Thai is difficult to pronounce correctly, but foreigners are generally pleased that the grammar is so easy. At least, until they really start to learn Thai.
Since I have never attended a language school, I'm not about to teach anybody about Thai language. However, I want to point out the impossibilities of learning Thai noun classifiers as there don't seem to be any rules of how/why. One simply has to memorize the noun classifiers - what is the classifier for that noun.
The classifier "lem" is used for books, so one book = năng-sŭh-nùng-lêm. But it is also used for notebook, candle, and knife. "Toor" is used for table and cat, while "taeng" is used for pencil and gold bricks, but don't ask why it is so..
If we talk about vehicles in Thai, we have to use different classifiers. Car and bicycle are "khan" (e.g., rót-nùng-khan), but for boats and airplanes, the classifier is "lam".
Thai noun classifiers for fruits are “phŏn or “bai or “luuk" however way you please. "Luuk" is used for many round things such as footballs and bowling balls while “bai” is Thai noun classifier for bag, basket, and banknotes.
And so it continues. So, you have to learn and memorize the classifier for each noun as well as learning and memorizing the noun itself.
To make things a little bit more complicated in terms of learning, but a lot more specific in terms of communication finesse, if one wishes to express that one thinks the quantity of the noun discussed is insufficient or too many, then .. add a word to classify the classifier.
For example
káo mii sûa kâe săam dtua I only have three shirts
dtua is the classifier. sûa is noun. kâe indicates that I don't think three is a sufficient number of shirts for me to have.
káo gin sôm dtâng yîi-sìp lûuk I ate 20 oranges (which was too many for me) lûuk= classifier. sôm is noun. dtâng indicates that 20 was too many for me to eat.
