Learn Thai in Thailand - a language so diverse in origin and dialect that it can be difficult to define how many speakers there are. There are, however, about 60 million speakers of Standard Thai.

Thai is a beautiful language with a long history. It has it’s beginnings are in the 10th century, during the late Dvaravati period, when the rising powers of Khmer empire and the Lanna Kingdom began to influence the language in the region. In 1283, the first Thai alphabet was created at the behest of King Ramakamhaeng of Sukhothai and this alphabet has remained the same over centuries.

This means that modern Thai speakers can easily read 13th century inscriptions. The creation of this writing system gave rise to Thai literature which is very poetic, given the sing-song nature of spoken Thai. Learn about Thailand's rich culture and storied past when you study abroad in beautiful Bangkok!

Once you learn Thai in Thailand, you'll realize that Thai words are very different in character than English ones. Most Thai words are a single syllable and are not inflected or modified to reveal tense, number, possession, etc. Instead, modifying words are added which change the meaning. Adverbs and adjectives, for example, simply use repetition to show intensity with a fat (“uan”) person being a “khon uan” and a very fat person being a “khon uan uan.” Rather than using intonation to indicate whether a sentence is a request or a demand, as English does, participles are added to the end of the sentence to indicate how it should operate. “Cha” at the end of the sentence indicates a request while “si” indicates that the sentence is imperative. This may seem a bit confusing but don't worry, if you learn Thai in Thailand, you'll get the hang of it quickly!