Thai vs Chinese
Is Thai easier than Chinese?
Thai and Chinese are unrelated, but both are tonal and analytic with subject-verb-object order. Thai has borrowed some words from Teochew and other southern Chinese varieties, but its learned vocabulary comes from Pali and Sanskrit.
The short answer
Thai is usually quicker to conversation (FSI Category III against Category IV for Mandarin). Its script has 44 consonant letters and tone rules tied to consonant classes, but it is still a phonetic system. Mandarin has fewer tones (four plus neutral against Thai's five) but thousands of characters.
The verdict
Thai is FSI Category III (about 1,100 hours); Chinese is Category IV (about 2,200).
Closeness score
6 / 30
Mutually intelligible?
no
Shared vocabulary
Small: mostly Teochew loans for food, kinship and trade
Which first?
No strong order effect; pick by where you live.
Kungfucius says: Both sing; they just learnt different songs.
Side by side
phasa thai中文
ZhōngwénThai uses an abugida derived from the Khmer script, written left to right with no spaces between words.