My experience after learning to speak pretty good Thai was like night and day. Obviously it helped massively with cold approach, but also resulted in me practically getting numbers thrown at me as I went about my day to day business. It was like, go for a beer, leave with the dek cheer beer girl's number; go for a haircut, leave with a number; go and reschedule my flight at the airline, leave with a number, go to the pharmacy, arrange to meet the girl when I was better. It also became really easy to befriend staff at bars where I was a regular customer, which resulted in them introducing me to female customers - had a lot of ONS this way.
It also enabled me to get a bit of a social circle together. One of my best Thai friends speaks great English, but I don't think he would have started speaking to me if he hadn't heard me speaking Thai to a girl I was with. Having Thai friends really helped with women, and seemed to be mutually beneficial, in that women also seemed to be intrigued by the guys I was with. They'd often ask how we knew each other, and even if we were gay, and then when I'd start speaking Thai it was game on. We went through a lot of pairs of girls that way.
I'd strongly recommend taking the time to learn Thai if you live in LOS. You can get really good within 6 months using the system taught by Union, TLA, and some other language schools that also use the same system that I can't recall (it was a system originally used to teach Christian missionaries, but some of the teachers broke off and formed their own schools). The course at Chula is supposedly even better, but is very expensive in comparison.
It also enabled me to get a bit of a social circle together. One of my best Thai friends speaks great English, but I don't think he would have started speaking to me if he hadn't heard me speaking Thai to a girl I was with. Having Thai friends really helped with women, and seemed to be mutually beneficial, in that women also seemed to be intrigued by the guys I was with. They'd often ask how we knew each other, and even if we were gay, and then when I'd start speaking Thai it was game on. We went through a lot of pairs of girls that way.
I'd strongly recommend taking the time to learn Thai if you live in LOS. You can get really good within 6 months using the system taught by Union, TLA, and some other language schools that also use the same system that I can't recall (it was a system originally used to teach Christian missionaries, but some of the teachers broke off and formed their own schools). The course at Chula is supposedly even better, but is very expensive in comparison.