buspilot

Living in Thailand. Seems the British got here first with all the spellings on road signs and all!

Small town here in Sukhothai, so not many expats here either. Have met a Belgian, Frenchman, and a few Germans!

Sue

Hi Welcome to BE!

I see you have found your way, and have started posting, in our Far East forum.

I hope you enjoy being part of our community, and if you ever have any site questions please feel free to let myself, the moderators or the concierges know, or you can post any questions in our Site Feedback section.

How are you enjoying Thailand, have you lived there long?

Sue

Jerseygirl

I just wanted to say hi and welcome your to BE.

Sue's given you the relelvant links to get you started but if you need any further help please give a mod or admin a shout.

Once again...welcome.

buspilot

Thanks for the warm welcomes Sue and Jerseygirl.

I have been in Thailand 3 years now. Life here is much more difficult than I expected because I have not found Thai as easy to learn as Spanish!

Jerseygirl

Having had difficulty adjusting to life in the US...I take my hat off to you. Adjusting to life in Thailand must be a zillion times more difficult.

Sue

I only know a smattering of Spanish, so the fact that you know Spanish and are now learning another language is great. Maybe one day I will buckle down and learn a new language. I took French at school but it seemed to go in one ear and out of the other.

meauxna

No kidding! And a whole new set of characters to learn... at least spoken Greek sounded vaguely familiar... what a great adventure!

Well, you've just about mastered American.

buspilot

What did you find an adjustment in the US? I've never been to the UK, but I spent a month in Australia and felt quite at home.

Of course, I didn't have to do the driving. My friend let me drive his van a few kilometers to get a feel for driving on the left. It was quite an experience. You don't appreciate how automated driving habits are until you try something different. Looking at it, it seems easy to drive on the other side of the road, but when you have to manually think about each move instead of just doing it, it's a more awkward experience.

Just that brief moment behind the wheel in Australia was great prep for driving in Thailand. Having done it once, I was more attuned to the issues when I got here, and picked it up pretty readily. I'm quite comfortable driving on the left now, but every now and then there's a deja vu experience that can be mildly disorienting. For example, here it's more common for people to sneak in driving on the wrong side of the road to avoid having to drive a distance to a break in the traffic island. You don't see it as often with cars, but motorbikes do it all the time. It's really a dangerous situation for motorbikes. They don't seem to appreciate how fragile life is, and how much less visible they are in traffic.

But sometimes when I see someone coming on the wrong side of the road, there's a flash of feeling like being in the US and feeling that I'm driving on the right instead of the left. And there's the occasional moment when you hit the wiper control instead of the turn signal!

buspilot

That's my feeling with Thai vocabulary. I study a list of words, and once I close the book, I can't remember any of it. It makes you appreciate how many "hooks" there are in Germanic and Romance languages to help English speakers acquire vocabulary.

They say that having learned a foreign language helps in acquiring others, but I just find Thai syllables to be too arbitrary to the English-speaking mind. They say that Thai words are built up from smaller words. I am starting to pick up enough vocabulary that I can see that will be a benefit to me in the future.

buspilot

I've studied the characters some and can't get them either! Again, just the appearance of arbitrary chicken scratch! I heard the other day that it's a form of Sanscrit. Now that it sounds more exotic, maybe I can give it another try!

I was surprised to learn that a lot of Americanisms came about because they were deliberately trying to be different from the British!

dreadsoc

Hi Buspilot

Just a little message to say Welcome to BE from me too.

Gotta say - I reckon the Thai language sounds pretty difficult to learn so I wish you all the best with it.
Hopefully having come aboard and found the Far East forum, you will meet some new friends in the process - let's hope some of them can offer an easy formula for learning Thai !!!

Dread - x