Bangkok Diaries » Thai Language

One night in Bangkok continued.

john.cooper — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 04:27:14 +0000

One night in Bangkok continued. is a post from: Bangkok Diaries

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My brain feels like it is swimming in thick oil and my body is aching but that’s what happens when you party in Bangkok two nights in a row. But it was worth it!

OK, back to the night before yesterday. Pete had arrived on Friday but he didn’t tell his girlfriend that he was here. He wanted a few nights to play on his own before seeing her. He’s such a lovely boy! He picked up a girl in the gentleman’s club and brought her with us to the after hours nightclub but I don’t know what happened to her, she just disappeared. My girlfriend arrived with two friends and one of them is a good friend of Pete’s girlfriend. The plot was thickening! My girlfriend had already told her friend that if she told Pete’s girlfriend he was here they would not be friends anymore but Pete wanted to take it to another level. Just after we got to the nightclub I swallowed another half of E and finally I was feeling a bit of love in the air. We had been dancing in the laser light beams to heavy techno music, smiling at everyone because we were just feeling so happy, for about an hour when Pete asked me to step outside with him, he had a plan. He told me that he was going to take the friend of his girlfriend home and fuck her because then she could not tell his girlfriend that they had met. I was laughing my ass of but he was serious. Nut, my girlfriend, came out and joined us and he told her about his plan, she said he was nuts but that it would probably work, after all TIT (This Is Thailand). We went back in to the flashing darkness and thundering music and kept smiling but no one noticed because everyone else was smiling also.

A Thai guy, maybe in his 50′s, was up on the bar dancing away, and looking good, whilst his groupies were jumping around below. I recognized the two big, though looking, Thai guys standing next to him and they gave me a discreet nod which I returned. I knew them both, one was special branch police and one was army special forces and both worked as security at different nightclubs to make ends meet, no wonder corruption is ripe in this country. It was obvious they were working private security for the old guy, I could see that they were both carrying guns on their back in their belts, so it wouldn’t look good if I went over and talked to them now. Their presence and the the young beautiful girls surrounding the old guy told me that he was somebody you didn’t want to get on the wrong side of, probably mafia, maybe police or army, TIT.

The girl who took care of our table in the gentleman’s club had joined us in the club at first but apparently some VIP customers were now there, at the table next to us, so she forgot everything about us and started to caring for them instead. That was fine, after all she has to make a living, and we didn’t care. Nut was looking good as always and when she dances no guy can keep his eyes of her. I saw that the girl from the gentleman’s club talked to her and she shook her head and moved closer to me. I asked what was wrong and she told me that the girl had asked her to go talk to one of the VIP guys. That pissed me off! I had already introduced them and she knew that I wasn’t fooling around om my girl since I had denied the company of a girl in the gentleman’s club, that should have told here that we were serious. I knew that she had to take care of her clients but she should have told them that this girl has a boyfriend. I went over and told her that I didn’t want her to ask my girl to talk to other guys again, Nut pinched my thigh hard but I wasn’t going to let this slide without making a statement. Off course she denied that she had done such a thing and I decided to back down as to not make her loose face, she had got the message. I told her that I was sorry if I had misunderstood but that if someone actually did ask my girl to go keep some other guy company I wold off course be very angry. She was very understanding and told me that she would keep an eye on my girl to make sure that no one made any moves on her. Fair enough.

It was time to bounce once again and we moved on to the next nightclub but dropped Pete and his girlfriend’s friend of at his hotel first. After another couple of hours smiling and dancing at a place that is a lot more shady, where all the bouncers carry guns inside their jackets, we finally went home to get some sleep. When we stepped outside to get a taxi the sun was already up and on the way back home we could see the monks in their orange robes doing their morning walk and scores of people off to work. All in all it was a good night! Now it was time for love.

This is a post copied from my blog: Sex drugs and rock’n roll, fugitive in Thailand

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How Many Girlfriends Do You Have?

Admin — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 10:55:57 +0000

How Many Girlfriends Do You Have? is a post from: Bangkok Diaries

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I guess you have to love Thai culture. I’ve recently started a beginner Thai course here in Bangkok and on the second day of class we were learning how to ask questions about whether or not you have something. The teacher (Thai female) wrote on the board:

Question: Khun mii faan may khrap? (Do you have a boyfriend / girlfriend?)

