@Chris *****

wow!! what a great summary! I really appreciate you taking the time to share all this information with us. 😀. Ironically, when I whatsapp with many of my thai friends, we tend to use a lot of emojis which reminds me of the memes that wonder if humans are just reverting back to Egyptian hieroglyphics hehe 5555 or as my turkish friends would write... ljdfjaskljf;las

@Jacob *******

congrats! I hope I will be as fortunate. I just moved here in July and I have been busy at home with the unpacking. Also I have to still decide if Thailand will be my forever home. Currently my plan is to split my time between Thailand and portugal. Since I learned a little bit of Spanish in hs, my efforts of reading Portuguese are making decent progress and I think I say my basic conversations okay but not sure if I will ever be able to hear well enough in Portuguese since even English often just sounds garbled to me. Not sure if I can learn a lot of Thai while I am also trying to learn Portuguese. Hehe

@Bruce ********

hehe. You should have seen me when I was hanging out with friends from Aussie or New Zealand and even some of my friends from Uk. My North American friends had a good laugh because I usually just looked like a lost puppy with my head tilted trying to understand anything they were saying. Hehe

A lot of my friends are from India and I tend to do a little better with their accent because many speakers from India clearly enunciate. In fact my best friend used to interpret English for me because I could understand her very well. It always confused store clerks when it happened because they would speak in English and then I would look at her to say it again in English.

@Jacob *******

as a reminder, I can barely hear english even with my hearing aids. I can say basic greetings in Thai but I really have no idea if my pronunciations are any good since I can’t really hear well enough. But most Thai people seem to understand from the context of the situation what I am attempting to say. But the minute they reply I have no idea what they are saying. Just like when someone talks to me in English, I struggle a lot to figure out what is being said.

My hearing loss does make for some pretty funny stories for me and my friends. There have been so many times when I misheard them and when I told them what I heard, we just laugh and laugh because I was so far off from what they said. Usually I can follow a conversation as long as there is no quick switch in subjects but I do end up with a headache pretty quickly or get exhausted from trying to follow conversations (especially if there is any other ambient noise at the same time or if I am in a group setting where other people are in the conversation). It is the main reason I retired early in my 50s from being a teacher since it was becoming too hard to hear student questions.

@Jacob *******

so far it has been great for me in Thailand and in my travels to 78 countries (43 solo). 😀😀

I also lived in Turkey for a year and the Govt workers appreciated that I came in with saved translated messages to make our interactions go quickly.

I am super hard of hearing even if I wear my hearing aids and have enough trouble with English. Thank goodness for the written usage of Google translate and the friendly people who are understanding and patient with me.

@Hubert ******

not sure if this website is still accurate but looks like it takes a long time for this route.

@Michael *********

same. I am supposed to get non O visa this week or next week if all goes well.

@Brandon ***********

thx

@Brandon ***********

my landlord says he was not able to use the new version yet… it was just ready for hotels at this time