Learning Thai Through a Massage Session

After a few rough sick days, I decided I needed a Thai massage — but with a twist: I’d only use Thai words to get through the whole experience.

No English allowed.

It was part relaxation, part language practice.

I scoured YouTube for Thai phrases specifically for massages, but surprisingly, there wasn’t much out there — note to any Thai language YouTubers!

Eventually, I found one decent video with some useful phrases, which starts off with Thai, so you get a bit of language immersion before he teachers useful Thai Massage phrases. Here’s the link if you want to check it out: How to speak ESSENTIAL THAI MASSAGE PHRASES

Useful Phrases:

Armed with just 5 words, I used 4:

• Nuad Thai — "Thai massage"

• Bao Bao — "Softer"

• Jep — "Pain"

• Anii jep — "This hurts"

• Nak Nak na Krup — “Harder (please)”

And honestly? 4 phrases were all I needed to get through.

Only four? Yep.

But using them in real-life situations makes them stick way better than memorizing vocab lists.

Learning Thai in Chiang Mai

Speaking Thai in Chiang Mai can be tricky since everyone here speaks English. That’s convenient for travel but not so much for immersion.

To boost my immersion, I’ve booked a teacher on preply(dot)com.

This will also me find creative ways to learn, and I’ll keep sharing resources here to make learning Thai easier for anyone interested.

So, if you’re learning Thai (or any language), trust me: even a few words go a long way when used in real life! And keep an eye out for more tips in future newsletters.

Got Your Own Language Challenge? If you try out these phrases, have a funny story, or want to share your own language-learning tips, I’d love to hear from you! Just hit reply.

Thanks for reading! Hope you found some tips here that make learning Thai a bit easier. If you’re enjoying these newsletters, feel free to share them with friends who might want to explore Thai language and culture too. Got any stories or tips of your own? Just hit reply or find me on x.com/steetweets. I'd love to hear from you!

Until next time, keep having fun with it!

– (Linguist) Stee