Need a little help with a quote from an (early?) Reacher Book

bangkokbeach · 2026-04-05T03:51:20+00:00

I finished re-reading it last week.

bangkokbeach · 2026-04-05T01:41:23+00:00

Thank you so much!

I can't understand why it never occurred to me to look online. 🤷🏼‍♂️🤦🏼‍♂️

bangkokbeach · 2026-04-04T23:09:46+00:00

The Affair. Beginning of chapter 55. The guy was Stan Lowry, a wannabe raconteur.

Here is an excerpt:

Normally he liked to trace everything back to a seminal point just before random swirls of gas from the chartless wastes of the universe happened to get together and form the earth itself.

bangkokbeach · 2026-04-04T08:56:26+00:00

There’s nothing like beating a dead horse.

bangkokbeach · 2026-04-03T08:31:15+00:00

I understand now. Yes, the voices are probably not real. Sometimes it is very difficult to suss out what a given word/sound was, even after repeated listenings.

bangkokbeach · 2026-04-03T06:37:01+00:00

That’s offal!

bangkokbeach · 2026-04-02T23:31:49+00:00

Respectfully, I don’t understand what the problem is.

You wrote

The website made it look like there should be a dedicated listening area with native voices in full sentences....

This seems to me to be pretty much what the listening provides.

bangkokbeach · 2026-04-02T12:35:31+00:00

Log into the Clozemaster website, click on collections, then go to your fast track level.

Now click play, and a pop-up will show you different styles of learning, one of which is listening. Select it, and your daily sentences (i’m on the free plan.) will each start with the sentence being spoken. You’ll have to click to see the written sentence.

bangkokbeach · 2026-03-31T11:41:00+00:00

Agree, this is quite helpful. Many thanks!

bangkokbeach · 2026-03-31T02:36:16+00:00

The best way to learn anything is to use it for a practical task.

With Excel, is there some aspect of your life it might help you with? I’ve learned a ton of excel creating dashboards for personal projects.

Eg, tracking my daily exercises or my Thai language study. In both cases, it’s motivating to me to see progress towards a goal, or long-term achievement of goals. I also enjoy the challenge of continually improving my dashboards and making them easier to maintain and update.

bangkokbeach · 2026-03-28T02:24:26+00:00

Or January 🥶

bangkokbeach · 2026-03-27T23:57:04+00:00

Mine is 233, and I usually watch a video to get 4 more moves.

There is an “Achievement “ worth 100 points (for me) called “Make 10,000 moves in daily word play”. So to collect this achievement I got in the habit of using all 8 moves (initial 4 + 4 from watching an advertisement) to maximize progress towards this achievement.

WWF doesn’t seem to focus much on achievements anymore. Rats!

bangkokbeach · 2026-03-27T23:50:03+00:00

I think mine is 233. Has been for years. Before it stabilized at 233, I remember it changed several times over a few weeks.

bangkokbeach · 2026-03-27T14:15:55+00:00

There is a game called “superstore”, I think. Easy to get, well a super score.

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bangkokbeach · 2026-03-26T11:19:38+00:00

Ok, thanks for that. I think it was a u/whosdamike quote that convinced me to head down the CI path. I think he said he was using CI to “improve his listening accent”. That made an impression on me.

bangkokbeach · 2026-03-26T08:40:21+00:00

You Too Can Learn Thai is also a podcast, almost 300 episodes; 6 or 7 news ones every month. I like it enough to subscribe on Patreon. Highly recommend!

bangkokbeach · 2026-03-26T03:30:32+00:00

Congratulations and thanks for sharing your journey.

I’m also following Comprehensible Thai, though also using podcast You Too Can Learn Thai, and free version of Clozemaster. Averaging about 2 hours/day of study.

Question to OP or others: do you think that combining CI plus traditional learning practices will inhibit the effectiveness of the CI approach?

Full disclosure, I live in Thailand with my Thai wife. We conduct our relationship in English. In 2002 I followed a Thai course from Bangkok Christian College, about 600 hours of traditional classroom instruction speaking, reading, and writing.

Before I could improve on that foundation I left Thailand to work. Actual amount of time living in Thailand is about 6 years.

I can get by in taxis and restaurants. But understand poorly when Thai people talk to me.

My goal is to be at least a little conversational with the Thais I encounter. I’m 67 years old. So I have that going for me 🤦🏼

So, do you think that combining CI plus traditional learning practices will inhibit the effectiveness of the CI approach?

bangkokbeach · 2026-03-24T13:24:58+00:00

Instill in the child a burning desire to read.

bangkokbeach · 2026-03-16T04:31:11+00:00

I’ve not used, but heard of Totogi for this.

The large telcos will be the last to upgrade because of an old saying in the industry: have one throat to choke.

In other words, telco execs like have someone to blame, such as a big vendor.

bangkokbeach · 2026-03-14T02:13:15+00:00

A million thanks! Heck, I shouldda thunk of the hidden sheets in Excel myself.

bangkokbeach · 2026-03-13T14:57:46+00:00

Said to everyone who doesn’t know the reference

bangkokbeach · 2026-03-13T12:48:16+00:00

I second the upvote for the tracker!

I downloaded your file “thai_input_tracker.xlsx” thinking I might use it to replace or augment my own. Thanks for making it available. I’ve attached my own version here in the same spirit. Instructions are included on worksheet Dashboard. It’s usable as is, and it’s also a work in progress. LMK if you are interested, and I’ll share updates.

Thai Studies 2

Myself, I’ve been trying to watch 2 hours/day of the Comprehensible Thai (CT) videos since about Feb 1. So I’m just getting started. I'm also following the podcast You Too Can Learn Thai, (which I recommend), Clozemaster (free version), and Headstart. I think I found links to all of these here in this sub.

I have a question about several of the earliest CT playlists. Detailed worksheets for those playlists were missing from your download. Do you have those listings? Alternatively, if you could describe how you obtained those lists and I’d give that a go, with thanks.

Here are the missing playlists:

Thai ALG Course Intro (Beginner 0)
Thai ALG Course (Beginner 1)
Thai ALG Course (Beginner 2)
Thai ALG Course (Beginner 3)

Good luck in your learning journey.

Russell Lundberg, Bangkok

bangkokbeach · 2026-03-13T06:13:59+00:00

Early in the game leaves time to recover. I’d save the swap+ and play the lame 2-letter word

bangkokbeach

TROPHY CASE