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Home - Why Learn Thai |
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| Overview
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Each year over 12 million people travel to Thailand and a large number relocate
or spend an extended amount of time there.
Tourists can easily get by speaking no Thai if they stick to the main tourist
areas and establishments. If you want a richer holiday and fuller cultural
experience, knowing a little Thai will definitely go a long way.
If you plan to stay for a while, your ability to speak Thai will give you more
choice of possible partners and will allow you to build more friendships. It
will also give you independence for all those simple day to day tasks like
ordering food, going shopping or renting a DVD. Knowing Thai will allow you to
start a business with a much greater chance of success than any non-Thai
speaker and can make it a great deal easier for you to land a high paying expat
job. Furthermore, it will allow you to successfully integrate into society and
have a happier and more fulfilled life. Overall the quality of your life in
Thailand will be significantly increased if you can speak Thai.
The below information is definitely worth reading for those who are planning to
spend an extended amount of time in Thailand.
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| Relationships and Love
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It is an undeniable fact that a lot of foreigners come to Thailand to
build relationships with Thai women and why not? Thai women can be extremely
beautiful, very feminine, caring and honest. If you are one of those who has an
interest in meeting a Thai woman but you can’t speak Thai, you are putting a
huge limit on yourself.
The average Thai person will study English while they are in school and maybe a
little after that while in university. Most of those who have studied have
never practiced and, therefore, are unable to converse. If you are unable to
speak Thai, you are ruling out having a relationship or even a friendship with
a large portion of the population. For myself, in the past, I missed a number
of opportunities with really nice girls. This was because, back then, I
couldn’t speak Thai and they couldn’t speak English well. It’s not that these
girls were not smart or educated. I recall that one was a civil engineer. It’s
just that the average person in Thailand cannot speak English well enough to
have a conversation.
By learning Thai you will open up a tremendous number of opportunities in
building relationships. You wouldn’t want to miss that perfect girl just
because you couldn’t speak to her. It’s unquestionable, speaking Thai will open
up the gates to having relationships with Thai people.
I have often heard people say that a percentage of the girls who can speak
English fluently may be out there looking for someone for something other than
love. Being able to speak Thai will give you opportunities to meet those normal
girls who represent the vast majority of women in Thailand.
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| Integrating into society |
Imagine that you are living in your home country and a new neighbor moves in.
You try to build a friendship with him over the years but his language skills
are terrible and he doesn’t seem to be improving or even interested in
improving. I’m sure that you won’t think very highly of him. Will the situation
be so different if you were living in Thailand?
Sure, this new neighbor of yours can live in your country but how fulfilled
will his life be? It goes without saying that he will be missing out on a lot
of important aspects in his life due to his communication inabilities. This
neighbor of yours will only go out with his foreign friends and won’t develop
an understanding of or relationships with the people around him. He will be
living inside his own little society.
Understanding the language of the country that you live in is essential to
integrating and having a sustainable and happy life. I have heard a number of
people admit that they are ashamed that they can’t speak Thai. I think I would
feel ashamed, too, if I lived in a country but couldn’t speak the language. I
would at least want to be in the process of learning it. One of the main
reasons that people don’t speak Thai even though they live in Thailand is
because they think studying Thai is hard.
Well, studying any language can be very hard if you use the wrong method. It is
easy to waste countless hours, weeks, and months of time studying
ineffectively. Our program has been specifically designed based on scientific
research so that you learn Thai in the minimum amount of time with maximum
efficiency.
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| People will appreciate you and look at
you differently |
| As tourism is such a big industry in Thailand, people will see that you are a
foreigner and tend to look upon you and treat you as a tourist. Once you can
speak Thai, local people will view you in a totally different light. They will
be friendly and curious to get to know you. Showing that you can speak Thai
will demonstrate that you have put an effort into integrating into their
country. Thai people will be very impressed when they hear that you can speak
Thai.
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| Friendships |
Let's face it. Having friends and relationships is one of the most important
things in having a happy and fulfilled life. It is easy back in your own
country because you can chat with your next door neighbor, your workmates,
relatives, shopkeepers and almost everyone in your country about anything you
could possibly think of.