Answer: Phom mii fann laaw khrap (I have girlfriend / boyfriend already)

Answer: Phom yang may mii faan khrap (I don’t have a boyfriend / girlfriend yet)

Answer: Phom mii faan laay khon khrap (I have many girlfriends / boyfriends)

Then she went around the room of all male students and asked us each if we had a girlfriend. Everyone either said yes or many. The teacher sat down somewhat disappointed and said “Dichan yang may mii faan khrap” (I don’t have a boyfriend yet).

I guess only in Thailand would that shoot up to the top of the list of phrases a Thai instructor thinks you need to know.

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Google Translate Does Thai

Admin — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 11:02:40 +0000

Google Translate Does Thai is a post from: Bangkok Diaries

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Just a cool little tidbit for those of you who correspond with Thai people or would simply like a rough translation of websites that are written in Thai. Google has added Thai language support in Google Translate.

The only gripe I might have about it is that it translates English -> Thai Script or Thai Script -> English. You cannot simply type in “Sawadee” and get back “Hello.” Likewise if you type in “Hello” you get สวัสดี. That’s great if you can read Thai Script but you can’t ever be too sure of the translation if you don’t read Thai Script.

One of the best ways to test of translator (in my opinion) is to give it text in a source language, translate that into your target language, and then use the same tool to translate the target language back into the source language. This will give you a pretty good idea of whether or not things are keeping their meanings during the translation process.

So for a test I took one of the stories appearing on the homepage of Bangkok Diaries and gave it a shot. For the sake of keeping this as simple as possible I only selected the first sentence from author DougBangkok’s post How to Learn Thai Like a 4 Year Old Kid.

The original text:

How does a child learn a language? They are born unable to speak, and for the first 12 months, just make noises. But after 12 months, words come. Single words initially, but by 24 months, most children are speaking in simple sentences and have a vocabulary of several hundred words.

And Google’s translation of the above:

อย่างไร เด็กเรียนภาษา? กำเนิดพวกเขาจะไม่สามารถพูดและแรก 12 เดือนเพียงทำให้ noises. 12 เดือนแต่หลังจากคำมา. เดี่ยวคำชั้นแรกแต่ 24 เดือนโดยส่วนใหญ่มีเด็กในพูดง่ายๆประโยคและมีคำศัพท์หลายร้อยคำ.

It seems to have choked on the word “noises” and doesn’t really do numbers though there probably isn’t any need to translate numbers so no points off for that.

So now the real test is to translate it back into English and see how closely it resembles the original text:

How children learn language? Origin, they can not say the first 12 months and just make noises. 12 months, but after word came. Single word at first, but by 24 months most children are speaking in simple sentences and a vocabulary of hundreds of words.

That’s actually not that bad. I would guess that if you needed a quick translation of a website or wanted to get a specific point across to a Thai friend who wasn’t comprehending your point in English then it would be pretty effective.

Thai Lady Caught Lying With Lie Detector Thai Lady Caught Lying With Lie Detector is a post...

How to Learn Thai Like a 4 Year Old Kid

DougBangkok — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 17:41:07 +0000

How to Learn Thai Like a 4 Year Old Kid is a post from: Bangkok Diaries

Thank you for reading Bangkok Diaries. If you have a post or a story you would like to share please send us your submissions.

How does a child learn a language? They are born unable to speak, and for the first 12 months, just make noises. But after 12 months, words come. Single words initially, but by 24 months, most children are speaking in simple sentences and have a vocabulary of several hundred words.

By the age of 5, most children can form complex sentence structures and communicate their thoughts and desires quite well.

How did they learn that? No young child has formal grammar lessons, they don’t do verb conjugations, they don’t do spelling tests, and they have no idea what “grammar” means.

In Western cultures, parents often sit with a young child looking at picture books and encourage learning. In Asian cultures, especially in poor Asian families, this is less of an occurrence, simply because they can’t afford to buy books. Still, even in Asian cultures, children are reasonably fluent in their language by the age of 5.

How, exactly, do they do that? And can you use the same techniques to learn a language like Thai?
The short answer is “imitation”. Children copy adults. They hear the sounds, they see the actions associated with those sounds, and their brains make connections.

The brain is a complex instrument; some people compare it to a computer, as it has inputs (sight, taste, sound, touch) and outputs (speech, movement), and storage (memory). But it is more complex than any existing computer. Your brain is constantly taking in information every waking moment, filtering some of it out, and storing the rest in “short term memory”. For example, as I am writing this here in my room in Bangkok, I can hear traffic noise from the Expressway which is not far away. My brain is not storing that noise very long, maybe only a second or two, and then it is discarded. But if someone talks to me, the storage time dramatically increases; I can recall what someone said to me half an hour ago, but if you ask me to repeat what someone said two hours or two months ago, the exact words are lost, all I have retained is the general concept. Your “long term memory” contains far fewer details.

