Subscribe
Translate
Who's Online?
Bangkok Weather
Blog Post
Speaking (barely) enough Thai
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
I speak Thai.
Well, sort of.
I have studied Thai language for several months, and because I live in Thailand I have plenty of opportunity to practice. Or so you’d think.
I live in Bangkok, and specifically, in the general vicinity of Sukhumvit, which means that nearly everyone I deal with speaks English to a certain level – at least the level required to provide service to farang customers. At 7-11 that may simply be knowing English prices and asking if you want your food microwaved. The bank tellers can talk about deposits and balances and the taxi drivers know the words for left, right, go straight and stop.
Frequently it’s a toss-up to figure out whether whose language skill set is best suited to the situation – their English or my Thai. It usually ends up easiest simply to speak English with them.
In my workplace everything I do is in English. I have a kindergarten-level ability to read Thai, so I get all my news and information in English as well.
What I’m saying is that I actually DON’T practice speaking Thai very often. This means that, in spite of quite a lot of study, my actual ability to speak and understand Thai is very limited.
Recently I had to take a long trip out of Bangkok for work, traveling upcountry for over a month. I was assigned a driver to take me places I wanted or needed to go. She also took care of a few other needs, such as washing my laundry.
She didn’t speak a word of English. Not one.
Finally! A chance to sharpen my Thai language skills. For several weeks I spent time on a daily basis chatting with my driver – a gregarious lady just a year younger than me who is, nonetheless, a grandmother. Bit by bit my ability to put voice to my thoughts and to understand the things she was saying to me improved.
I’m talking pretty small increments here – not leaps and bounds – but the daily need to listen and express thoughts in Thai was definitely improving my abilities. Jackie Chan speaking English would still look like a linguistic giant next to me, but I was pleased that I was making some progress.
And then I went to Chiang Mai for a five-day holiday. I am single, white and free so I feel no shame in telling you that among other goals I was hoping to make the acquaintance of some Thai lady on my trip who could entertain me and perhaps even keep me warm during the relatively cool mountain nights.
On my first day in town I met such a girl. She was a petite thing, and very attractive. She had a lovely smile and a demure attitude, but underneath it all she seemed to be open to the idea of spending some quality time with me.
The only hitch was that when I asked she said she didn’t speak any English. This made things more interesting. It’s one thing to give directions to a taxi driver, order food in a restaurant, or even arrange a time and place to meet a friend; but carrying on conversations that are extensive enough and interesting enough to spend hours a day together, even for just a few days, was much more daunting.
However, my confidence was bolstered by my recent success talking with my driver, and the girl was, as I mentioned before, both attractive and possessed of a good attitude, so I continued to try to move things forward with her.
As is almost always the case in Thailand, this part wasn’t difficult. I was dressed well, I spoke politely, I showered several times daily, and it was clear that I could pay my way. By simply being clear about my interest in her, things moved along.
Thai women, unlike most western women I know, take no delight in shutting down an approach from a man, as long as the approach is polite. Being direct is no problem, and Thai women accept compliments easily.
I kept it pretty basic. I told her that she was pretty and had a nice smile. I told her that I lived in Bangkok, that I was in Chiang Mai only for five days, and I would love to be able to spend some time with her. I was able to do all this in Thai.
Being a Thai woman, she accepted all this with some grace, and told me that since it was my first day in Chiang Mai, and since I had only just met her, she thought it would be best if we waited until the next day to go out together, when, if I was inclined to do so, I could buy her dinner.
It was agreed.
I find that this is usually the only hoop a Thai girl will ask you to jump through. It’s sort of the minimalist test of seriousness. After all, you may be trying your chat line on every girl you meet. If you come back tomorrow, at least she knows that you remember her, you are serious enough to make some plans, and that you weren’t simply drunk and talking freely.
