscoil

A Gaelscoil (Irish pronunciation: [ˈɡeːl̪ˠsˠkɛlʲ]; plural: Gaelscoileanna) is an Irish-medium school (particularly primary school) in Ireland: the term refers especially to Irish-medium schools outside the Irish-speaking regions.^[1]

Sign at Irish-medium primary school inNewry, Northern Ireland.

Dublin City and County has a number of Irish-medium schools.

Students in the Gaelscoileanna acquire the Irish language through language immersion, though they study the standard curriculum. Gaelscoileanna, unlike English-medium schools, have the reputation of producing competent Irish speakers.^[2] English-medium schools, in contrast, produce relatively few fluent Irish speakers, despite the Irish language being an obligatory subject in the Republic of Ireland in both primary and secondary school. This has been attributed in part to the lack of Irish-language immersion programs.^[3] The present government has promised reforms in curriculum and teaching training for Irish in English-medium schools.^[4]

Contents [hide]

• 1 Overview
• 2 Social status and function
• 3 Irish language by province
  • 3.1 Leinster
  • 3.2 Ulster
  • 3.3 Munster
  • 3.4 Connacht
• 4 Future Meánscoileanna to open
• 5 Straitéis 20 Bliain - 20 Year Strategy for the Irish Language
• 6 See also
• 7 References
• 8 External links
• 9 See also

[edit]Overview

Their success is due to effective (though limited) community support and an efficient administrative infrastructure. They are distinguished by being the product, not of state policy, but of a genuine community movement.

Gaelscoileanna have undergone a striking expansion over the last few decades, though there are now concerns that recent rules limiting the founding of new schools may affect Irish-medium education, especially when the demand is greater than the supply.^[5]

In 1972 there were only 11 such schools at primary level and five at secondary level in the Republic. Now there are 172 at primary level and 39 at secondary level.^[6] When similar schools from Northern Ireland are added, there are in total 298 gaelscoileanna at primary level and 72 schools at post-primary level (gaelcholáistí).^[7] These schools educate over 37,800 students, not counting around 4,000 children in Irish-medium preschools. Coláiste Feirste is the only second-level Irish-medium school in Northern Ireland.^[8][9] There is now at least one gaelscoil in each of the 32 counties of Ireland^[7] and several in some larger towns and cities. There are only nine counties nationally that do not have a secondary level Irish-medium school: Laois, Offaly, Leitrim, Roscommon, Cavan, Sligo, Longford, Fermanagh and Down.

[edit]Social status and function

Gaelscoileanna have acquired a reputation for providing excellent academic results at a moderate cost. They have been described as a system of “positive social selection,” giving better than average access to tertiary education and the social and employment opportunities which follow. An analysis of “feeder” schools which send students on to tertiary level institutions shows that 22% of Irish-medium schools send all their students on to tertiary level, compared to 7% of English-medium schools.^[10]

It has been argued that the bilingualism resulting from early acquisition of another language is of general intellectual benefit and helps children to learn a third or fourth language. Irish advocates of the immersion approach sometimes refer to studies showing that bilingual children have advantages over monoglot children in other subjects.^[11]

[edit]Irish language by province Ulster Munster Leinster Connacht Total Bunscoileanna (Primary schools) 45 45 66 18 174 Meánscoileanna (Secondary schools) 11 22 17 14 64

There are roughly 150,000 Irish native speakers and daily speakers; 91,825 Irish speakers in Ireland with more than half of these located in the Gaeltachts and the rest are in Irish-medium education in all four provinces. According to the 2006 Census there are also 53,471 daily speakers outside the education system across the country.

[edit]Leinster

There are 39,594 Irish speakers; 1,299 native speakers in the Meath Gaeltacht and this doesn't count the 19,348 attending the 66 Gaelscoils (Irish language primary schools) and 15 Gaelcholáiste (Irish language secondary schools) all across the province. According to the Irish Census 2006 there are 18,947 daily speakers outside the education system in the province.

[edit]Ulster

There are 29,199 Irish language speakers; 14,456 native speakers in the Donegal Gaeltacht (areas where 30-100% of the population are native speakers) while 1,427 are living in areas where it is spoken by less than 30%.^{[citation needed]} There is also the 5,339 attending the 44 Gaelscoils (Irish language primary schools) and 7 Gaelcholáiste (Irish language secondary schools) across the province.^{[citation needed]} According to the Irish Census 2006 there are 7,977 daily speakers outside the education system in the province.

[edit]Munster

There are 34,593 Irish speakers; 9,737 native speakers in the Munster Gaeltacht areas of Cork, Kerry and Waterford and there is also the 12,219 attending the 45 Gaelscoils (Irish language primary schools) and 15 Gaelcholáiste (Irish language secondary schools) across the province. According to the Irish Census 2006 there are 12,637 daily speakers outside the education system in the province.