When you try to learn an “alien” language like Thai, you need to find a way to make the brain remember the details. I call it “alien” because Thai does not use English characters, it has its own alphabet. The sounds and rhythm of the language are different from English and other European languages, the grammar is totally different, and the vocabulary has different base sounds. “Alien” seems more appropriate than “foreign”.
Children learn by imitation. But you have an adult brain. If someone sits in front of you and says “meu” 35 times, and you repeat it 35 times, will you remember the word? Probably not, because it is not in any kind of context. While you might remember it for a day, a month later it’s gone. It’s just a sound, has no meaning. But if I show you a picture of a hand with six fingers, not five, and say “meu” twice, only twice, chances are you will remember that word the rest of your life.

Why is that? Because hands normally have five fingers, if I show you a picture of a hand with six fingers, that is something different; your brain will associate that picture and the sound together and make a permanent link in your memory. That’s how children learn, but we have tricked the brain to learn faster by making the image unusual to force the link.

Furthermore, if I show you a picture of the Thai word for hand in Thai script at the same time as I show you the image and say the word, your brain will store two images… the pattern of the Thai word and the picture of the hand, along with the sound of the word; this is a three way link. A week later, when you see that word written in Thai, your brain will fire a recognition trigger and pull up the image of the six-fingered hand and you will hear the word in your brain. You didn’t learn the Thai script, the characters, you learned the pattern of characters that makes the word.

It’s like seeing “WORD” as “WORD” rather than “W”, “O”, “R”, “D”. It’s the whole pattern that is important, not the individual letters. While you are reading this article, you are recognizing words, not spelling letters.
This is why I wrote Speak Easy Thai the way I did; the software uses 5000 interesting pictures tied to 5000 words spoken by native Thai speakers and shows you the Thai word in Thai script so your brain can make those important 3-way links. This is an excellent way to learn vocabulary; you just use the program for 10 or 15 minutes whenever you feel like it, and you get new vocabulary each time.

There is another section of Speak Easy Thai which shows 16 cartoon scenarios of common situations, like shopping in a supermarket, being in a classroom, renting a car, etc. I chose to have a young girl (my niece) draw these cartoons because she was not a professional artist. I knew in advance that her drawings would be childish and not professional, and they are. And because of that, they are memorable. When you learn vocabulary with her cartoons, you are learning words in context, like a child, and because the cartoons are different, your brain makes the 3-way links.

I have toured many of the world’s greatest museums and art galleries and viewed thousands of paintings and sculptures. But the ones I remember are the ones that were different in some way: Gauguin’s colourful south seas series is highly memorable, much more so than the thousands of renaissance art pieces. Michelangelo’s David is another example. Dali’s paintings are one more.

While Speak Easy Thai’s cartoons are certainly not up to the caliber of Gauguin, they are different enough from the norm that your brain remembers the cartoon and the Thai words in context.

Learn like a child. See, hear, remember. That’s what Speak Easy Thai is all about.

About the Author:
Douglas Anderson is the author of Speak Easy Thai [http://www.Thai-Culture-Publishing.com], an easy way to learn Thai vocabulary. The software runs on Windows PCs or Macs under BootCamp and includes Fundamentals of Thai Grammar [http://www.learn-faster.org/Thai], a 350-page eBook. Speak Easy Thai uses the Internet for updates, but does not require an Internet connection during operation.

More Thai resources at Learn Thai Faster! [http://www.learn-faster.org/Thai/]

Living in Thailand – Life and Death on the Farm Living in Thailand – Life and Death on the Farm...

Learning Thai – A Beginner’s Adventure

Billy Bangkok — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 22:54:38 +0000

Learning Thai – A Beginner’s Adventure is a post from: Bangkok Diaries

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I’ve finally decided to apply myself and learn Thai. I’ve tried in the past. I’ve bought the CDs and books and I usually get one or two chapters into them and then I lose interest. Then the books and the CDs collect dust for a few months until I pull them out and get to the same exact point and give up on them again.

Right now my understanding of Thai is what I refer to as Bar Thai. Essentially, my Thai is good for bars or restaurants where you don’t necessarily have to do a lot of speaking. My vocabulary is about 50 or so words and I essentially speak English except that I replace the words I know in Thai. I don’t think it necessarily helps me communicate any more effectively as I’m sure the receiver would have understood the word in English but it does make Thai people smile when you throw in a few words here and there (hmmm . . . not really sure if that smile is a good or bad thing). Sure, I can string together a complete sentence here and there but my Thai pretty much stinks.

