The brutal thing about Thai, for me, was learning the matrix of how consonant class, tone markings, and the "live" or "dead" status of the syllable all came tog

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