I recently introduced a Thai girl (friend of a friend) to a guy I work with. He was a bit dismayed when she asked him to come back the following day before she would provide her phone number, but he complied. Having jumped through the hoop, he got her phone number and a dinner date. They’ve been out several times and he seems very optimistic about the future of this budding romance.
Back in Chiang Mai, I did return the next night. It was fairly scary when we finally went to dinner together. I had to use all the Thai at my disposal to work through the decision making process of where to go (she lived in Chiang Mai, not me, so I wanted her to recommend a place. Being a Thai woman, she wanted me to decide). We finally ended up at a seafood restaurant, where we had about 90 minutes of good food and some awkward conversation.
It wasn’t too difficult to do the basics – where each of us lived, work, family and so on. But smalltalk sometimes leads in directions where you want to discuss interesting details, and here my vocabulary ran out. I simply didn’t know enough words to talk freely.
When we would hit one of these conversational stone walls, she would usually reach out to grab my hand, smile, and say “mai pben rai” (don’t worry about it).
In any event, I survived the dinner, and she seemed to genuinely enjoy herself.
Each day in Chiang Mai I spent some time with her. Conversations expanded to include daily phone calls where we chatted about our day and made arrangements for meeting later. I even managed to get her to cuddle with me back at my hotel the last two nights before I left.
On my third day there she finally admitted that she did understand some English. But she couldn’t build sentences; just knew some words. We opened my laptop, logged onto a translation website and she started teaching me some new phrases… mostly song lyrics for Thai songs that we listened to in the early evenings.
By the time I was leaving Chiang Mai we were trading email addresses with the promise of practicing reading and writing Thai. She was asking me to come back to visit her soon, and I laughed and offered to entertain her in Bangkok instead. I got a nice kiss goodbye and a playful wink as I said goodbye for the final time.
This is why I decided to study Thai language at the beginning. I wanted to be able to talk to Thai people who didn’t speak English, and I never wanted to be in a situation where I couldn’t flirt with a pretty girl just because she only spoke Thai.
In this case I didn’t distinguish myself. I speak haltingly, and the Thais I’ve been speaking to often have to speak slowly or repeat themselves to help me understand, but I feel like I’ve passed one of those significant tests that, even as it reminds you that you aren’t good enough, tells you that you’re measurably better than you were.
I’ll continue studying and practicing, but I’ve reached my initial goal of being able to create a relationship with a Thai person based entirely on my ability to converse in Thai without any reliance on English. For the moment, my Thai is (barely) good enough.
Popularity: 29% [?]
Leave a response
3 responses so far
July 10th, 2008 at 8:57 pm
A thing is an inanimate object isn’t it?? If you are under 25 I understand that you are young and possibly underdeveloped with your thoughts and ramblings. If you are over 25….I’d probably suggest a psychoanalyst. You are so offensive in how you talk about women that I would imagine that most women would actually find you a turn off. No wonder you have to pay for it my friend!
July 10th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
trudie: I’d have to agree with you about this post. It’s pretty weak. I was bored the other night and sort of forced this one out. In hindsight, it was probably a mistake to press the ’submit’ button.
I confess that when I talk to women my presentation is different from the offensive language in my blogs, so I don’t think that they are typically turned off, but it’s possible. I understand what you mean, though.
Phychoanalysis might indeed be a good idea. I never claimed to be emotionally and spiritually intact. Unfortunately I am not motivated to seek such healing.
One reason for paying prostitutes instead of attempting to carry on a ‘normal’ relationship is so that I don’t inflict that damaged psyche/spirit on a woman who is invested in me. I actually can attract a woman to a relationship, but I invariably disappoint them. Somehow it seems better to simply satisfy my carnal desires and avoid attempts at committed relationships.
August 24th, 2008 at 10:59 am
I enjoyed this post. I have also spent some time learning thai. I just wish I knew more! It is a very difficult language compared to anything european.
BTW, Trudie needs to get a life. You were very polite in response to her insults.