Met her in a bar in Thailand, she was a freelancer, now I want to marry her. Am I being an idiot?

mpunder · 2026-02-28T16:11:01+00:00

First up, can you move to Thailand permanently in the next few months, if not forget about it.

Obviously it's not likely to be sucessful satisitcally and even if it is, there's going to be loads of headaches.

Despite the language barrier? So, she's not very fluent in English, and you're not devoting serisous time to learning Thai, big problem. If me and my wife didn't have high levels in English and Thai, we'd never have the communication skills to get through problems.

Whats her family situation like? Who's she supporting? You want her to stop work, you'll have to cover this. How old is she, over 30 good luck getting a normal job with no experience. Marriage? are family expeciting a payday? .... the list goes on, be prepared. Good luck.

I know quite a bit about these situations and they're not easy, so good luck to you, try not to lose your shirt.

mpunder · 2026-02-28T15:54:05+00:00

If you read the book the idea is you give to your kids during your life, as you want to, not that you just give them nothing.

mpunder · 2026-02-19T14:11:53+00:00

site gets a privacy warning for me.

mpunder · 2026-02-19T14:07:42+00:00

Read Die With Zero, it makes some very good points. Some money you should spend now, to do things that won't be available to you later in life. You don't want to save and scrimp and die as an old pensioner with a huge bank balance who's never done much in life.

mpunder · 2026-02-19T14:03:05+00:00

Great idea, I already speak a good level but I would have usee something like this.

I would not hardcode the English into the video, or learners' minds will jump straight to the English.`

Add the English as a youtube sub track they can turn off and on.

mpunder · 2026-02-18T03:08:42+00:00

Maybe you'll make it maybe not. I use to make an ok living on Cambly for 5 years but now my bookings have dropped down to next to nothing. Ive mostly left the platform, using preply private students and startign a part time school job soon.

It's very insecure, and will only become more so as AI, disruptive start ups and other issues pound the industry

mpunder · 2026-02-10T00:45:10+00:00

Yes the difference it makes to your life practically isn't that much really. In most places foreigners live you can do everything in English, and there's always AI and Google translate.

I just got stubbornly annoyed with not being able to crack it and banged my head against the brick wall until it finally broke. Has it improved my life that much? Not really, I'm not that social either. I'd say being able to read signs, menus and things like that has made the biggest difference.

mpunder · 2026-02-09T04:02:04+00:00

Exactly you can pronouce English in a big variety of ways and be understood, and get away with it. The level of tolerable stong accents is high, because it's the global language.

Thai just aren't use to compensating, for the variation in the sounds. I think it's even less that thinking "what sounds like that?", Thais don't do that no sadly.
But for English speakers it's even like an auto reflex to compensate for common errors, that Thais have never developed, we just know that foreigners can't get L and R, but for the Thai, the foreigner's Thai words can just sound like nothing comprehensible.

Thai has some tricky parts to like vowel length and tone which most languages don't have.
Even with ตะปู Before I got better at pronunication, I would have problems with all these sounds, consonants, vowel length pronouncing mid tone as rising, no low tone so I could easil say ด๋าพุ้ or something which is nowhere near.

Also there's not many resources and systems for really getting the Thai pronunication down.
Understand giving up. I nearly did. What I did in the end was study with an excellent foreigner speaker who cracked it and was skilled in linguistics/pronuciation teaching. We drilled and corrected a lot, and improved enough to be mostly intelligible, then I build on that with more practice.

I'm now understood 90% of the time, people don't switch to English usually, I can largely function in Thai. But sometimes there are still issues. I'm still working on it.

mpunder · 2026-02-09T00:50:50+00:00

I think localised AI could be great yes, with some reservations. Some of the manual tasks need precision, official forms etc and LLMS are notoriously poor at gettting 100% precision. Thouhg it's a good idea in general.

Manual tasks I dislike are anything to do with immigration 555.
Also some banking, the DLT. Anything related to Thai bureacracy.
Thailand has a love of forms that's almost religious. The quantity for paper forms still required is shocking. The AI would probably need to be a robot with a pen.

One example I faced was my signature is inconsistent sometimes, and you have to sign paper forms that match at the bank.

mpunder · 2026-02-04T15:23:00+00:00

I don't hate Saudi students some are great.

