Somchart Language School

[joeaf]

I just took 30 hours of private lessons at Somchart Thai Language School from Nov 12-22. Somchart is located on Soi 19 (16/23-24 Soi 19 Sukhumvit Rd.) at the Asok skytrain station, in the Benetome Building on the 6th floor. They were in the process of changing their email so I don't have that information.

Here is their pricing information.

Private 1 on 1 lessons at the school are available from Mon-Sat between 8 AM to 5 PM. Lessons at the school before 8 AM and after 5 PM are priced higher. Private lessons at your place were also available at a higher cost.

20 hrs 5,280 Baht

40 hrs 7,920 Baht

60 hrs 9,450 Baht

80 hrs 10,560 Baht

You must purchase the lessons in these blocks of hours, and you have one year to use the hours. The private lessons takes place in several rooms, but there may be 2 or 3 other private lessons taking place in that room. The head instructor is "Chutima" and they have approx 7 other female instructors.

All of the other students I saw lived and/or worked in Bangkok, and I was only tourist type there during my 2 weeks of study. I just walked in and paid for 40 hours and they were able to schedule 19 hrs the first week and 11 hrs the next week. I plan to return to Bangkok next year and use the remaining 10 hrs.

They teach from a simple book (xeroxed pages) which you buy for 35 baht, but they will also teach from regular books such as "Thai for Beginners" by Benjawan Poomsan Becker which is a book/3 tape set which you can buy from Amazon.com for $33. On a previous trip, I purchased this book/tape set from Bookazine for 649 Baht and it helped with the private lessons since I had a head start on memorizing some on the basics such as numbers. I had 4 different instructors and I really got an appreciation of the tonal language from my private lessons. I liked the fact that would teach from a regular book since I can try to continue my study of the Thai language while I am back in the States.

The group price in school were all 5 week courses from 8-5 PM. I did not see any group lessons while I was there, but their brochure listed these 6 group prices:

2hrs/day

M-F 50 hrs 6,050 Baht

MWF 30 hrs 5,280 Baht

Tth 20 hrs 3,960 Baht

3 hrs/day

M-F 75 hrs 7,425 Baht

MWF 45 hrs 4,950 Baht

4 hrs/day

M-F 100 hrs 8,800 Baht