[edit]Connacht

There are 41,910 Irish language speakers; 18,358 native speakers in the Connacht Gaeltacht areas of Galway and Mayo(in areas where 30-100% of the population are native speakers) while there are 5,300 living in areas where Irish is spoken by less than 30%. There is also the 4,265 attending the 18 Gaelscoils (Irish language primary schools) and 3Gaelcholáiste (Irish language secondary schools) outside the Gaeltacht across the province. According to the Irish Census 2006 there are 13,910 daily speakers outside the education system in the province.

[edit]Future Meánscoileanna to open

Three new second-level gaelscoileanna are to open in Ireland by 2014 - Coláiste Ghlór na Mara in Balbriggan, Coláiste Deisceart Átha Cliath in Dundrum and GaelcholáisteCharraig Uí Leighin in Carragaline in Cork.

[edit]Straitéis 20 Bliain - 20 Year Strategy for the Irish Language

The function and future of the gaelscoileanna will be affected by the 20 Year Irish Language Strategy, published in November 2009. This emphasises the importance of offering all children in primary schools in Ireland the opportunity to experience partial immersion in the formative years of primary education. It calls for primary teachers to have additional immersion classes to improve their competence in the language. This would involve teaching some subjects such as Mathematics and Science in Irish.^[12] Such a policy, if implemented effectively, would mean that the gaelscoileanna were no longer the only means of promoting bilingualism in schoolchildren.

[Phatcharanan]

I got bored after the 3rd paragraph

Edited March 9, 2013 by Phatcharanan

[overherebc]

Post 89

CM Kelly,

Answer wasn't directed at you but to the previous.

[diamondmax]

It'll be a nice eight week holiday for some British students who will spend most of the day looking like rabbits trapped in headlights and wondering why the Thai English teacher can't speak English.

I was begining to think I was the only English teacher to realise that the Thai English teachers can't speak or understand English when we speak with them. They just say yes or no but have no idea what we have said to them.

I have even heard the Thai teachers translate something we have said and say the opposite.

[diamondmax]

A few weeks ago there was a report on how the Thais were the worst in ASEAN at English, maybe if they got NES with a CELTA tefl cert of at least 120 hours, instead of demanding teachers with degrees, there would be more teachers available and the quality and numbers of Thais speaking a level of English that ASEAN expects could perhaps increase.

If all Thai schools are the same as mine, they don't care about the government requirements for foreigners teaching English. Their English depart,emt teachers all think they know better.

They employ the foreigners to fulfill the government requirements and use them to entertain the students and no more.

We are used for quantity not quality. I am made to teach 24 periods per week and that is more than 1,000 students.

How do they expect any student to improve their English in 55 minutes per week when they come late to class everytime also.

Thai teachers teach 3 periods to the foreigners 1 period. It should be the other way around. Also, have you listened to the Thai's teaching English? They speak Thai about 90% of the time, and the English they do speak is either wrong or just a few words of vocabulary.

[peter elmore]

How dumb is the Thailand education system???????

For many years they employed backpackers to teach English and now they realize the whole country has fallen so far behind the rest of Asia with language skills because of non professional teachers and school head masters who are as dumb as the students for letting this happen in the first place.

Now Thailand will only employ English teachers who have a full degree in teaching English and the students who could not understand the dumb ass backpacker will have no chance to understand a professional teacher and the student falls further behind.

But when the professional English teacher realizes that Thailand does not give the benefits that China and most other countries do they will leave and go elsewhere and poor dumb ass Thailand will be left wondering what to do!!!!

Well, you can start by paying for the airfare, visa, work permit, accommodation and have programs written in English and even a time table written in English and use some common sense when dealing with a Farang and stop all the 'face' crap, it is like we have to read minds because most of the teachers have no concept of English so they say nothing,

The school I work at has me doing some minor repairs and if I use my money to buy the parts I need do you think they repay me straight away, not on your life and 2 weekends in a row I have been left without any food money because the accountant at my school runs away from her duties.

I will be glad to leave Thailand at the end of the term and get a good job with a good school that is savvy when dealing with foreign teachers.

Lastly, why are there German, Dutch, Swedish teachers teaching English in Thailand when English is not there first language????????

Last year over 8000 teachers left Thailand and I wonder how many more will go this year, so go ahead, get your student teachers and see what they can do in 8 weeks. We all know the answer!!!

[chonabot]

How dumb is the Thailand education system???????

For many years they employed backpackers to teach English and now they realize the whole country has fallen so far behind the rest of Asia with language skills because of non professional teachers and school head masters who are as dumb as the students for letting this happen in the first place.

Now Thailand will only employ English teachers who have a full degree in teaching English and the students who could not understand the dumb ass backpacker will have no chance to understand a professional teacher and the student falls further behind.

But when the professional English teacher realizes that Thailand does not give the benefits that China and most other countries do they will leave and go elsewhere and poor dumb ass Thailand will be left wondering what to do!!!!

