Hi all,

What is the best system/school/book for learning Thai without a teacher?

A quick preface:

I'm new to language learning in general.

I've done around 30 hours of lessons with a teacher where we just practice speaking, and he would give me vocabulary.

I was using Anki to memorise that vocab, and it went well.

I live in Thailand, so I've been able to practice speaking a lot. The taxi drivers loved it haha.

Then, I had a 4 month gap...

Fast forward to today.

I've now committed to learning reading and writing (I kept hearing this is a must) and I'm using the Read Thai in 10 Days book. This has been awesome. And, I'm almost done with it.

It's so cool to be able to read road signs. And now I know how to pronounce things correctly lol.

What's generally the best next step?

I've heard that getting Thai children's books is a great approach, and just following the system school kids use.

But then I see these expensive courses from BananaThai.

1-on-1 tutors are good, but again, I'm not sure it's necessary.

Should I just learn the most common 1,000-2,000 words ASAP next? With an Anki deck?

Or what?

It's a bit of a minefield for me, and I'd appreciate any pointers you have!

PS: Please don't promote your apps here! Everyone can build them with AI these days, and I'm really looking for the tried and tested path/system here.

I’m a native Thai but I grew up abroad which unfortunately never made me connect with my Thai heritage, language, and culture. I want to learn Thai so that I can live in Thailand and not only connect with my home country but also professionally work and live. Any ideas on how I can achieve such level of Thai efficiently?

So, I was struggling finding a good way to start learning Thai, so I figured I would start building my own app. It was made with the use of AI and it is far from perfect yet but I would love your feedback to make it as good as possible so it can help out people who were in the same boat as me.

I tried adding as many different ways as possible to learn so it has something for everyone, so here are some examples:

1. A main course with 540+ lessons. They all come with a range of different ways of asking questions including pictures and audio (some of which still needs to be improved).
   
2. A Learn section which has: -Thai script, with all consonants, vowels and tone marks and a character tracer to help you write. -Tone trainer, Listening and Reading drills. -Grammar (19 topics) and a sentence structure course for building real sentences. -Classifiers, Numbers & Money, Time, Days & Months. -Thai Keyboard and typing practice. -Some other things like: An AI buddy you can ask general questions or roleplay a situation with, a library of short Thai stories with recall quizzes, Phrases, Flashcards & Thai Sayings.
3. Some games to help you learn: - Sabai Defense: a tower defense game that quizzes you inbetween rounds (in progress) -A where is waldo type game on where to find certain objects given in Thai -Tone tap and Tone boss for drilling tones.
4. It has some useful tools for everyday life in Thailand like a currency converter, weather and time and essential Thai phrases.
5. Lastly, there is a section called "My Thailand" which gives you information on actually living in Thailand, dealing with things such as Visas, bank accounts, insurance, tips on where to live, home utilities and some culture tips all with official links to the government websites.

I tried making it as visually appealing as possible with different themes, some mascots and images.

The post has become a bit longer than I meant it to be haha, but it's called Sabai Thai on Google play store. Link: Sabai Thai. Currently it comes with 20 free lessons and then 1 free lesson every day.

Please leave some feedback on things you don't like, what can be improved etc. Anything is welcome :)