So…today I started studying Japanese at AUA!
I’ve studied for about 120-150 hours in Thai and I speak awesome given that I’ve spent 0 effort … I’ve never taken notes, reviewed or practiced anything (really, I speak better than if I had put any effort into it) so I hope I can have a similar success with Japanese.
When I tell this to people they immediately say that I must be really talented with languages, but not so! I took Japanese and Italian in university, and was one of the worst students both times! Also, I remember maybe 5 words each from those classes!
It’s weird being a beginner again where I have no idea what anyone is saying and mostly just smile and laugh when everyone else is laughing. Japanese is harder because all students are in the same class, some have been studying for 2 years or more, whereas Thai has 10 different levels. Still, the other students are nice and super welcoming, two are super lovely housewives from Taiwan and Korea, and one is a Philipino woman married to a Japanese man.
It’s sort of weird because the common language we all speak is Thai so we are speaking Thai together (coz I don’t yet speak enough Japanese to talk with them) even though none of us is Thai!
Today’s class was about stealing because of one of the teachers recently had his wallet stolen! So we talked about different kinds of stealing and how to be careful about our belongings and ourselves in Bangkok. And also about how can you tell if someone looks Japanese.
Go East, Young Woman 
Lol. What was the consensus on how Thais can tell someone is Japanese?
There was no consensus except that the male teacher looks REALLY japanese. or, as they say in thailand “jaaaaaaaaaaaaaapanese, japanese”
personally, i’m like the crack cocaine of telling where different asian people in asia are from, (like i’m almost never wrong) but i always keep my rules of thumb to myself or else everyone just thinks i’m stereotyping people, when it’s really just that i’m curious about patterns in people’s behavior.
What about you? Do you have a good way of telling if someone is Japanese other than hearing them talk?