Well, you can start by paying for the airfare, visa, work permit, accommodation and have programs written in English and even a time table written in English and use some common sense when dealing with a Farang and stop all the 'face' crap, it is like we have to read minds because most of the teachers have no concept of English so they say nothing,

The school I work at has me doing some minor repairs and if I use my money to buy the parts I need do you think they repay me straight away, not on your life and 2 weekends in a row I have been left without any food money because the accountant at my school runs away from her duties.

I will be glad to leave Thailand at the end of the term and get a good job with a good school that is savvy when dealing with foreign teachers.

Lastly, why are there German, Dutch, Swedish teachers teaching English in Thailand when English is not there first language????????

Last year over 8000 teachers left Thailand and I wonder how many more will go this year, so go ahead, get your student teachers and see what they can do in 8 weeks. We all know the answer!!!

I agree on many points, but will you be leaving for China?

It seems the Thai Education system realize that many foreign teachers, NES or not, prefer living here to the other options.

They use this to their advantage and, as they care little for the students welfare, are really quite clever in an oblique nipple sucking way.

[Neeranam]

The problem with teaching English here is not the teachers, it's THE GODD*MN COUNTRY. Look at the Philippines -- ALL the locals possess at the least rudimentary English skills. It's because English is everywhere, but most importantly, on the ONE thing they're glued to most -- THE TELLY.

Even in this age of information, most Thais are STILL glued to their TVs -- watching something in Thai. If not, they're glued to FessBooook or YouTube -- WATCHING OR READING SOMETHING IN THAI.

You can't change the internet, but you CAN reach out through the idiot box.

Of the NUMEROUS Thais I've interviewed -- those who CAN speak English have one or more of the following things in common:

1.) THEY DIDNT LEARN ENGLISH IN SCHOOL

2.) They listen to ENGLISH music

3.) They watch movies and cartoons -- IN ENGLISH

4.) They READ English comic books or novels

I even had the HONOUR of meeting a BUS DRIVER -- (really, no sh*t, and some of you guys in MoChit might know him too) who spoke near-PERFECT English! This person proved to me that there IS hope for all Thais -- if ONLY the COUNTRY would allow it.

So the million dollar question (which I raise again and again) is this: WHY DOESN'T THAILAND DO IT -- public media broadcasts with a GOOD mix of English?

Answer: It's because it WILL work, and it WILL kill the education industry's #1 money-maker: the ENGLISH PROGRAM (EP) that schools these days sell.

Why educate the masses for free when the masses are willing to pay top-baht for sub-quality education?

The Philippines is different to here as they were colonized by Spain and the USA.

Why shouldn't a bus driver speak English? Don't they watch telly

I've met many bus/tuk tuk drivers who speak English. Mostly they have worked abroad in the Middle East or Japan/Korea. They make a few baht and want a nice easy life. They aren't all stupid.

[puchooay]

I have to chuckle when I see Westerners constantly bashing Thai people for their poor English skills... yet I know almost no farang that can speak more than three words of Thai, even the ones that have lived here for years. If it's so damn easy to pick up a language, then how about picking up the one in the country you reside in before you rip into them for not learning your language.

Good post, but Thai is much harder to learn than English, 42 letters in the Thai alphabet, most words only have one syllable, five different tones. I have learned a little Thai, and anyone who says it is easy is kidding themselves. I don't blame any Farang who does not want to learn to speak Thai.

Thai harder that English???? That's a good one. Thai is far more direct than English. Only one set of verbs and not three. Only one real tense and not 24. The reason there are so many letters in written Thai, actually 76 in total, is that they all have their own unique sound and don't have to be mixed with other sounds. No need for Ch, Sh, Th, ough, ea, ee, to mention just a few.

I found learning Thai as a second language quite easy.

[NoshowJones]

I have to chuckle when I see Westerners constantly bashing Thai people for their poor English skills... yet I know almost no farang that can speak more than three words of Thai, even the ones that have lived here for years. If it's so damn easy to pick up a language, then how about picking up the one in the country you reside in before you rip into them for not learning your language.

Good post, but Thai is much harder to learn than English, 42 letters in the Thai alphabet, most words only have one syllable, five different tones. I have learned a little Thai, and anyone who says it is easy is kidding themselves. I don't blame any Farang who does not want to learn to speak Thai.

Thai harder that English???? That's a good one. Thai is far more direct than English. Only one set of verbs and not three. Only one real tense and not 24. The reason there are so many letters in written Thai, actually 76 in total, is that they all have their own unique sound and don't have to be mixed with other sounds. No need for Ch, Sh, Th, ough, ea, ee, to mention just a few.

I found learning Thai as a second language quite easy.

I do see where you are coming from Puchooay, But in Thai, you do have to do jigsaw puzzles trying to construct sentences. If I was learning Spanish or German, I would be quite fluent by now.