thank you BYU (I can't work out if that is your pen name. I assume its not ปิ๋ว because my dic says that means to miss the opportunity or to lose in a competition and i don't think that fits your profile) i think the problem for me is that google translate speaks ว่าแต่ very loudly at the beginning of a sentence and it sounds angry. I assume in speech it not stressed so heavily so i will tone it down in my recordings. i have learnt thai by recording 65,000 sentences in Eng/Thai. It takes me 2 months to listen to them all when i walk my dog each day. i started with ENG at normal speed and then the THAI twice at slow speed. Every 2 months i speed it up 3%. After 3 years that's about a 50% increase. The ENG is super fast but since i am familiar with it, it jogs my memory and gives me an indication of the topic of the next thai sentence . The Thai is very brisk, much faster than normal speech. I am now working on improving my reading skills as I can only read familiar material at normal speed. I also need to improve my speaking skills so a lesson package would be good, however i am going to Thailand in 3 weeks for a month. On my return i would like to try out your lessons. warm regards Peter

Hi Peter! "ว่าแต่" is very close to the word "by the way" in English. We use "ว่าแต่" to change the topic of the conversation sometimes. For instance, ว่าแต่เมื่อกี้ พูดว่าอย่างไรนะ? or ว่าแต่ เดี๋ยวเราจะกินอะไรกันดี I hope this helps out! :) Kru BYU