So you want to learn a new language. How exciting! I am sure you will find that learning any new language, whether it be Thai, or French, or Italian, or Greek, opens up whole new worlds for you that were never available to you before you learned a language.
When you learn a second language, all of a sudden, you can go traveling in the country where that language is spoken, and you can converse with the natives! You can order food in restaurants in the native tongue and not get dirty looks for speaking English. You can barter with cab drivers for the best price, in their language, so that they will actually respect you! You can ask for directions if you are lost in some remote part of the country and no English speaking people are around. You can strike up random conversations with people in coffee shops. Yes, for traveling, learning a new language can give you all sorts of opportunities.
But traveling is not the only reason to learn a new language. By learning a new language, you develop your mind; you use mental muscles that would not have been otherwise used; you become a more well rounded person. There are lots of social activities even in this country for people who speak other languages, so it can be a great social activity as well! Plus, if you ever want to talk about someone who’s in the room but doesn’t speak your second language, to someone who does, you have a great and easy way to talk behind their back without them even knowing.
Learning a new language is not as hard as you may think. There are all sorts of tools and classes that can help you. You can take a class, either in person or online; you can buy workbooks; you can buy tapes of people speaking in their native tongues; you can play language games online; you can go to conversation groups to help practice. There are even immersion classes where you spend three weeks in a foreign country where they speak your new language; being around people who speak it is shown to help you learn the new language much faster. Most universities offer classes in a variety of foreign languages. To find one near you, you can try to use Google to search for both local and online classes. You’ll be speaking like a Frenchman, or Spaniard, or Dutch person in no time! Hey, you can even learn how to speak Thai.