Why Thai's speak English so poorly

[Khun_Kong]

I think I see one major reason all over Bangkok.

 

Now that I can read the language (poorly), I find myself translating signs, ads, etc., in order to practice.

 

Many of the movie posters/ads/billboards are in Thai transliterated from English.

 

The problem is, it is some Thai variant of what it actually says. If there is a sound that is not represented in the Thai language, they don't bother to come up with a special character or anything- they just come "close" to the Englsh pronunciation. It is especially pronounced for characters like "v", "h", "z", "x" (maybe others)

 

Every transliteration scheme from Thai to English uses special characters to represent uniquely Thai sounds. Thais don't seem to bother.

 

I've seen many examples of this, but here are some that come to mind from today:

 

Ocheeans Twelf -> Ocean's Twelve

 

Illaree Doff -> Hillary Duff

 

Susuki -> Suzuki

 

Oranodes or somebody- let me know if I'm completely off base with this.

[Straycat]

My favorite: "Geelalot" = Guy Laroche

[Guest]

Ocheeans Twelf -> Ocean's Twelve

It doesn't help if you write it in english letters. If you wrote it with thai letters I might understand what you mean...

 

If you learn any foreign language, you can't represent the foreign sounds with your own language letters. Also to invent new letters isn't very helpful, because you don't really know to pronounce it. For this you have to listen to the foreign language.

 

IMO, to write english in thai letters can be more exact than to write it in english letters. Because tones are included and because you write it as you speak it. But of course their are sounds which are different.

 

Best regards

[chelseafan]

Straycat said:

My favorite: "Geelalot" = Guy Laroche

 

My missus comes from "Lopbuli", and in her eyes I am a "falang", seems that they have problems with their R's / L's too.

 

Mind you 99% of them speak better English than I speak Thai, so no complaints from me.

[Nervous_Dog]

Part of the problem is shortening the words,

 

For example I had no idea for a long time where Wertrat was until I got a taxi to World Trade Centre and it was the same place.

 

They love to shorten words!

 

Mind you, English is a very hard language to learn, especially coming from Thai.

 

DOG

[Guest]

There is logic to the madness. They transliterate it the way they would (mis)pronounce it. Just like we do. Take our gateway to Thailand--Don Muang as it's typically written. In fact, Don Meuang is much closer. Or the word keek that I wrote recently, while knowing that it's pronounced khaek.

 

To address your subject though, I think the problem is elsewhere. The gulf between the Roman languages and the Asian languages is much, much deeper then most of us at first realise. It's the sounds, the tones, the sentence structure, the way of expressing things.

 

In Cambo I ran into a Cambodian guy who couldn't speak English, so we ended up exchanging a few sentences in Thai. He said he'd only been learning it for a few months because he wanted to do business in Thailand, and his vocabulary was very limited. Yet, his Thai sounded much more natural than mine ever will.

 

Or take the fact that the Thais, even the ones who speak relatively good English and have been interacting with farang for years, have a great difficulty telling the English and Australians from the Americans. They simply don't have the ear for the sounds of English language.

 

Same with us (at least with me). When Thais switch to Lao it sounds like Thai to me. The only difference is that I can understand even less than when they speak Thai. But the sound of it, which is very different to them, is the same to me.

[Khun_Kong]

Straycat said:

My favorite: "Geelalot" = Guy Laroche

 

One of mine:

 

In Pattaya:

 

"Want to go loyen"

 

"Where?"

 

"Loyen, loyen. You know, loyen"

 

We take a baht bus until we reach loyen.

 

Funny, loyen is located at Royal (Garden Plaza).

 

First "r" becomes an "l", final "l" becomes an "n"

 

 

And, from Cent, I think:

 

"Snay in how, snay in how"

 

I still think about this one, probably a year after reading his story.

[Torneyboy]

Nervous_Dog said:

Part of the problem is shortening the words,

 

For example I had no idea for a long time where Wertrat was until I got a taxi to World Trade Centre and it was the same place.

 

They love to shorten words!

 

Mind you, English is a very hard language to learn, especially coming from Thai.

 

DOG

 

Spot on Dog!!

[Nervous_Dog]

tank,u,tboy

[Flashermac]

Why do Thais speak English so poorly? One big reason is that there are nowhere near enough qualified Thai English teachers to go around. The government now starts teaching English from the first grade, but you wouldn't know that to judge by even most university students' English. Far too often, a primary or even secondary school's English teachers will be young teachers who majored in Science, Maths, Thai, French, Computer Science or almost anything else. The logic is that they studied English the most recently, so they should have better English than the older teachers.

 

Some of these non-major or non-minor English teachers really try hard. But many times they do not like English and just go through the motions. Sort of tells you something when I have to speak Thai to primary or secondary school English teachers. The idea of teaching all students English from the begining of their education is a fine one. But the government might have waited until they got enough English teachers to do the job!

 

p.s. There are both L and R sounds in Thai. If someone is saying things like Loyen for Royal, that more or less tells you their first language is Lao! (There is no R sound in Lao.)