Learning a Foreign Language is Hard
I won't sugar coat it, learning a language is hard. Thai can feel especially challenging for an English speaker because it is spoken and written so differently than a Romance language
Thai's tonal system can feel like a roller coaster ride, one moment you're going up the next you're going down. The same sound can have different meanings depending on the pitch or tone. In English, you might change the pitch of a word to give it emphasis but this won't work in Thai because a change in tone can completely change the meaning of the word.
Of course, there's the Thai script. In addition to having to learn the characters and vowels, reading sentences can feel like untangling a giant box of cables where the vowels and consonants are intertwined and it's difficult to tell where one end and the other begins. Thai has a lot of loan words from other languages such as Pali and Sanskrit and also unique vocabulary such as idioms and colloquial expressions that can be hard to understand for non-native speakers, but as you become more exposed to the language you will be able to use the origin of the word to help your pronunciation.
Making it Easier
My biggest challenge when learning to read Thai was finding the right study materials. There are a lot of resources out there for learning Thai, but none of them are comprehensive. Most books try to avoid teaching you how to read and devise their own transcription system.
One of best things you can do to speed up your journey is to learn how to read, that's why we published he book Reading Thai Made Easy and developed a complete reading course within Thai for Fluency I. Literacy is a big step towards language fluency and after completing the reading lessons in you will be able to read.
Other than learning to read, the other aspects of learning Thai are quite easy. While Thai grammar is different from English grammar, it does have a simpler structure compared to other languages. The word order is more flexible than in English, and there are no verb tenses, no plural forms and no articles. Additionally, Thai also lacks grammatical gender which simplifies the process of learning grammar and vocabulary.
Thai people are like the friendly rollercoaster operator, they're ready and willing to help foreigners, so with patience and persistence, you will. So, fasten your safety belt and keep your hands and feet inside the car!