When I said that I'd give the language a shot for the next year, I didn't mean that I was going to get a business level of mastery for it, but I want to see if a year from now, I feel that I could be capable of learning it from a business level. Languages take some time for sure.


And I have heard that about Tokyo. My friend is a student trying for a Japanese major, and he went to Japan for a few months. He said that most people there were pleased to see an American so that they could practice their english on him, and he just wanted to the the same with Japanese.

Apparently, if he asked for help, they would either try english and fumble over their own words, or use really complex, quick spoken Japanese. Which I find hilarious.

Very much so!

The whole weird-tradition thing at corporations in Japan sounds hilarious.

Come, come, it's not that bad. Australia doesn't have the LARGEST spiders *, we only have the DEADLIEST known to mankind! W00t
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* (South America has the largest spider - insert drum roll - the GOLIATH BIRD EATING SPIDER! That's more like it!! Checks wikipedia- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goliath_bird_eating_spider Crap my info is outdated - it's only the 2nd largest now - they discovered a bigger spider in Laos!)

What's going on in Ireland that you would need to learn German? Do only Germans work at Symantec?

So, what about this one?

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01080/earth-graphics-200_1080291a.jpg

Hah, yep, its a common complaint among foreigners trying to improve their Japanese. But Japanese barely get to practice English so its understandable why they want to try when seeing a foreigner. English is taught in junior high and a couple years ago they started teaching it in elementary school, but since most people don't have the opportunity to practice speaking, many Japanese are quite bad at it. Hence the plethora of English schools/services.

The same applies to me with the Japanese language. I didn't make the effort to find ways outside of class to engage in speaking. Classes usually don't spend much time on conversation skills. My oral tests were a joke, as long as you memorized key phrases, you could get a good grade.

Ireland is like the indian call centre for Europe, due to the state of their economy.

Yeah, saw many articles here and there about Irish people leaving Ireland due to no work or no real work but that was some years ago.

Yea, our Ireland branch supports Europe mainly. It's a mix of both UK, and Europe.

I wouldn't say that this job isn't real work (although I know you didn't mean it like that), it's not standard consumer call center stuff. I get to deal with enterprise level support. Which means working with customers that paid more for my product than I would for my dream home 40 years down the road. We make good money, which is why I'm willing to move about. I imagine I'd be able to sustain myself well with this job, anywhere they have a Sym branch.

Spoken like a true poster boy for the New World Order ;)

Most Australians I know believe that Australia is the best country to live. But 1. we sometimes forget (because we are too busy grumbling about the the dollar/high shopping prices/slow internet/sport/politics etcetcera) and 2. because we don't like to boast about it. (Tall Poppy Syndrome. And the laid back attitude of some Aussies doesn't help either e.g. "Australia? ah she's awright mate")

I wonder why would they hire a foreigner when they always can hire a local with same skills and knowledge of the local culture? The only reason I can think of is that they are willing to accept a significantly lower salary. Or because of their knowledge of their native language (learning teacher, contractor, etc.).
Did you simply pack your things and moved to Thailand to find a job or did you get an offer?

I'm asking because getting a job in a foreign country is extremely tempting option and you seem to have a pile of experience in this department :).

Yep, just packed my bags and moved. Got a job when I arrived here :) Intended to stay for a year. Have been here almost 11 years now.

I'm a qualified teacher in the US (although I only taught there for 2 years a long time ago before I moved into PR and marketing and then non-profit work), so I walked into a job the day after I started looking. They usually only hire native English speakers to teach English in Thailand (with a few European non-native English speakers at the lower paying government schools) as Thais simply don't have the English language skills necessary to teach English.

Having said that, Thai teachers are amazing at teaching English grammar, but it's the speaking skills they don't seem to be able to master very well so, even if they understand English grammar and can teach it well, many can barely string a sentence together when it comes to speaking. And, as Thailand is at the bottom of the ladder in English skills of all the ASEAN countries, the Thai government is desperate to improve speaking and comprehension skills of as many Thais as they can.

But foreigners in Thailand make a lot more money than Thais for most jobs because overall we are much better educated (most Thai universities are very low-level and the education they offer isn't worth much), but......very few jobs are open to non-Thais.

We are allowed to teach, own our own businesses if a Thai owns 51 percent and we own 49 percent, do some work in IT (if it's something a Thai can't do) do things like acting and modeling if the jobs call for 'farangs' (white westenrners) and do some work in marketing/PR and in the newspaper industry -- and, for the most part, all other jobs are banned for non-Thais.

If you thought about coming to Thailand to teach and you're a non-native English speaker, it would be more difficult for you to get a job but definitely not impossible, as I know several Dutch, German and French people who teach English here, and they all make a decent enough living at it. For any other type of job, though, it can be a bit of a pain to get.

I see. Thank you for sharing your experience. My English is hardly at the level needed for language teachers but it's good to hear that it's possible to squeeze in IT department there somewhere. I'd look for what kind of IT jobs are open to foreigners :).

I'm having trouble deciding between scary and deadly.