I want to improve my Thai and get to the point where I can speak and read it near fluently. I would like to be able to hold a conversation in Thai or read and write Thai at a level that would allow me to effectively communicate with Thai people. So that’s my goal.

My plan is to commit to spending 15 – 30 minute each day studying Thai. I’ve read somewhere that the human brain tends to learn best in small chunks. It’s a diminishing returns sort of thing. The sweet spot seems to be in that 15 – 30 minute range. By making it daily it will be repetitive and familiar which are also key for learning difficult material like languages.

I’ve amassed an arsenal of learning tools to help me. The latest one and the one I’ve been seeing good results with is Its4Thai. A hat tip goes to Smitty for turning me on to this one. You can go over there and get 10 lessons for free. I played around with it and ended up buying the 60 course version which runs about $20 or so if I remember correctly. It really is a nicely put together little package and I like the fact that doesn’t rush you too much through the material. Plus the fact that it’s all online means you can go in and complete a lesson from just about anywhere you have an internet connection.

That being said, I did learn the hard way that trying to learn in an environment with lots of distractions really does impact your ability to retain information. I decided to try and sneak in a short session at work and I went from getting 100% on my lesson reviews to . . . well, let’s say less than 100%. The material wasn’t really that much harder than previous lessons I had completed so I can only attribute the decline in performance to the fact that between emails, phone calls, and impromptu conversations it’s very difficult to stay focused.

I also decided to pick up Speak Easy Thai based on several good reviews I had run across. While I think it’s a wonderful tool, the user interface might use a little working on. Regardless, I’ve done a few lessons there as well and generally find it to be very effective. I do notice that there is a different focus between Its4Thai and Speak Easy Thai. This may be only my opinion but I feel that Its4Thai has a relaxed pace in terms of how quickly it introduces new words and concepts while Speak Easy Thai is much more aggressive. It’s interesting to switch back and forth between the two.

I also liked that Speak Easy Thai came with some bonus features. It comes with a HTML book called Fundamentals of Thai as well as a Thai / English dictionary and mini-keyboard. Overall I think it’s an excellent value for the price and would recommend it.

I mentioned the CDs and books that I had previously purchased but never got far into. Well, my apologies go out to the very talented Benjawan Poomsan Becker who is behind the whole Thai for Beginners book, software, and CDs. I apologize because I’ve never really committed myself previously. Her products are excellent but I’ve been too lazy. I’m sorry for letting you down.

Speaking of Becker, I also have her Practical Thai Conversation volumes I and II which I picked up about a year ago while I was in Bangkok. Again, like the Thai for Beginners, these are excellent products and I really appreciate the way that watching something on DVD can make the material stick better. Alas, much like the Thai for Beginners materials, those DVDs have mostly served to gather dust sitting in my DVD library.

I also acquired the Pimsleur Thai CD which I’ve used in the past. I like the Pimsleur method though I do think it gets a little bogged down at times. I want to move on to something more challenging but you have to go through it step by step.

I will also sheepishly admit that I own a phrase book called English*Thai Bar Guide. But before you let that smirk settle in, I have found it very useful for things other than talking to bar girls.

There are some really outstanding websites for helping people learning Thai. The one that has been invaluable is thai2english.com. Thai Language is another great site for doing translations. They also have lessons and a forum so it’s more than just a dictionary / translation service. Last but certainly not least is the Learn Thai Podcast. I really enjoy that program and they pick very useful phrases to help you learn Thai in small chunks.

So that’s it. Hopefully along the way I’ll have some posts that help others making the same journey. Any advice from grizzled Thai language vets would be much appreciated.

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Farang ฝรั่ง

The Farang — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 19:53:27 +0000

Farang ฝรั่ง is a post from: Bangkok Diaries

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Farang (ฝรั่ง), or as it is often pronounced by Thais – falang, is a word that seems to confuse many people. The confusion mainly stems from either the origin of the word or its meaning.

Meaning of Farang

Farang is most commonly used to describe white Westerners although black people from the US or UK (or other Western countries) may also be referred to as farang or farang dam (black farang). These is some debate on whether or not the term is offensive. In general it is a neutral word intended as nothing more than a description of the person. It can be used as an insult though which is why there is some debate. It depends on the context of how it’s used much like many other descriptors. For instance if someone were to say “She has a farang husband,” then it’s a neutral word communicating the fact that her husband is non-Thai. If someone who you know well were to use the word in a sentence like “Here comes the farang,” it is probably meant as an insult.

