somtamguy

Just giving you some advice, because I see you have made three posts on this forum since 2019 asking people on here about how to improve listening comprehension, because you said, in your own words, that your "listening comprehension is poor". All i'm saying is, from someone who is now able to understand native speakers in most situations (both in formal and informal situations), you need to spend a LOT more time doing listening practice. There is a clear correlation between a foreigner's level of listening comprehension of Thai and the amount of total hours they've put in doing listening practice. You don't have to take my advice, because it doesn't matter to me if you want to strictly study the different variations of Thai native speaker pronunciation. But you're asking for advice on here from experienced Thai language learners about how to improve. If you want to get good at listening you will have to put in a lot more work doing listening practice. Like I already mentioned - somewhere between 1-3 (or even more is optimal) every single day for approximately the next 1-2 years. You'll see a huge jump in your listening comprehension. If you don't want to do that, then it doesn't bother me at all. But your listening skills will most likely stagnate over the next few years or maybe only slightly improve if you don't focus on listening to native speakers (on Youtube and in real life) on a daily basis. Good luck!

TBH I think you may be concentrating way too much on different pronunciation between native speakers. This is something you can maybe start to focus on once you get to the higher intermediate/advanced levels. But right now it looks like you need to spend A LOT more time on listening practice, and also speaking practice. Thai is hard to understand as a beginner, which is pretty much the level you're at. But once you get to the higher levels it becomes a lot easier, and sometimes feels completely natural to someone who has achieved that high level. You seem to be getting way too bogged down in linguistic questions, when your time would be way better spent on doing anywhere between 1-5 hours per day of listening practice for around 1-2 years, every single day. Unless of course your goal is to understand the absolute nuts and bolts of the language, then that is ok. But if your goal is to UNDERSTAND native speakers comfortably, you are going to have to put in a lot more time improving your listening comprehension (and of course, speaking and reading).