StChris

My Thai friend is about to go to study in England for a few months. What's the best way for her to access the money in her Thai bank account? She's already transfered 25k baht to an old friend of her mother who lives in England. He will then give her the equivilant in GBP when they meet in England (or so she hopes!). Is there any particular Thai bank account which has low fees and a good rate of exchange when withdrawing from abroad? I seem to be having trouble accessing money with my Kasikorn ATM card here in Australia, so it seems that some Thai cards don't work at all abroad.

Please answer ASAP so I can stop her from transferring any more cash to any other dubious "friends"!

I have a very basic Nokia (about 800 baht), and would like to take it with me when I move to Australia. I've been told be the guys at two different mobile phone kiosks that I only have to replace the Thai SIM card with an Australian one and then it's good to go. Is it really that simple? No unblocking necessary?

My friend has already applied for the student visa online and I just want to check that we have all the appropriate documentation ready before we make an appointment with the visa processing centre.

This is what we have:
1. A letter from an English language school stating that she has already paid all of the studying fees in full.
2. A letter from her employer stating how long she has worked there, her salary, and the fact that he has given her permission to take extended leave, and that he expects her to return to work for him again upon her return.
3. A letter from my parents stating that she is a friend of the family and will be staying at their home, free of charge.
4. A letter from her parents stating that they will be supporting her financially during her time abroad. We also have 6 months bank statements showing her parents' salary being recieved every month, a copy of their IDs, plus a recent bank statement showing a balance of around 200,000 baht (this is the money set aside for her day-to-day living expenses).
5. Proof of her bachelors and masters degrees.
6. Proof of her ownership of a house in Bangkok (no outstanding mortgage, her parents bought the house, but the property is in her name only. Worth about 900k THB).
7. Her passport, birth certificate, ID card, and an official document proving that she changed her name last year (don't ask me why, but one of her friends has also just officially changed his name, so it seems quite a trend among Thais!)
8. A copy of the online application form.
9. Passport photo.

Ok, that's it. Her parents are both fairly high-up teachers (her father is retired now), so hopefully this "respectable" background will work in her favour. We hope that the letter from her boss, and the fact that she has property here, will be enough to convince the authorities that she intends to come back to Thailand. We haven't included any bank statments from her, as her work is seasonal (tourist guide), and she pretty much spends whatever money she gets pretty quickly.Her employer did state her monthly salary in his letter though. She has already said in the application form that her parents will be providing the financial support her anyway (hence the detailed information and proof of her parents' income), so I assume that the state of her parents' finances is more important than the state of hers.

The 200,000 baht is the money available after air tickets, study fees etc have already been paid. Since she will not have to pay any accommodation costs, her only major cost will be travel expenses in London (30,000 baht for 3 months). That leaves 170,000 baht for fun and shopping, so hopefully the 200,000 will be enough ( I think her parents will be pretty cheesed off if she spends all of this!).

If anyone can see any weak points in the application, or if you think I've forgotton something important, then please let me know. I hear that there are sometimes probems applying for a tourist visa, but I'm hoping that a student one is more straightfoward (seeing as it has a more specific purpose than just "visiting").

My friend is applying for a UK Student Visitor visa, which I know must be completed online via the visa4uk system. However, there doesn't seem to be an option to apply for an actual Student Visitor visa. One of the very first pages "Your Visa Requirements", after asking for the nationality of the applicant, then asks for the type of visa required. When you select "Study" it only gives you two options for the next field ("Purpose of Application"): "PBS Tier 4 Student" or "Study (non-points based system)". The first option, as I understand it, is the type of visa for longer courses, where you are allowed to work part-time also, which is different from the Student Visitor visa. The second option, if chosen, then asks whether you're a Student Dependant, Prospective Student Dependant or Student of the Isle of Man, none of which seems right to me.

I knew that helping my firend apply for this visa could get a little complicated, but I never thought I would stumble at the first (embarrassingly easy) hurdle like this! So which option do I need to choose if I want to apply for a 6 month Student Visitor visa?

Now that the new football/soccer season has started, I thought it might be a good and relatively painless opportunity to improve our Thai.

Listening:
If your going to watch the game anyway, you might as well use the Thai commentary rather than the English. Let's face it, the English commentary is often obvious and cliche-ridden anyway, and while I doubt the Thai is any better, at least it provides challanging listening practice. Thais tend to be qute focal when watching, so provide their own, less polite, commentary as well!

Reading:
Can anybody recommend any Thai websites that publish match reports? I think it'd be good reading practice as you'd already have a good idea of the content before even starting reading, making it more accessable than most native-Thai websites (if you didn't see the game you can see short reports at the BBC Football website).

Speaking:
Anyone who's spent even a little time here will know how popular football, so there should never be a shortage of interested people to strike up a conversation with.

Writing:
If anyone knows of a good Thai football forum, please let me know. It'd be good reading practice as well.

To elp everyone out I thought it might be a good idea to gather a collection of common and high-frequency words and phrases. Although football related, most can be used in other contexts too, so will be useful in other situations.

Ok, I'll get the ball rolling with my rather pathetic collection of vocab. Please add your own. Hopefully we can keep adding new words and phrases as the season progresses. I think the best way of learning (and retaining) new language is to be using it as part of your everyday life, in contexts that are personally interesting or essential for you.

Note regarding transilteration:
Please write in Thai with English translations. Wether you want to add transliterations or not is up to you. Every person I've met who's learning Thai, and doesn't know the Thai alphabet, seems to have their own different way of writing Thai in Latin letters. I think the best way for those who can't read Thai is to get someone read the Thai out loud for you and then write you own transilteration. Even better would be to learn the Thai alphabet. It's very tricky, but then some things are worth doing precisely because they are difficult. Think of it as code cracking or something. Ok, lecture over.

I'll write the Thai in a bigger font as it can be a bit difficult to see otherwise.

Vocabulary

ยิง                          to shoot (at goal)
ชนะ                        to win, to beat
แพ้                         to lose
เรียบร้อย                 used to mean nice, beautiful (usually used in response to a clean hit shot, or nice passing move)
เจอ                        to meet, to play
กรรมการ                referee

Example sentences:

Spurs won                                           Spursชนะ
Spurs beat Arsenal                              SpursชนะArsenal
Who are Spurs playing today?            วันนี้Spursเจอใคร (today -วันนี้ , who - ใคร)
Spurs are playing Arsenal today         วันนี้SpursเจอArsenal
Arsenal lost 5-1                                   Arsenalแพ้5-1
Arsenal lost                                         Arsenalแพ้
Arsenal lost to Spurs                           Asrenalแพ้Spurs
the referee's blind                               กรรมการตาบอด (blind - ตาบอด)

Feel free to correct these if wrong. As I said, it's a rather pathetic collection at the moment, but by the end of the season, if we work together, who knows.