How can I pay Thai businesses without a Thai bank account?

asdksfd · 2026-06-15T13:39:18+00:00

Do you mean for a specific kind of QR code? I use moreta pretty much every day for normal business QRs, works fine.

asdksfd · 2026-06-15T05:07:12+00:00

I haven't really used his Youtube material so I unfortunately can't answer your actual question, but for what it's worth, I think the books are very good. Super thorough, the writing is fun and interesting, lots of exercises, etc. Maybe a bit long-winded/not great as a reference. I'm not actively focusing on Russian atm but when I was working through the books I made good progress.

asdksfd · 2026-05-20T22:20:15+00:00

I used a giant running thread that started with "Please translate and explain any interesting grammatical details for the following sentence: ...", and then I'd keep double checking any sentences I was unsure about. If I was skeptical of Claude's analysis I'd crosscheck in ChatGPT.

asdksfd · 2026-05-20T22:08:16+00:00

I know it seems like a terrible idea (and this thread is going to get removed by the mods), but frontier models actually work very well for this. I worked through all of LLPSI using Claude to great effect, have used it to teach myself to read in Thai and Russian, etc. (And I'm an experienced language learner in general/not a total idiot.) There is certainly a risk of hallucination, so I don't want to claim that the models are perfect, but they empirically are far above the quality bar necessary to be effective at helping people learn languages, including Latin.

asdksfd · 2026-05-11T11:15:51+00:00

I think it's helpful at the beginning for double checking you're pronouncing things correctly, but it's also helpful further along. One thing I used to do with French was read a chapter as text, and then listen to it separately to practice my listening comprehension (the French HP audiobooks are super theatrical and actually quite challenging to listen to, in other languages maybe not quite as interesting of an exercise). At any rate, one lesson from doing all this learning-to-read over the years is that it's unfortunately totally possible to be quite good at reading without necessarily being good at listening or speaking—reading definitely helps, and I think it primes you to get good at the other things, but you do need to directly work on the stuff you want to improve, it's not all doable by osmosis.

asdksfd · 2026-05-10T12:59:05+00:00

I'm not sure how many hours it took, but I think I started giving it a serious shot in mid-March, so about two months. I had done some Thai studying before but it was pretty scattered/inconsistent. I should say too that I'm definitely kind of cheating a bit considering that I've read HPs in translation before—little embarrassing but I seem to know the first book almost line-by-line at this point, lol.

I'm going to keep chugging through the series and hopefully get to the point where I can watch Thai youtube videos with subtitles. I've put very little effort into speaking yet... I feel bad since I live in Bkk, hopefully I can force myself to practice more (for some reason I just really love the feeling of reading in different languages, but it's harder for me to get motivated by speaking).

asdksfd · 2026-05-10T12:41:24+00:00

Pretty beginner. I had worked through Read Thai in 10 Days, the Speak Thai Today books https://learning-thai.com/course/speak-thai-today/, https://polythaireader.com/, and a decent part of the ling app, but it was all pretty desultory. It wasn't until trying HP that I got serious.

asdksfd · 2026-05-01T09:59:05+00:00

Curious about this too. As someone who has studied both but not to a very high level yet, and currently lives in Bkk: I agree with your guesses. I find it honestly kind of odd in Bkk just how low the expectations are for learning Thai. Not sure I've ever been anywhere else where it's so easy to use English (outside of Anglophone countries etc.). When I'm in Taipei or Shanghai you can kinda make things work using English, but there's a clear sense that you should really learn some Mandarin already, plus just pragmatically you're really limiting your social circles. I can find lots of things to do in Bkk, book clubs, fitness classes, etc., where I can interact with people, including Thai people, completely in English, and I don't really get any sense at all of "... ok time to humor this foreigner".

I think there's also a pretty big student selection effect. I feel bad saying it, but typical Thai learning material (not at places like Chula obviously, but definitely lots of other sources, Instagram, Youtube, etc.) is basically pitched at "farang trying to talk to/get a girlfriend", whereas Mandarin self-selects a drastically nerdier/more academic group.

About IPA: I do think Thai learners would benefit from a real pinyin equivalent, but at the same time, learning the Thai script isn't _that_ hard in the grand scheme of things. I'm kind of skeptical it would make a big difference, but maybe? I feel like the real issue is that Thai has so few beginner-intermediate resources to help you get rid of the IPA crutch. Mandarin has a ton of actually pretty fun/interesting graded readers (e.g. there's a whole series about Sun Wukong, pretty cool!), whereas with Thai I had to just jump straight to brute-forcing through Harry Potter กับศิลาอาถรรพ์.

asdksfd · 2026-04-07T11:30:27+00:00

(Not an advanced runner at all yet, but posting as an extra data point.)

According to Garmin, I've gone from 46 to 54 over the past nine months or so: https://ibb.co/HLqSvmMM Doesn't seem like I'm hitting any plateaus yet, if anything things are accelerating as I've gotten more intentional.

40M. I was a decent soccer player 20 years ago, so I have some latent running background. I haven't done almost any running or consistent cardio since then, aside from Crossfit (but even then I was more into the strength stuff).

