Thai shouldn't be hard to learn. The grammar is not complex. There are no tenses to figure out and no complicated verb conjugations. The spelling is mostly regular and largely phonetic. The script looks daunting, but is really not that complicated. The tones are hard to fathom for someone who comes from a language that uses tones in a different way. (We use tones in English, just not as a distinguishing feature for words.)handdrummer wrote: ↑Thu Dec 01, 2022 6:39 pm After learning that Thai was one of the world's most difficult languages to learn, I didn't feel so bad about my inability to learn it. Also, it's difficult to learn a language at age 75+.
So, why is it so hard? Why can so many people around the world learn English, which is complicated, irregular and wildly diverse, while those of us who have spent time, money and effort to learn Thai have failed so miserably?
I have a theory which I'm sure would be wildly derided, so I won't expound on it, but it has to do with how Thais deal with less-than-perfect spoken Thai.