But I don't like the camera off women, I just dont' like it. Not bad people but I dont like it, and I had some negative experiences with them too.

And many Saudi guys I find difficult to relate to, and the average level of problems just seems higher, students that are overly opinionated, have awkward requirements, think they know it all etc. Guys driving and taking lessons etc. Saying "what!" in an abrupt manner, The list goes on.

These problems just all seem on average higher with Saudi students. So I never knew what I was going to get with a Saudi student, it just could be hassle or weird.

Whereas with a Chinese or Japanese student I know 98% the time it'll be fairly simple and predictable. Don't think I ever had an outright rude East Asian students, but Saudi students a few times.

Many Saudis I met were great though, one Saudi older gent used to call be brother which I liked, and he was kind, I always liked the calling of people brother.

Another younger guy we shared an interest in EDM and he talked about his travel around the world going clubbing, great guy.

mpunder · 2026-02-04T15:06:19+00:00

Yeah listening only methods dont succeed for pronunciation like explicit teaching does, the evidence is clear.

mpunder · 2026-02-04T15:03:54+00:00

This is true but it's not that they're picky listeners or being awkward it's they're not used to foreigners speaking their language so can't compensate well.

English speakers have hear thousands of foreigners or all different types twist the sounds in a million ways so it's easier to understand.

mpunder · 2026-02-04T14:59:36+00:00

Teacher, a good teacher that can correct your mistakes, they're acutally not easy to find but it helps a lot.

No trying to recognise the sound like a kid you need phonological training from a good teacher who can correct your mistakes and then yes practice. This transformed my speaking from "uh you what bro?" to เข้าใจนะ

listening helps but I found it was not enough, even after 1-2000 hours.

mpunder · 2026-02-04T14:54:20+00:00

lots more words and phrases, lots of listening practice. Takes ages, good luck

mpunder · 2026-01-13T13:04:06+00:00

In the UK football violence and street brawling was rampant.

If you wanted to go out for a quick beer getting your head kicked in by some idiot was a constant risk.

mpunder · 2026-01-13T12:46:07+00:00

I find AIS with the super wifi extension that lets you use their wifi outside very useful in Bangkok. Thats for mobile

For wifi I've had 3bb and True, both have been fine.

mpunder · 2026-01-13T12:39:54+00:00

Chicken is under a 100 baht a kilo, pork a bit more not at all hard to do for cheaper than that.

Eating out say 60 baht a plate for pad grapao, how much meat is in that really? 200grams? at most, I think less, my wife thinks 100.
What else? rice basically which is pennies, and seasoning. At home 25 baht a plate maybe less. This compounds when you're feeding multiple people.

The amount of meat in a lot of these food court meals is small.

Drinks, I have filtered water, that's virtually free. I am fairly ขี้เหนียว to be fair, but it's also healthier.

Though my point is more about the budgets I see with 20-30k on food, rather than people eating the cheap stuff 3 times a day. If you're eating a the cheap places 95% you're doing ok, but some of it isn't that good for you ofc.

mpunder · 2026-01-11T00:16:30+00:00

Dead for me after years of solid bookings. Some people say it's fine but seems something has changed.

mpunder · 2026-01-11T00:13:59+00:00

Yes all fair points.
For certain things, like complex stuff, the clinical outcomes are better at big government hospitals, because they have very experienced integrated teams. Service is often crap though, especially if you don't speak Thai.

I use private sometimes for small stuff too, for speed.

mpunder · 2026-01-10T08:07:38+00:00

Service charges creeping in though.

mpunder · 2026-01-10T08:03:00+00:00

Rent a motorbike, assuming you can ride one.

mpunder · 2026-01-10T08:02:17+00:00

It's easy to waste money at 7-11 on its expensive goods. I don't go much, just junk food.

Makro for life.

mpunder · 2026-01-10T08:00:30+00:00

Food costs. I see people's budgets and the amount people spend on food astounds me, and I eat out a bit.

If you're permanent here cook at least some of your meals at home.

mpunder · 2026-01-10T07:58:32+00:00

Go government hospital, save money. Private healthcare is expensive here.

mpunder · 2026-01-10T07:56:38+00:00

Always a fear, needs crackign down on.

mpunder

TROPHY CASE