Farang also happens to be the word for guava fruit so if you wish to amuse your Thai friends to no end, eat a guava fruit so they can make jokes about farang eating farang (ฝรั่งกินฝรั่ง).

Farang is also used as a descriptor in many foods that were introduced by Europeans. For instance, parsley is known as phak chii farang which would translate into farang cilantro.

Origin of Farang

The origin of the word farang is often debated and you’re likely to see it attributed to many different sources. As far as I know nobody is 100% certain on the exact origin of the word.

One common theory is that farang is based on the word farangset which is the Thai pronunciation of francais (French). Though the French were early traders with the Thai people other Western countries were trading with Thailand long before the French so it seems unlikely that this would be the origin of the word.

Another theory is that the Portuguese who introduced the guava fruit to Thailand lived in an area called Baan Farang (Guava Village) and the name may have become synonymous with the Portuguese traders and then to all foreigners.

The theory which seems to point to the most likely origin of the word is that is derived from the Persian word farangi which means foreigner. Farangi is also used throughout India to describe foreigners and it may have been simply a shortening of the Persian word which led to the word farang in Thai.

Thai Spec vs. Farang Spec Thai Spec vs. Farang Spec is a post from: Bangkok...

Just another learner

thaistory — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 14:53:26 +0000

Just another learner is a post from: Bangkok Diaries

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One day I was surprised to find out that I had offended one of the Thai female teachers from my school. The truth is that, during an informal chit-chat, I might have used Thai slang, and thus I involuntarily offended the Thai teacher I was conversing with.

The funny thing was that I found out about my rudeness, a few days after my conversation with that Thai teacher, from my superiors. The subject was brought up very carefully, but as I am a straight forward person, I asked to be told exactly what the problem was. I would have liked to be told by the teacher who got offended by what I had said in Thai, but she chose not to, and rather preferred to let the rumors go around the school and eventually reach the ears of my bosses. If I had been offended by anyone, regardless of nationality and/or social position, I would have told that person straight away! But, I guess, that’s just me.

Now, the question is why did I speak that way to that teacher? The answer is simple: because that’s the way I speak Thai. For me, learning a new language just happens. I don’t need to put too much extra effort into it. I learned Italian, while still a kid, by watching Rai Uno and Rai Due; I learned French by not paying attention to what the French teacher was saying in class; I can understand Spanish just because I am familiar with 3 other Latin languages – Romanian, Italian, and French; and I learned Thai by listening to the people on the street. I had some failed attempts at studying, in a proper classroom, Japanese and Arabic, but as I was not exposed enough to these two languages, I can remember only a few phrases I had memorized (which can be used in any situation!).

So, today (after years in Thailand) I am able to speak the language Thai people speak on the streets. But sometimes (in fact most of the times!), the every-day Thai is not polite, and it is taboo to use it at work or in the hi-so. But the Thais forget that I’m not a native speaker of Thai, and maybe they don’t even know that I have never studied Thai the way languages are learned at school. Nobody taught me how to say the five tones; nobody told me the exact subterfuge meanings of common words, that when used in certain contexts (or pronounced in certain tones), are very rude. I just picked everything up in my daily interactions with the Thais. And, as I have no dealings at all with the high society, my Thai probably contains a lot of slang.

Having said all these, I have to admit that I am aware of the “correct” way of speaking Thai, but it’s just not me! This is it, and I admit it, and that is why I am ready to apologize for the rude words I might have said.

As I was writing these lines, I had an epiphany. I realized why it is so difficult for the Thais who have reached adulthood to learn English! It is because their minds are corseted to the strict rules of a society that, when it finds itself in a classroom situation, cannot open its mind wide enough to receive someone else’s language. As for me, just bring it on. Good or bad. After all, I’m just another learner who tries (not too hard though ) to achieve fluency in a language that is considered to be amongst the most difficult languages on Earth.

Are you a short story writer?
Why don’t you submit your best short story to the
New Asian Writing Short Story Anthology?

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Learning to Speak Thai

DougBangkok — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 16:21:05 +0000

Learning to Speak Thai is a post from: Bangkok Diaries

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The main problem with learning to speak Thai is that the basis of the language is not European-based. English and the other Euro languages have Latin, Greek, Viking, etc., roots; Thai does not, so you have to memorize hundreds, if not thousands, of strange and unrelated sounds. This is difficult, unless you use some sort of memory trigger.

