MooNoi Posted July 28, 2009 Report Share Posted July 28, 2009 how much they are ripping you off LOL - that's true. I was mainly thinking of women I have talked to in bars when I wrote that! To be far the ave Thai when I make a effort to talk with him tends to appreciate it. Then talks far to much Thai And really difficult when they speak Southern Dialect - this is always the hardest for me to follow! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pescator Posted July 28, 2009 Report Share Posted July 28, 2009 Speaking of which ...... A while ago my brother was a frequent guest at a casino in Scandia. He was playing high stakes and would occasionally be winning some serious money. Now this casino is frequented by a mixed crowd of thai people mostly consisting of freeloaders, hookers, pathological gamblers and any category in between. This clientele would ever so often approach him and leech on to him, obviously in the hope that when it rains on the vikar some drops will fall on the choir boy as well. It annoyed the Hell outta him, he was there to gamble not to socialize. So I taught him this sentense: Jao Wao Lao Pen Bor? Do you speak Lao? He went over it again and again until he nailed it. Whenever he was approached by the usual suspects in the casino he would pop this question. It worked wonders. The central thais would be pissed off because he spoke to them in Lao and the Isan crowd would think "he know too mutt". Even to this day, 10 years later, he speaks this sentense perfectly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WorldFun Posted July 28, 2009 Report Share Posted July 28, 2009 amazing shit lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chelseafan Posted July 28, 2009 Report Share Posted July 28, 2009 Think about how difficult it is sometimes for us to understand a Thai who speaks English. Sometimes just a small variation in pronunciation can make a word elusive. Hell yes, r's and l's as a example are hard to master. Though I am perplexed because if the letters are someway into the word they can pronounce them. Put the letters at the front of the word and they have trouble. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SiLeakHunt Posted July 28, 2009 Report Share Posted July 28, 2009 I can speak enough to get myself in the shit but not enough to get myself out of it. Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MooNoi Posted July 28, 2009 Report Share Posted July 28, 2009 Best thing to do if you want to speak Thai is learn to READ it **BEFORE** you learn to speak it. It's completely phonetic, so if you can read it, you can speak it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A_J Posted July 29, 2009 Report Share Posted July 29, 2009 When i first came to thailand i had one of those travel books with lots of phrases in. I was on a bus to chang mai & i thought i had mastered the phrase "hong nam u tee nai"....so when we stopped for a piss stop i went up to a man and asked him, "pee kap, ham nong u tee nai". The look he gave me was a killer so i quickly made a getaway & got back on the bus. I asked the girl i was with what the problem was, i repeated what i had said & she just burst out laughing...she then explained that hong nam is the bathroom but ham nong is the word for penis. I never made that same mistake again, lol.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khunsanuk Posted July 29, 2009 Report Share Posted July 29, 2009 Hi, I think we all make fuck-ups like that For the longest time I refused to say 'banana' in Thai as I often mispronounced and said 'dick'. Then I found out that contrary to how many Thais pronounce it there *is* an 'l' in the word for 'banana'. Since adding that in, no more problems. BTW, one of the funniest instances was when Waerth tried to order orange juice (quite some time ago when his Thai was still utter crap ). He very politely asked the waitress "Kho nam suam noi khrap" - "Can I please have a glass of toilet water" Sanuk! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThaiHome Posted July 29, 2009 Report Share Posted July 29, 2009 ...granted, YMMV, some Thais actually DO know how to adjust their interaction with the world according to context and situation, but sad to say, many are ROCK-DUMB when it comes to such things...i.e. anything that requires them to employ even the most minimal critical thinking skills and step outside the box even just a little... I have extremely limited Thai and my pronunciation is shit, but what gets to me is when a Thai doesn’t even try to understand what I am attempting to say. As others have said, they make no attempt to connect the context of the conversation with my words. TH Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Khun_Kong Posted July 29, 2009 Report Share Posted July 29, 2009 ... Though I am perplexed because if the letters are someway into the word they can pronounce them. Put the letters at the front of the word and they have trouble. Farang appear to hsve no trouble with "ng" at the end of a word, but great difficulty if it is at the beginning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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