I'm learning Thai right now and I just started learning the writing system. Coming from a native English speaking background, speaking Chinese with my family,

I'm learning Thai right now and I just started learning the writing system. Coming from a native English speaking background, speaking Chinese with my family, I can empathize with people whr find tones hard. I've found it fairly easy to pick up Cantonese words even though there are more tones than Mandarin. But with Thai, there are long vowels and short vowels in addition to tones. It's a totally new concept to me. I can't confidently distinguish between "nam" and "naam" except for certain tones.