Learning Thai Through GL Dramas

Okay, I’m just going to say it. I started learning Thai because of GL dramas. Like, that’s the actual reason. No deep story, no “I’ve always been fascinated by Thai culture,” just pure drama obsession and this thought one day: what if I could understand this without subtitles? Seems kind of silly to admit, but honestly? It works. When I spend my entire day programming or staring at cybersecurity stuff, having something that actually makes me want to keep going at night matters.

Before this I’d already collected a weird bunch of languages. Spanish is my native language, obviously. English I learned because I had to, work and all that. Japanese I took pretty seriously, got to an intermediate level, kanjis were a whole adventure. Tried Korean, didn’t stick. Last year I started Swedish because I liked how it sounded. Now here we are with Thai. My brain apparently never has enough.

Thai is different

Thai isn’t like the others. Japanese kanjis make sense once you get them. Korean alphabet is intuitive to the point where it feels like someone designed it specifically to be learnable. Thai? Thai is chaos.

44 consonants, more than 30 vowels. That’s not even the hard part, just overwhelming at the start. The actual thing that will break you is the tones. Five tones: mid, low, high, rising, falling. You say a word wrong and you’re saying something completely different.

Once I was trying to say “horse” and my app’s feedback was like “that sounded like dog” and I just stared at my phone for a minute. My “teacher” on Ling probably laughed at the other end of that interaction. I didn’t.

Swedish, comparatively, is chill for Spanish speakers. Lots of similarities with English. Thai is another planet. At least there are no complex verb conjugations, which I appreciate deeply because those killed me in other languages. But the sentence structure, it’s just different from Spanish and English in ways I’m still trying to get used to.

The tools I use because I’m a programmer and can’t help myself

I kind of went all-in on optimizing this. Every tool has a specific job.

Obsidian. This is where my brain lives now. Vocabulary, grammar, culture notes, all separated but linked together. I like that I can connect a word I learned with some cultural context behind it. It’s basically my personal wiki at this point.

Ling for Android. This is my daily workout. Structured lessons that build from basic to more complex. I do like 15-20 minutes every day, usually in the morning. It’s got listening exercises that help with tones, which I still struggle with constantly.

AnkiDroid. Spaced repetition for vocab. It’s boring. Really boring. But it works. I create cards with the word, how to pronounce it, the tone. I’ve learned the hard way that trying to memorize Thai vocabulary without the tones is basically useless.

Thai dramas. This is the fun part. I watch stuff I’ve already seen with subtitles, but now I actually pay attention to what they’re saying. Sometimes I’ll catch a whole phrase and feel like a genius. Other times I listen to the same line five times and understand zero words.

The frustrating parts

There are days I want to delete everything.

Last week I was trying to pronounce the Thai word for “difficult.” The irony wasn’t lost on me. My partner was sitting there listening to me attempt this word like fifteen times and finally asked if I was okay.

Another time I was watching this mystery drama, and the characters are having this intense conversation about the crime and I didn’t understand ANYTHING. Had to rely on subtitles. Felt like such a failure. But then later, in a different scene, one of them says “don’t tell me” and I caught it. No subtitles. Just understood it. Small victory, but I’ll take it.

Why I keep going

The GL dramas are still the main thing, I’m not going to lie. But I’ve found other Thai series I love. Horror, mystery, police stuff. Thai does these really well. Seeing how the culture shows up through these stories keeps me interested.

There’s something cool about how Thai social structure, the respect for hierarchy, comes through in the shows. When you understand even a bit of the language, you pick up on nuances that get completely lost in translation.

Passion vs necessity

English was necessity. Had to learn it. Japanese was curiosity plus some professional interest. But Thai? This is pure passion. First time I’m learning a language without some utilitarian goal. Just because I want to.

It changes everything. I’m not trying to be “productive” or “make fast progress.” If I catch a phrase in a drama, I’m happy. If I learn a new word and use it wrong, I laugh and move on. Less pressure, more just enjoying the process.

Anyway

If you’re thinking about learning a language for some dumb reason, like dramas or music or whatever, just do it. Whatever makes you actually want to practice every day is worth more than any perfect strategy system.

Sometimes I’m programming at 2 AM and I put a Thai drama on in the background. Not studying, just listening. And suddenly I understand a word. And I smile. That’s it. That’s the whole point.

Oh and yeah, still completely obsessed with GL dramas. That hasn’t changed.