A girl I once met and I travelled a lot around Thailand together talking about all kinds of things that only belong in everyday chat. She asked me what car I have back in England, a topic that is important to Thais because they find it inspirational that we all have a car each and do not have to share. The interest was followed with what car is the best car in England?   I said Aston Martin, presuming she intended British made cars. She went on to explain that the best car in Thailand is the Fellerlei. I enquired of her, "I have never heard of that car before, what make is it?"
She replied "oh! I doh noh."

3 months later she chose to visit me in England and after the usual wrangling with bureaucracy to obtain the necessary visa I went to Heathrow to meet her for which you get charged £9.00 for parking whilst it is only 40 Baht in Suvarnabuhmi and I fail to see the reason for this difference!!   But as we drove back up the M40 I could see in my mirror approaching rapidly a beautiful fresh out the showroom Ferrari 455. I commented to the girl "now that is a beautiful car" as it passed cacophonously by. To which she replied "I thought you never heard of Fellerlei before"

Thai is a difficult language to grasp and a good self-help tutor is Pimsleur's Thai and there are a lot of resources on the web but they are often misleading or incorrect. One of the better sites is Thai-language.com. Their dictionary is an excellent resource and I often use it to decipher something completely unintelligible that my better half has uttered. Conversely we also use it to correct my Thai with the 'former mentioned' explaining what is wrong with their diction, which means they also have errors. The problem is not that they are wrong; it is that it is not common speech. Below are a few simple phrases for absolute beginners. Try not to panic or give up at the first hurdle and you can find a printer friendly version here. Click on the speaker to hear how it should be pronounced then try it yourself. Some of the sounds do not match well to the Western alphabet and often sounds are silent or only half used such as the letter 'h' except when in conjunction with 'c'.   Chew is pronounced as in the English 'to chew your food' and translates directly as 'name', whereas Khao is pronounced cow (extending the 'k' sound with a silent h as in heat). This word does not translate into English because it has no syntax in its singular form but it could be interpreted as rice or food.

You may have heard the word 'Khraap' or 'Khrup'. This is a salutation or punctuation that must be used by men. Women use the word 'Ka' or 'Kaar'. Again the letter 'r' in this usage is silent or the roll of the 'rr' is dismissed. It is not necessary to use these words all the time but where they conclude the phrases below they are polite. You will find words that begin, or interspersed with 'R' and even pronounced 'rr'. Thais do not do this and pronounce it as 'le' such as 'arai' meaning 'what' but is pronounced 'alai' (al eye).
Red text highlights a common mistake