When you learn a language at age 25, you approach it very differently to when you learn a language at age 2. You have different priorities at age 25, so instead of needing to say "Mum" and "Dad", you need to say, "Which way is the Baiyoke Hotel?". Instead of "hungry", you want to be able to say "Can I have another cup of coffee please".

I'm finding learning Thai an interesting process. I've reached the point now where I sometimes think certain things in Thai, like "arai na?" instead of "what?". Every day I learn a few new words, like yesterday I learnt that to order a coffee, instead of saying "kor kafeh rawn neung tooay" I can say "kor kafeh rawn tii neung". Mostly I'm learning by observation. I don't have any reference materials with me other than a phrase book. I really want to find a Thai-English dictionary, and a language course CD-ROM. I think that would progress my learning much more quickly.

Now I can speak enough Thai to make Thai people think I'm fluent, which gets me into trouble sometimes, like yesterday when I ordered my breakfast in Thai, the waitress asked me how many minutes I wanted my eggs cooked for, and I had no idea what she was talking about, so she had to resort to English.

As I'm going to be in Thailand for another two months or so, I think if I can find a dictionary and a CD-ROM, I should be relatively good at speaking Thai by the time I return to Australia.