Speak Easy Thai is a low-cost (about US$25) CD-ROM that helps solve this problem by presenting a picture and a sound file; all words are spoken by a native Thai speaker, so you hear the correct tone.

If you see a Thai word printed in a book, such as a travel guide, chances are you will not remember the word because there is nothing to hang your hat on.

But when you see a picture of something and hear it spoken properly in Thai, your brain will find it much easier to remember the word because it seems to set up more associations (hypertext links, if you will) in your brain.

It’s a fact that most people learn better visually and aurally than they do by simply reading and trying to memorize. This is, in fact, how children learn. They hear the words spoken by adults and other children, and repeat them. Young children learn to speak a language well before they can read.

Thai uses its own alphabet, rather than pictograms like Chinese, which makes it much easier to learn than Chinese. You just have to get over the hump of reading the Thai characters. The alphabet contains the same letters as English, but they are drawn differently. For example, all the common consonants and vowels exist in Thai, but a Thai G (or P or M) does not look like an English G (or P or M).

But the best part of learning Thai is the grammar, believe it or not, because there is very little to learn. There are no, absolutely NO verb conjugations, which will please anyone who has ever tried to learn one of the Latin-based languages like French, Italian, and Spanish. Future tense is handled with “ja”, meaning “will”, or by adding an adverb of time, like “tomorrow”. Past tense is handled by putting “already” at the end, or by adding an adverb of time, like “yesterday”. For example, instead of saying, “I went to the market”, you use the present tense (“go”) but add “already” at the end, as in “I go market already”. Easy peasy.

Also, adjectives do not change form, you don’t have to worry about the sex of a noun because all nouns are neuter. Adjectives always follow the noun, without exception; you say “house big” rather than “big house”.

General plurals are done by doubling the noun: “house house” instead of “houses”. Specific plurals use the same construction we use in English for groups, as in “The farmer has three head of cattle”. You can’t say “I have three children” in Thai, you must say “I have child three person”; “child” is the noun, “person” is the group word, also known as a “classifier”.

Adverbs are easy too, no variations. You can add emphasis by doubling the adverb: “He runs quickly quickly”.

The most difficult part of learning Thai is that it is a tonal language. English uses tones on sentences. Compare these three statements:

“You’re going to the party.”
“You’re going to the party?”
“You’re going to the party!”

They all use the same English words, but the tone (flat, rising, falling, respectively) gives an entirely different meaning to each sentence.

Thai uses tones on words, but not on sentences. For example, “seu-ah” spoken with a flat (mid-range) tone means “clothing”; “seu-ah” spoken with a rising tone means “tiger”. So you must be careful to learn the correct tone for each word, otherwise you might be saying “my tiger is dirty” when what you meant is “my clothing is dirty”. There is no doubt that this is the hardest part of learning Thai, and the only way to learn the correct tone is to listen to a native Thai speaker saying the word.

I wrote Speak Easy Thai to help me remember Thai words. It has a picture and sound file for over 5000 words; you see the word in Thai, see a memorable picture, and hear the word spoken by a native Thai speaker. Hundreds of people now use it daily to learn a few words a day.

Living in Thailand – Life and Death on the Farm Living in Thailand – Life and Death on the Farm...

Tones Are Hard

Norrad — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 04:04:54 +0000

Tones Are Hard is a post from: Bangkok Diaries

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As anyone who has tried learning Thai knows, it is a very difficult language, the basics are easy enough but the tones are the real killer. Thai is a tonal language, the same word can have up to 5 meanings depending on the tone used. Tones are a completely foreign concept to westerners, we simply don’t use them. Take the following example:

“Khay Khaay Khay Kay” which means “Who sells eggs”

To me, each word sounds the same. But to Thais, each word has a pronounced tone and has a completely different meaning. I started learning Thai from a book and then practicing it out in the real word, with mostly humorous results. I went to the road side “Barbecue Chicken” vendor and asked for chicken, easy enough but then I thought I would ask for rice and was greeted with a blank stare followed by the usual “Alaina?” and, when I repeated it, she told me she doesn’t sell mountains. I had to point to the rice for her to understand.

To really learn Thai you need to speak to a Native Thai speaker. That way you will grasp the subtleties of the Thai language. Since meeting my girlfriend, my Thai has improved drastically. I now speak a pseudo language, that is a mixture between Thai and English, but at least it gets the message across.

Living in Thailand – Life and Death on the Farm Living in Thailand – Life and Death on the Farm...