In your home country it would be no problem to go out to dinner with your
friends or relatives. You could also chat with your coworkers about the latest
news or sports. You wouldn’t have any problems perusing your favorite hobbies
with like-minded people. If you are living in Thailand and don’t speak Thai,
you will realize that you take this for granted.
Speaking Thai will allow you to build a whole new social network, create
lifelong friends, join in on conversations, ask for someone’s opinion or simply
discuss your feelings about a particular topic. It’s these small things that
can make the difference between being happy and content in a country and
wanting to go back home.
In the more developed places within Thailand there are sure to be English
speakers around, but there is no doubt that having to rely on English speaking
people for every thing you do in Thailand will limit the pleasure and
fulfillment of your stay.
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| Business and Trust |
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You may or may not have heard stories about people being cheated in business or
relationships in Thailand. It does happen I have experienced it on a couple of
occasions myself. I know that, if I could have spoken Thai back then, it
probably wouldn’t have happened. If it did, however, I would have been able to
quickly find out the truth.
It will be much harder for someone to cheat you if you can speak Thai well.
First, you will be able to gain a much deeper understanding into that person’s
character just by the fact that you can understand how they interact and behave
with the people around them.
I know personally that if I had a business in Thailand, I would want to know
what my employees were talking about. If I had a Thai girlfriend, I would want
to gain a deeper understanding of her personality and understand how she
behaves with people apart from me.
Here are a couple of quotes from the book “Start Up and Stay Up in Thailand,”
the quotes are included in the section on Richard Murray who runs a
distribution company in Bangkok with around 100 employees.
“Knowing Thai increases the size of the talent pool available to you as so few
Thais, especially at the worker and clerical level, can speak foreign
languages.”
“And finally, knowing the language will better ensure that you, the foreign
entrepreneur, will know what is happening around you. In a foreign land, where
the cultural cues differ, guessing what others are thinking and doing can
become a hazardous adventure.”
“I see this all the time. An expat opens up a small company. He hires people
who can speak very good English. By doing this he thinks, ‘Ok, now I don’t have
to learn Thai.’ But you know, not everybody is a saint. Sooner or later,
certain people are going to figure out they can bleed you white if they wanted
to. When I started my business I decided that I never wanted to be taken
advantage of."
Here are some quotes from the book “How to Establish a Successful Business in
Thailand” by Phillip Wylie.
“Learn the Thai language and respect Thai customs and etiquette” is second in
the list of “Top Ten Do’s” for starting a successful business in Thailand..
David Frost, who is managing a print cartridge manufacture company that
annually grosses over ninety million Baht, states “Learn a working knowledge of
Thai as quickly as possible,”
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| Independence |
If you can’t speak the Thai language, even a simple task can become a real
problem. How are you going to order food at the local restaurant? How are you
going to go to the local video shop and sign up for a membership? What about if
your car or bike breaks down? How are you going to organize for it to be
repaired? What if your toilet springs a leak? There are countless other
situations in which you will be left helpless if you cannot communicate.
One way to get around this is if you have a Thai partner. But is this really a
way to live being dependent on your Thai partner to help you with every small
task? I know certainly it would be hard for me to live being so dependent on a
partner for an expended period of time.
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| Satisfaction
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| There is no doubt that the satisfaction of learning a language can be very
gratifying. The feeling of conversing in another language can be incredibly
pleasing. Any non-Thai speaking foreigners are sure to envy your skills. |
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| Employment |
| Jobs for foreigners are quite limited in Thailand. There are lots of foreigners
who would love to relocate to Thailand but they cannot because they are unable
to find a job. In Thailand there are lots of large multinational companies that
do employ foreigners and normally offer large salary packages. If you can read
and speak Thai, it will be infinitely easier for you to land these types of
these jobs. |
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| Entertainment |
| Obviously it goes without saying that the vast majority of books, magazines, TV
shows, news reports, radio stations, signage, promotional materials,
newspapers, timetables, program guides, menus, and websites in Thailand are
written in Thai. Being able to read and speak Thai will put a huge range of
information and entertainment options at your disposal. You will be able to
chat about the latest Thai news and events with your neighbors, colleagues or
friends.
