Thread: Tricks to play on Thais

Originally Posted by Neverna

I'm greatly impressed that Smeg has learnt Thai so well that he now sounds like a Thai. And all done from the UK, Portugal and Taiwan. Bladdy awesome. Unbelievable. If he'd just start using the farang word, people might believe him. I bet he loves spicy food too. ao tam thai kap, sai prik saam met.

I've been watching lakorns and listening to Thai rock music constantly since 2002, which is one of the way I learned. I love both, and I don't love lakorns for their entertainment value per se but because there's always something to learn from them, fictitious as the plots may be.

I can also cook a wide range of Thai food, very well. Doing these things and acquiring these skills hasn't required living here constantly for the past 15 years (why would it?), and I'm very glad that I haven't.

Originally Posted by Immigrunt

^^ Me? Pretty much fluent now, and I'm one of the few that's perfected the tones and accent. People on the phone have no idea i'm not Thai until I tell them.

Oh FFS.

Originally Posted by Neverna

I'm greatly impressed that Smeg has learnt Thai so well that he now sounds like a Thai.

The pit crew in his Formula 4 team were Thai. So were the cabin crew on his yacht.


You could call him up for a chat Nev.

Smeggums is into talking to posters on the phone.


Smeg? Would be nice to have someone to talk to and not have to trot off the cinema by yourself for the evening again.

The inaccuracies of the Thai subtitling must surely grate, however minor.

Originally Posted by Luigi

You could call him up for a chat Nev.

Smeggums is into talking to posters on the phone.

He could demonstrate his flawless Thai language skills and leave you awestruck.

^ Pat's heard them.

I tinkered with the idea of setting up a westerner rock band in the past that does only covers of my favourite Thai rock bands, because I can sing hundreds of their songs very well and I'm not a bad guitarist.

I think it'd be a massive hit with the locals and I don't think it's been done before (I could be wrong) but I don't want to hang around here for years which would be required to make a success of it.

Originally Posted by Immigrunt

I think it'd be a massive hit with the locals

I suppose you're just an absolute natural on stage as well, yeah?

Originally Posted by Immigrunt

^ Pat's heard them.

yeah? Calling DJ Pat (again):

Is Smeg (ya know, the one and only) practically fluent in Thai to the point where he could fool a Thai on the phone?

(I don't expect you to answer the last part, since you don't really speak it yourself.)

Originally Posted by hick

Originally Posted by Immigrunt

I think it'd be a massive hit with the locals

I suppose you're just an absolute natural on stage as well, yeah?

Podgy, balding, charmless, middle-aged man with an unwavering ability to unite strangers in their shared dislike of him? Of course he's a natural.

^ Are you referring to the handful of bored lonely angry loons looking for an online target for their frustrations in the oddest display of common cause-forming on the planet?

Don't get excited, you're not off ignore for long.

Tell people you won the lottery and are having a big party with loads of free food and drink, then don't show up

sid vicious & syd barrett...


...meet smeg

Smeg looks a bit more like this these days

Originally Posted by Immigrunt

I've been watching lakorns and listening to Thai rock music constantly since 2002

This explains quite a lot and I'm not referring to your lexical finesse in thai.

Originally Posted by armstrong

agree.

Originally Posted by Immigrunt

I think it'd be a massive hit with the locals and I don't think it's been done before (I could be wrong) but I don't want to hang around here for years which would be required to make a success of it.

PS: This is a candy-ass, lame excuse and you know it. If you wanna' fucking do something, you get off the forum and do it.

I jammed with 4 Thai dudes 5 nights a week for the better part of two years when you were a mere smegma.
Back when Santika was the place to be seen and heard.

Stop stroking your own ego and just fucking do it. It doesn't take years. It takes about a week to get set up.

Originally Posted by Immigrunt

Pretty much fluent now, and I'm one of the few that's perfected the tones and accent.

What was your motivation for learning Thai?

I have a video of me trying to hitch a ride out of VTE at rush hour. The gals on their scooters and the looks I got were a hoot. What if one would have stopped. I guess I'd have some explaining to do.

Funny that none would pick up.............the fish. I don't smell and ain't exactly ugly.

Originally Posted by Neverna

Originally Posted by Immigrunt

Pretty much fluent now, and I'm one of the few that's perfected the tones and accent.

What was your motivation for learning Thai?

I wanted to know what they were saying behind my back. And or if it was time to run.

Originally Posted by Immigrunt

Suggestions?

One of mine is, when I'm shopping and one of them starts speaking to me in pidgin style English (likely assuming I'm a tourist) I respond to them in Thai, and firstly apologise that I can't understand them, then explain that I can only speak Thai, not English. The confusion shown on their faces can be hilarious

Hell man I can't believe it, I thought I was the only Dude pulling that shit man, that's My act, only big difference is the results I get, the delight shown on their faces when they ask me in Thai for my number.

Originally Posted by Immigrunt

^^ Me? Pretty much fluent now, and I'm one of the few that's perfected the tones and accent. People on the phone have no idea i'm not Thai until I tell them.

I'm calling B/S on your self-assessment of your thai language skills

If you, a foreigner, learned thai as an adult, after 2 or 3 sentences EVERY thai you talk to knows you're not a born, bred, rice-fed native speaker. Whether they say it to you or not. These people <- that would be the thais, are excellent at accent identification.

I've found as a general rule foreign thai speakers overestimate their actual thai ability by about 1000%. I'd bet you're far more "effluent" than fluent <- what ever the f*ck that term means.

Fluent is an imaginary place in your mind that gets in the way with you learning thai. I've met hundreds and hundreds of good competent proficient foreign speakers 'o thai, yet I've never met one I felt was fluent in the language.

That you take the piss outta them when they're tryin' to interact with you in engrish is un-redeeming.

I wish I knew how to block you in real life..