Thailand has a long beautiful history and and is the nation which has never been colonised by any countries. That is why this land is called ‘Thai’ as in “ไท ” which means “freedom” or “อิสระ“.
Some people never heard about Thailand and wonder what it is! Where is it? Is it Taiwan or China? I used to be asked like that when I was younger and had a chance to go abroad. Hence, I was then proud to tell the story of Thailand and its uniqueness. However, some people still asked if Thai people still used elephants for transportation. ^_^ No, it is not their fault for not knowing about Thailand and our culture. What surprised me is that some people know Thai places and street food better than me who even am Thai still haven’t been to those places so far.
Why do people love Thailand?
- Many say that the good things about Thailand are friendly people, beautiful places for sightseeing especially natural places like beaches and mountains. Above all, they love Thai food with tasty flavour and Thai cuisine is again unique to them.
- Lots of people say that Thailand is the place they want to spend their retirement for the rest of their life, not because everything is so cheap and accommodating them to have better living but also they love Thai culture and get used to Thai people’s smile and gentle personalities.
Why Thai language?
As mentioned earlier, people love to be around Thai people, eat Thai food, visit new places and learn more about Thai culture as well as meditation in a Buddhist style.
More and more people find jobs and settle down in Thailand. But some of them still cannot communicate in Thai even though they have lived in Thailand for many years. Therefore, another main reason people want to learn Thai language is to be able to communicate with Thai people of which the majority still cannot communicate in English and are embarrassed to talk to strangers.
As a Thai person who has chances to speak with students who want to learn Thai for their various purposes, I always tell them that learning ‘a language’ is not that simple journey of learning how to speak, listen, read and write. Culture is indeed another key to success when you are starting to learn another language since words, phrases and sentences used in that particular language have been influenced by the culture as well. Thus, please make sure you take Thai culture and norm into consideration when learning Thai language so that you are blended into Thai society really easily.
