The brutal thing about Thai, for me, was learning the matrix of how consonant class, tone markings, and the &quot;live&quot; or &quot;dead&quot; status of the syllable all came together to determine the tone of the syllable. There&#x27;s a little lookup table, which I&#x27;ve so far found impossible to memorize. Of course, it&#x27;s totally ingrained in the ear of any native Thai speaker, and they hardly know they&#x27;re doing it.