Staff Writer

Thailand, like the majority of SE Asia, has a deeply embedded culture of employing house help. Housekeepers, cooks, gardeners, nannies and drivers are a normal part of the daily fabric of life out here. When expats move to this region they get the opportunity to hand their cleaning chores to others. Some wobble in alarm … Read more

Learning a language is not just about shoveling a bucket of grammar and vocabulary into your head until it explodes. You need to throw a chunk of culture in too. And then blend often, and well. On the culture side, I believe that getting your head around the concept of เกรงใจ /kreng jai/ is an … Read more

The Thai phrases you need in your first week: greetings, ordering food, taxis, markets, and how to say sorry and thank you.

Learn every Thai pronoun for I, you, he, and she, which one fits each relationship, and the common mistakes that instantly mark a beginner.

It’s been my observation that when you are advanced in a language, to read you don’t need to recognize each letter. You see words as a coherent whole. And given the context you can guess what the word is quite easy. But at the beginning of learning a language such as Thai, even little differences … Read more

A practical guide to Thai pronunciation: aspirated vs. unaspirated consonants, why vowel length changes meaning, the five tones, and why romanized spelling leads you astray.