Andy Williams is a self-taught, fluent Thai Speaker. He would like to encourage all Expats living here in Chiang Mai to learn, at least, some basic Thai language…

Andy’s Advice:
I’ve been living in Chiang Mai for 8 years. I loved it here from the first, but it wasn’t until I started to grasp the language that I really began to feel at home.

As with learning any new skill, the key is perseverance and time. The first hurdle where most people fall in the case of learning Thai, is the tones. Often when you go to lessons they stress this point and if you focus too much on getting these alien sounds right you’ll never get on with learning  the important part, which is vocab. This, as with learning any new language is always the first step. The tones are something you can come back to at a later date once you have started to get more of a grasp of the language itself.

Apart from the tones there are other reasons why you may be struggling when first learning, such as dialects, you think you are having a conversation with someone in central Thai when in fact they are talking to you in Northern Thai, and although the 2 dialects are not a million miles apart, it will certainly seem so if you’re speaking and listening skills are still at a basic level. The further you get from the city centre the more Thais will be speaking Northern dialect and the further you keep going the thicker the dialect will become.

Try not to let these things put you off learning the language; Thais are so welcoming and encouraging when they see a “Farang” speaking Thai, with a little persistence and an open mind it will give you much more of an understanding of the people in whose country we live.