Learn Thai - What is best method to learn Thai?

What is best method to learn Thai?

I have female friend who is Thai-French and I am going to make surprise her as speaking Thai maybe in July or August. I bought some books to learn Thai but it is really difficult so I need someone to help. At the moment I am living at Stoke-on-Trent so what is best method to learn Thai for me between learn by myself, go to language school or find who can help 1 to 1? For later two, could you give me some suggestions please. Thanks

Public Comments

The most effective way of learning Thai is to employ the services of a Muay Thai fighter. This will ensure that any mistakes you make will be viciously punished, which in turn will improve your dedication and concentration immeasurably.
Take a fuckin class.
Free Thai class on Edufire on May 9th: http://edufire.com/classes/2298-thai-lessons1 Tutors: http://edufire.com/tutors/thai The tutors are listed on the right side. They are not free. Whatever cost is listed under their name is the cost of one hour-long 1:1 private tutoring session. You can get private tutoring from the teacher who is giving out the free lesson on May 9th. So maybe take the free class to see if you'd like to pay to have her/him tutor you. Thai doesn't seem to be that popular on EduFire so none of the Thai tutors have any testimonials.
Thai like many Asian (Far east) languages is a Tonal language. And that for Europeans is a big problem, as it takes quite a while to open your ear to be able to hear/reproduce them... so your NEED to listen to teh language. http://www.learningthai.com/tones/index.html This site, also has soem Thai embassey devloped lessons (with audio - press the words) http://www.learningthai.com/books/manee/introduction_01.htm Your options are therefore, get a book/course with tapes or CD's that take you through the sounds... and listen to them. No matter how much you think you are sayng it, at the beginning you are probably going to miss it by a mile. Or find a native speaker... You dont want to be calling someones mother a wheelbarrow or worse, a horse ! just because you got the tone wrong for a word that sounds exactly the same to you ! on the positive side, most of the languages dont have tenses or and other form of person breakdown. Its the verb, thats it. everything else is said with extra words.. eg to say I am working, I was working and I will work... I work. I work before I work later however well you do, I am sure she will appreciate you efforts... you could even end up with a very personal tutor :)