HSBC Expat

Sign in to join the discussion or ask one of our experts another question.

Sign in with Facebook
| Sign in

Must I Learn Thai to Move to Thailand?


Stephanie Katz's picture
By Stephanie Katz - Posted on
18 April 2011
How necessary is it to learn Thai if moving to Thailand. Is there a large enough expat community where this isn't necessary. What about communicating with local shopkeepers, restaurants workers, etc.?
Stephanie's picture
Offline
Last seen: 5 weeks 3 days ago
Joined: 04/19/2010

Living in:
Cape Town, South Africa

From:
Charlotte, North Carolina (the USA)

Stephanie's Website
Dependig on where you're living in Thailand, it may  be necessary to learn Thai. If moving to the Sukumvit neighbourhood of Bangkok and associating with mainly expats and teaching English, than no, you don't absolutely have to learn Thai - though you'll want to. If moving to a rural Thai in the North, than yes, you'll probably need to learn the language.

Learning Thai can be difficult especially for Western speakers - the language is tonal - meaning that every syllable has a tone associated with it, which effects the meaning of the word. Thus two words can be spelled exactly the same, but mean drastically different things. This can definitely be confusing, but to familiarize yourself with a few basics there's a great primer here - "Learning the Thai Language".

Your rating: None Average: 5 (1 vote)

Post new comment

By submitting this form, you accept the Mollom privacy policy.

Read more posts about Thailand

Become our local expat expert for your area in Thailand!

Expat Arrivals is looking for contributors to make this the ultimate guide for international expats.

If you are an established expat who could make time to write useful information for expats in your city in Thailand and answering forum questions from new and prospective expats, please contact us.

As our local expert you can have your profile showing on each page you publish, and will have an option to promote your website or blog.

Got a question about your new country?

Search Expat Arrivals

X
You may login with either your assigned username or your e-mail address.
The password field is case sensitive.
, after login or registration your account will be connected.
Login with your Facebook account (Recommended)
Loading