The wisdom of the taxi driver

Today was rainy, cold, and I was late for work. I jumped into a taxi to take me a relatively short distance in the hideous traffic, and it actually made my morning. I had a lovely little chat with the taxi driver, especially after he slowed it down a bit when he realised I wasn’t a native speaker.

If you are lucky enough to be living in Asia or any place where taxis are cheap and plentiful, you will have many opportunities to talk to locals in a situation where the alternative is just to look out the window. I have a friend who vastly improved his Thai simply because he had to be stuck in a taxi in a traffic jam in Bangkok for hours every week.

In short, take every opportunity to speak to the people you come across every day.  In my experience, they’re more than happy to converse with you, and you will probably pick up a lot of vocabulary that you definitely wouldn’t in a language class!