For those who would like to learn Thai language here I share with you some information from my experience that may help you.first thing to know is that if you want thai people to understand you you'll need to learn the language really deep which mean you'll need to know how to read and to write also.
and why is that?
well...few thing for you to know :
1) sound - this mean every word have a diffrent sound which define the word. in the beginning I refuse to believe it's true so i just skip that part believing that "they will understand me anyway" (which of course wasn't the case)
2) vowels - there is 32 vowels in Thai language and it take some time to get to know how to pronounce them.
3) short & long vowels - using long or short vowel can change the meaning of the ward you pronounce.
4) consonants - there are some consonants that sound very similar to the untrained ear but have a differant sound (i.e. ph-p with the air come out , p - p close to b - etc...)
5) meaning of wards - if you'll look the dictionary you'll see the ward in thai have many meanings in English. many times one ward have a few totally differant meanings.
6) variety of ward - they language is very reach language with many differant wards...
7) compose a sentence - the way to compose sentence many time is very diffrant from English.
well...I hope it's not make you to give up...you can do it...
it's just important you know what you facing to.
for beginning I advice to start with the book Thai for beginner in this link :
http://www.learningthai.com/and learn it from the beginning until the end. you may use Thai people to help you.
wishing you success with this.
it's just important to know it's worth the effort