The majority of foreigners staying in Thailand are not able to speak even basic Thai.
The only real challenge during the beginning of your Thai language studies is to getting used to the five tones (low, mid, high, falling and rising) as well as to the other two.
In most cases they don\'t make any efforts to studying Thai at all because they are told that it is just "too difficult." This is not true, in fact learning Thai is easier than learning Western languages like English, French or German.
The majority of foreigners staying in Thailand are not able to speak even basic Thai