Originally Posted by
toddaniels
Those old AUA books are a valuable way to learn conversational thai (as well as reading and writing with the other books too). The AUA branch in Bangkok sells them at the bookstore but doesn't teach using that method anymore.
As I said, those are good (if somewhat dated) books and with the c/d's are valuable. They're just paperweights without the c/d's
"wjblaney" I hate to break it to you, BUT you're NEVER gonna be fluent, nor will you ever fool a born-bred-rice fed thai speaker into thinkin' you're a native speaker for even a second! "Fluency" is just "an imaginary place in your mind" or mostly in the minds of people who can't speak thai for shit when they hear someone else speaking thai! BUT you most definitely will be able to communicate with the indigenous natives here in their language.
After 10 years here I don't agree that the thaiz are very fun-loving or all that talkative, especially to someone they don't know, but you think what you want...
BTW: there's NO downside to being able to learn to read thai as last time I checked (which I do once in a while) EVERYTHING here in written in thai... It's WAY easier to learn to read thai than it is to be able to speak thai even in a semi-coherent fashion..
Good Luck, stick with it.