It's a bugger. Nobody in the village speaks much Thai although they understand it well enough. I realised a few months ago that many of the words that I had learnt (mostly to do with construction, farming or plants) were Lao! Start again. My wife, although very intelligent (for a woman!) only had two years schooling and self taught herself to read and write Thai, which is more than most of the older people in the village are able to do. She taught herself English also, remarkable and started giving lessons for ladies 'looking for a Farang'. However as she had no formal schooling she is unable to explain why certain things are as they are when reading Thai (mind you, her daughter in law who is a teacher can't explain either).
During my short stint as an English teacher for adults I decided that apart from pronunciation, you can learn English well enough from books, or nowadays the Internet. That's how I learnt German and French.
This doesn't seem to be the case for me as far as Thai is concerned and finding a good teacher (i.e. one that doesn't just make you repeat by rote and always considers it to be your fault if something doesn't work) seems to be very difficult. After three years I have picked up about 400 words and have little idea of grammar although I can read road signs and most shop signs unless some creative graphic bloody artist has had a go at making the sign unreadable. This doesn't mean I understand much of course. Being 68 doesn't help much either.
If we could find a good teacher willing to work in small groups (say 3 - 4 people) then I would be a willing participant.
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