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| Can older people
learn a language? |
The National Teaching and Learning Forum have put together an extensive
research paper on the matter. It is definitely worth a read for any older
people who are thinking about learning Thai. Here are a few extracts:
“There is no decline in the ability to learn as people get older; except for
minor considerations such as hearing and vision loss, the age of the adult
learner is not a major factor in language acquisition; the context in which
adults learn is the major influence on their ability to acquire the new
language.”
”Studies comparing the rate of second language acquisition in children and
adults have shown that although children may have an advantage in achieving
native-like fluency in the long run, adults actually learn languages more
quickly than children in the early stages”
“More recent research in neurology has demonstrated that, while language
learning is different in childhood and adulthood because of developmental
differences in the brain, "In important respects adults have superior language
learning capabilities" (Walsh and Diller). The advantage for adults is that the
neural cells responsible for higher-order linguistic processes such as
understanding semantic relations and grammatical sensitivity develop with age.
Especially in the areas of vocabulary and language structure, adults are
actually better language learners than children.”
The full article is located here
http://www.ntlf.com/html/lib/bib/87-9dig.htm
Here is what Steve Kaufmann, author of “The Linguist” and founder of
www.thelinguist.com, a site that helps millions of people learn English and
other more common languages, has to say, “I do believe that older (over 20)
people make the best language learners. They are more motivated. I also think
they are just as good at it, as children, despite the often repeated myth that
children learn languages better.”
There has been a lot of study about what the effects of being able to speak
multiple languages have on the mind. Here are some extracts from various
research papers:
“The researchers determined that the mean age of onset of dementia symptoms in
the monolingual group was 71.4 years, while the bilingual group was 75.5 years.
This difference remained even after considering the possible effect of cultural
differences, immigration, formal education, employment and even gender as
influencers in the results.”
“"The data show a huge protective effect," adds co-investigator Dr. [Fergus]
Craik, who cautioned that this is still a preliminary finding but nonetheless
in line with a number of other recent findings about lifestyle effects on
dementia.”
“There are lifelong cognitive benefits to knowing two languages and
transitional benefits gained during the learning process. Studies show that at
every level, bilinguals perform better in cognitive tests. Children who study a
second language do better at logical reasoning, mathematics and English verbal
tests. They get better exam results and adults who are competent in more than
one language do best in both verbal and nonverbal intelligence tests.”
”Old people wary of dementia are encouraged to keep their minds active by
learning another language. The mental challenge should strengthen brain
connections and keep them sharp. Quite apart from all this there are obvious
social and employment advantages to having access to two cultures.”
“As we grow older, one of our many health concerns is to maintain our mental
health. If scientists could only come up with a surefire way to keep the aging
brain sharp and agile, it would be a major breakthrough. Well, they have.
Studies have shown that acquiring a second language actually changes the brain
and increases mental acuity. A study on the language region of the brain was
conducted by Andrea Mechelli, a neuro scientist at University College, London,
and reported in the science journal Nature. They found that the grey matter in
the language region of the brain was larger in people who speak two languages
than in those who speak only one. Another study, conducted by researchers from
York University in Canada has found that adults who were fluent in two
languages were sharper mentally.
It has long been known that education in general has beneficial effects on the
brain. People with more education, and especially those who continue their
education in some form, are less likely to have dementia in old age. In a
similar manner to exercising your body to keep it healthy as you grow older,
learning in general exercises the brain and can keep it healthier into old age.
It is a sort of a “use it or lose it” philosophy for the brain. But language
acquisition, in particular, has a protective effect on the brain, not only on
language related skills such as vocabulary, but also on non-verbal and
cognitive skills.
What is the lesson? Get out there and learn a language. The studies have shown
that the better the proficiency in the second language, the more the language
region of the brain grows, but even learning the rudiments of a second language
can help. Continuing the study of the language will, of course, accrue these
healthy brain benefits longer. There are additional benefits to studying a
language that are not directly brain related, but can also help the aging
brain.”
HighSpeedThai has been specifically designed for the adult learner. If you have
not read the overview about how we ensure that you will learn Thai quickly and
efficiently, click here.
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