I just deal in export and not one of my customers are Thai so no need for the language but I have been told I Sawadee like a Royal.
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I just deal in export and not one of my customers are Thai so no need for the language but I have been told I Sawadee like a Royal.
I am immersed in the Thai language daily because I am surrounded by Thai speakers in my office. I am the only farang. I can understand everything but my spoken delivery is not perfect. I stammer for the right word a lot. I have lived here for 11 years, I am married to a Thai and I still feel like I am only scratching the surface of the language. I cannot read because I am too lazy. Tried many times to learn but it just doesn't stick.
Did happen to read the OP? Obviously you didn't.Quote:
Originally Posted by 12Call
Pardon me for being a nitpicker.
Scrambled indeed. Sometimes I would walk the 5kms home from school just to try and unscramble them before starting homework!Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr EarlQuote:
Originally Posted by MeMockFor the committed students this is indeed true. I just wish that I was one of them. :( The school is ULC.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wayne Kerr
You must of gotten some out of 3 months.
I'm half way into the second month. It's indeed quite tough. I feel like my brains have been scrambled at the end of class most days.:(
I did get a lot out of it for sure and still recommend the place. I can read Thai okay (although slow) and I understand and talk a fair bit but I know I make so many mistakes. It was worth it. Just wish I stuck it out for a further 3 - 5 months.
I think it takes the time to embed some of the grammar. As westerners we simply are unable intellectualize the language structure.Quote:
Originally Posted by MeMockQuote:
Originally Posted by Mr Earl
Scrambled indeed. Sometimes I would walk the 5kms home from school just to try and unscramble them before starting homework!
I did get a lot out of it for sure and still recommend the place. I can read Thai okay (although slow) and I understand and talk a fair bit but I know I make so many mistakes. It was worth it. Just wish I stuck it out for a further 3 - 5 months.
I took a university class on child development way back. Apparently a baby learns much of his/her grammatical language structure from the belly of the mother.
I'm thinking Thai is perhaps especially like this.
Putting us hapless westerners struggling to learn this language at a severe disadvantage.
I shooting to putting 4 months break for a month and another 2 or 3.
I wanna be able to begin to be able to read a newspaper and watch a news cast with some comprehension.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 12Call
So you don't do much business here then.....another loser.
So are most ThaisQuote:
Originally Posted by PaulBunyon
Good on ya Mr Earl. Go hard mate.
After 6 months they offer specialised courses and I remember that one of them was all about reading Thai newspapers.
I learned the Thai I know by hanging around in bars and asking lots of questions and eventually filling the gaps and stringing together sentences.
I stopped learning in 2003, I know enough to find my way home and tell them how I like my food. Whilst I agree it would be useful to be able to speak it fluently, there's two reasons why I don't.
#1. Thai is a useless language outside Thailand. It is one of the most primitive languages on the earth today and is very limited in it's vocabulary, something which keeps the nation dumbed down and controlled.
2#. I don't want to sound like a complete wanker, like these fluent Thai speakers who show it off at any opportunity. I know I would be unable to resist the opportunity at times. As it is, I feel like a smug show off speaking Thai in front of a farang who can't and I only use it when absolutely necessary.
Something that non Thai speakers who have been in Thailand for a number of years always get wrong. The Thai language has more words than most European languages. German for example has one of the smallest base vocabularies of any language in the world.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Gentleman Scamp
^ Okay then, I take that back and i'll leave on the table the fact that unlike internationally beneficial languages such as Mandarin, Spanish, French or Japanese it is, outside Thailand - about as much use as a chocolate teapot.
I don't disagree. Though If I was to live in any country for more than a couple of years I would be very disappointed if when I left I could speak little more than the basics of the language. Just my personal thought on the matter.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Gentleman Scamp
Not so usefull then.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Gentleman Scamp
I have a friend that learnt it almost 24/7 for 3 years. Now he is fluent, can talk to anybody and can read and write Thai as quick as he can english and he writes english very fast.
I could and would never do what he did, he spent all his time at Chula, when not at Chula he was doing homework, when not doing homework he was doing private extra 1 on 1 with a tuitor.
He sat with one of the most powerful figures in thailand recently and chatted to him in Thai for 20 minutes.
He went from tourist jibbersih to this in 3 years, but he is single and retired, so he had the time and dedication to do it.
^Good for him.
Well I'm beginner level Japanese, I know it's not much much I know all the colours and numbers and can say a few lines. I've still been very lazy, and I am disappointed that I have not learned more, but considering I have yet to set foot in Japan it's not a bad start, neither is getting some pocket money writing for an expat publication in Tokyo once a month.Quote:
Originally Posted by English Noodles
I don't blame anybody for learning Thai fluently, it's certainly a useful tool to have. But it only changes how you are, not how your viewed. Because of Thailand's instability and lack of maturity I've always seen it affectionately as a loveable hub.
I do ok here and have done so for some years.Quote:
Originally Posted by NawtyQuote:
Originally Posted by 12Call
So you don't do much business here then.....another loser.
That's great, you should contact Robuzo, I have a suspicion that he knows the Japanese language quite well.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Gentleman Scamp
You have to start somewhere, but yes, laziness is your enemy when trying to learn a language.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Gentleman Scamp
When are you moving to Japan?Quote:
Originally Posted by The Gentleman Scamp
That's a rather strange statement. Why would anyone 'blame' anyone for learning a foreign language.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Gentleman Scamp
being able speak, read and write the language of the country you live in is always going to be a useful tool to have.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Gentleman Scamp
It doesn't have to change anything about you, it just means you have a far greater awareness of your environment. The locals don't even have to know that you understand, you can always just speak English anyway. The majority of the time, if a Thai person speaks to me in English, then I will not let it be known that I speak Thai, unless I need to speak Thai to get what I want, then I don't.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Gentleman Scamp
Fair point, it would be good to hear what they all talk about - however I once asked a fluent farang what two girls we were sharing a lift with in Ayutthaya were talking about and he looked at me with despair and said, "Trust me, it's so inane you don't even want to know. Sometimes it's better to be switched off."Quote:
Originally Posted by English Noodles
So by that rationale it's good to be deaf. :)
It's simply a commonly used hyperbolic means of praising an invention or development, it derives from a large advertising campaign launched in the 1930s by Wonder Bread.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Gentleman Scamp
Hi, my names Scampy and I would like to suck you off. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by The Gentleman Scamp
^ Because he speaks Japanese?
For whatever reason you can come up with.:)Quote:
Originally Posted by The Gentleman Scamp
Did you learn any of the local language when you were in the 'Blue Toon' - ken fit ah min?Quote:
Originally Posted by The Gentleman Scamp
Toon is a lovely lady.
Language is such a powerfull thing...but instead of purely being used as a method of trying to communicate person to person often it is used by inferior people to "Score points" off their superiors..I see this all the time.. Apart from the normal European languages learnt at school I would say I speak below average Thai, above average Issan Kmmer, a fair splattering of Mandarin. followed by a good length of Swahili, Japanese, Bahasa Malayu / Indo...and a mixture of Ghanaian languages I don't know the name of..
In every case I can be made to look like an idiot if somebody chooses to...and often they do....My problem lies with people that take it as a ball kicking contest...
You can speak Suay dialect?Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeremia