Jun 19, 2011
On today's episode we're joined by Brett Whiteside, one of the few foreigners in Thailand who teach Thai. Brett's road from wide-eyed tourist to competent speaker, translator, consultant and tutor is unique in that the only person he had help him was himself. Brett tells us the methods he learned to drill the new language into his head, from returning to the same restaurant over and over again, to refusing to learn transliteration, to watching Thai soap operas.
Brett also explains why he doesn't think there's any such thing as 'bad Thai', and how a mnemonic story he created about a boy, a chicken, a turtle and a fish have helped all of his students become competent Thai speakers much faster than they expected.
Tony and Greg also talk a bit about food delivery in Thailand, and why Pizza Company - despite protests from some - has the system nailed.