Starting to learn thai language.

[Dirk69]

Hello, first of all allow me introduce myself.
I´m a 45 year old german (and still live in germany).
Two years ago i fell in love with thailand. Since then i made some friends via the internet. Most of them had to be dumped but 3 or 4 buddies (girls of course ) are left.
The problem is, (many of you might know) an englished based conversation with thais can be pretty annoying (even when they have a bachelor or masters degree).

My english skills are not good enough to teach them so i decided to learn thai. Not only to pamper my friends...first of all i try to keep my brain working.

Finding a thai teacher in germany is almost impossible and i doubt that 1 hour a week in a community college will help me to make significant progress.

So i have to find another way to learn thai. I watched some videos from "Learn thai with Mod", btw. i.m.o. one of the cutest and stunning thai girls i´ve ever seen.
Her videos i will keep in my mind for later but for the first step i decided to try Highspeedthai.
Hopefully this will help me to set my first steps in thai language on a solid footing.

I will keep you up to date about my first steps with highspeedthai.

[cgphuket]

Unless your interacting with Thai speakers, all lessons will produce low results. I knew a guy who did all the books and all the videos before he came to Thailand. He did learn a lot, and thought he was fluent, but no Thai people could understand a word he said. There is a "language exchange" website (google search it) in which you can meet people who wish to learn German and can teach Thai for free, via skype...

[Dirk69]

Thanks a lot for ur answer and for the language exchange website. That´s really interesting.

Yes, you are right. Learning a language by books might be pretty different to speak or to understand the language by listening.
For example reading an english text or listening to radio-shows is not a big problem for me. Watching english movies can be a really big challenge as long as the actors use to mutter.

I have the chance to talk with my thai friends via skype. Learning the basics by highspeedthai and talking via Skype / talking face to face with thai people living in germany as u suggested would be best.