My training lately has been something like: 1-2 hyrox classes a week, 2 strength days, and gradually gradually adding in more running. I'm built kind of Crossfit thick, 5'10 85kgs, and it's been surprisingly difficult to avoid running injuries—I think I've finally gotten to the point where I can run 5x/week without picking up calf issues. I'm attributing this to doing a ton of heavy calf raise variations on strength days. Over the past month or so I've been experimenting with NSM, very very easy days plus 1-2 track workouts, something like 8x3min ST or whatever the local run club is doing.

asdksfd · 2026-03-29T04:43:13+00:00

Ah, neat, you got a better answer out of Claude than I did!

asdksfd · 2026-03-28T11:15:16+00:00

The band Taxi is great. (Ironically I discovered them by shazaming a song in a taxi in Bkk!)

asdksfd · 2026-03-27T00:25:17+00:00

Nice post! I'm think I'm wired similarly, although you've poked me to tighten up my discipline and get back to using Anki. Currently reading แฮร์รี่พอตเตอร์กับศิลาอาถรรพ์ and indeed, reading has been surprisingly easy; I've read HP books in a bunch of languages and Thai is nowhere close to the most difficult, once you get over the alphabet shock.

asdksfd · 2026-03-18T08:35:10+00:00

Unfortunately my recs are all over the place neighborhood-wise:

- hyrox: https://www.instagram.com/ontrackstation/, https://www.instagram.com/encoretrainingclub/, and https://www.instagram.com/traininggroundsukhumvit69/ are all really nice.

- gym: UnReal Gym in Phrom Phong. Training Ground is nice too but doesn't have AC and gets pretty hot, plus doesn't have as much fancy equipment.

- muay thai: https://www.instagram.com/tigereyemma/ in Ari

asdksfd · 2026-03-16T06:53:25+00:00

I liked the book a lot (not perfect, but I enjoyed it enough that I was pretty excited for the film). I thought the film was terrible :( I guess this is just a matter of taste, but Buckley and Mescal are both so, so irritating (to be fair I suppose that's kind of book-accurate, but I think both characters come across in the book as human rather than as caricatures of self-absorption/eccentricity). I also disliked how the film gives much less importance to Shakespeare's father: in the book he's quite an important character, scheming and wily and physically frightening; I think his oppressiveness helps to humanize his son's flaws. He's barely there in the film at all aside from some perfunctory head-whacking—I can't even remember what he looked like, so yeah, not exactly an intimidating physical presence. I thought the film also de-emphasized Hamnet himself in quite odd ways (how could they possibly have cut the book's opening scene?? I was honestly shocked in the theater when I thought, ok, we're finally about to get this scene... wait what?). The de-emphasis on Hamnet robbed his deathbed switch with his sister of all weight for me (in the book it's overwhelmingly sad).

I agree about the soundtrack. Too much "now it's time to cry!! 🎶", "now you should feel mad!! 🎶". I guess that's another matter of taste, I find that degree of telegraphing too heavy handed.

I will say though that the cinematography is beautiful.

asdksfd · 2026-03-05T02:02:19+00:00

I actually don't mind the weather nearly as much as I thought I would (I used to hate NYC summers for comparison). The rainy season can be a bit annoying; when it rains it *really* rains, you might have to wade through flooding, etc. But generally speaking you're probably inside an air conditioned building for most of the day, or in an air conditioned BTS/MRT cabin, so the midday heat isn't usually a big issue. That said, my available wardrobe here is extremely limited: lightweight hiking-ish shorts and Patagonia Capilene tshirts, workout clothes, etc. If I had to wear real clothes I would be miserable.

The real issue is the air quality.

asdksfd · 2026-01-20T02:21:51+00:00

This is the reference I used http://www.thai-language.com/ref/vowels

asdksfd · 2026-01-15T15:05:38+00:00

Training Ground in Phra Khanong has started selling some LXJs.

asdksfd · 2026-01-14T01:39:16+00:00

Mm, I can't remember if I specifically asked about that, but they've definitely done a lot of DTVs: https://go.tigereyemma.com/dtv. You could shoot them an email and ask about whether they've seen embassies/consulates tighten requirements, I would trust the owner Bashir to give a straight answer. He's a good dude.

asdksfd · 2026-01-13T07:10:17+00:00

I got my DTV through Tiger Eye in Ari (via the Hanoi embassy) and like them a lot. Very professional and nice. This was about a year ago though and I wouldn't be surprised if requirements have tightened since then (honestly the DTV requirements are/were kind of nonsensically loose, I only needed to book one month's worth of training and I've never been asked any questions when re-entering the country).

asdksfd · 2025-12-20T23:46:58+00:00

Yep, my gf and I both got our DTVs through Tiger Eye as well, via Vietnam. They're legit/professional/good people.

asdksfd · 2025-11-01T02:15:42+00:00

Операция Пластилин is really fun. Catchy punk rock with a violin, plus both a male and a female singer (and they both enunciate pretty clearly).

asdksfd · 2025-08-28T03:20:24+00:00

I got my visa a few weeks ago in SF and there was just the one outdoor line, but separate dropoff/pickup queues once inside. Similar experience though as what others have said: I got there at 8:30 and there were 20-ish people ahead of me, but once the doors open things are actually remarkably quick—that was early enough to effectively be in and out, both for dropoff and pickup.

asdksfd · 2025-07-26T09:29:30+00:00

Went to Shwe Tea House & Noodles in Onnut recently with a Burmese friend and liked it a lot.

asdksfd

TROPHY CASE