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I hit the wall, and quit. I know now I should've kept going. But I also know that lessons, grammar and learning words are not the best way to learn a language. The best way is to be an extrovert, love talking to people, and even better, work alongside them. My friend Derek Schade is a golf pro and he's spent years working with Thai people. He speaks excellent Thai. My wife, a pretty stern critic of foreigners who think they speak good Thai, says Derek speaks it well.
However, if you're not gregarious and would rather read books than socialize, you are at a huge disadvantage. I think this holds true of all countries and all languages. I have friends who drink way too much and they speak much better Thai than I do because they spend their nights talking to Thai bartenders and bargirls. Jintana calls it "bar Thai" and apparently it's kind of low class but at least they can speak something.
I can speak golf Thai. I know the words for left, right, straight ahead, up, down, sand trap, water hazard, hole, and the names of all the clubs. When I first got here the caddies called hybrids "Kathoeys", which is the Thai word for ladyboys. It makes sense because hybrids are neither woods or irons but somewhere in between.
I still know lots of words, but when I use them Jintana's nieces roll their eyes and laugh because my pronunciation is awful. They can say a word looking me full in the face, I will repeat what they said exactly as I heard it, and they will laugh. Not even close.
Jintana speaks English very well and while that makes life easy for me I wonder if I would've learned Thai if that were all she spoke. Also, the kids have been taking English in school for years and they still have trouble with it. Because we use it a lot around the house I'm sure they're ahead of a lot of their friends but I'm realizing how very hard it is to learn a language.
I never should've quit the classes. I should've forced myself into social situations with Thai people. I'm a college graduate for Christ's sake. I'm not stupid. But I hit the wall.
Now, let's talk about all those people who say, "If you're going to live in America you'd better speak English." They are violent about it and they look down on immigrants who either can't speak it or speak broken English. I would've been one of those immigrants.
Let's look closer.
If you're an immigrant, what is the usual pattern? If you're Barbara Yoshida's parents, you are poor and you work like dogs long hours every day. Many immigrants hold down two or three low-paying jobs just to put food on the table. Where do they get the time or the money to study English? Can you give them the five or ten years it takes to learn a language, or are you going to sneer at them and tell them to go back where they came from?