1. If your Teerak is speaking in a lingo you can't understand, it's either colloquial, a dialect or a different language (or you're tone deaf LOL). Given your 10 year deadline, just go ahead and learn that as well. I started trying to learn one language, but I ended up learning most South East Asian languages as well. Something I never planned from the outset. However I don't regret it. Your approach may vary of course.

2. Become a scholar of the culture. And I'm not talking about one of those coffee table picture books about temples. Find several good books about different aspects of Thai culture and history and read them. Don't rely on internet posters like me, because to be honest, I'm far from reliable. I won't provide a list because some of them are most likely banned in Thailand, better safe than sorry! Nod, wink.

3. Talk from day one. I am a very sensitive kind of person - a common remark on my school report cards was how sensitive I was. LOL I still mind my Dad reading out a line from one of them, 'displays an amazing and encyclopedic knowledge and understanding of space and the solar system, something the class never studied, but really is far too sensitve'.

'

So being a sensitive person I put off talking, afraid of making a prat of myself. But really, that was being far too considerate. When you are in Thailand, always speak Thai first. The only exceptions are when talking Thai will actually make you a prat, like ordering for everyone at the table to a Burmese waitress who knows less Thai than you do. Also, unless you explain that you want to try out your Thai first, it can belittle staff, like at a hotel reception for example, whom are employed for their skill in understanding English.

4. Thai Tv is both your friend and enemy. You will find great joy here. It's where I learnt how to explain an affair as 'sometimes a man wants to eat a spicy takeaway, when the fare going at home is tasty...'. If you use this line, though - I wish you all the luck in the world. Better to have a go-between say it and come in on a wing and a prayer.

5. When you talk Thai be yourself. I like to joke around, but sometimes it gets me in hot water. Checking into a back country resort after a long motorbike ride, I might hit on the ageing Grandmother at the till for instance. Everyone laughs, and more than once I've got the Grand Daughter visiting me late at night to say hello to that nice young Farang! Jing, jing, lol.

6. More like a addendum to 3, but there are situations where it pays to just be a dumb Farang and mimic one who is only just learning. This list is not extensive, but you should do this when speaking to policeman, or most people in authority for example. Why? It's simple, trying to extort money from a water buffalo takes an enormous amount of skill for a Thai person, and potentially humiliating. Do NOT relegate yourself to such a foolish position. Also try not to speak Thai within earshot of other Farang also, owing to my 'sensitivity'. It attracts (unwanted) attention, and questions like where did you learn? The length of this post shows how I can choose to be abrupt, wrong, or just downright rude. Or if I'm in the mood and you buy me several drinks, then and only then will I 'fess up.

7. Well there's plenty more, so there is going to have to be a Part 2. In the meantime, appreciate your comments, and how your efforts to master this mind boggling language are really going. And if you're just starting out - mind this, it might take 10 years, but it's a hell of a lot of fun in the meantime!!! And if you make it so, so will it be - least that's how it rolls in my experience. Good luck!

I usually don't care what people want to be referred to as, in the internet age when people have pseudonyms like 'flirty-crocodile-267', names don't seem to matter.

Coming from a family that includes Journalists trained in English, not trained in TikTok, the use of Them or They for a single person does not work for me.

If we accept that the person, cannot settle on one gender, and that is their justification, for using Them or They, then what about people with 17 personalities? Are these folk condemned to being neither but possibly both genders?

I reckon gender various (gender-various, you saw it here first)  people should find  new descriptors, like himf or herm  or hef or shem  or multi-shoop-a-shama-lamba-a-ding-dong

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/06/20/entertainment/jennifer-lopez-emme-gender/index.html

" they're my favorite duet partner of all time."

See? english not working. Also for Yankee spelling...

Simple dark blue cotton with the words in yellow stressed print "RAM NONTHAI"

The best I can come up with is Ram I know is dancing and Non is a province in Isaan.

But is always a good idea to know exactly what something means before wearing in public.

I remember getting confronted on Sukhumvit one day outside the Landmark by some obnoxious Amerikan for wearing a PNN T-shirt (Pentagon News Network"

Anyone!

กัปตัน  or maybe นายทหาร

?  cheers

My daughter is taking online Thai lessons, 1 hour goes from 10-25 dollars. We settled with a mature lady, a professional teacher, 15USD an hour. 

My good friend, an American (late 30-s), living in the complex with American-Thai wife, a sophisticated lady and two beautiful daughters, told me. 500THB Thai language lesson 1:1 with a professional Thai language tutor goes 500THB. That is where we are, the ball park and online.

My daughter is not a novice to Thai language, that was the first language she had learned before coming to Japan. She can understand, even translate, but no reading or writing. And the teacher is delighted she is teaching a teenager eager to learn and with Thai background.

My wife , Thai, has no teaching capabilities (starts yelling and making it a torture).

So, we are in for reading and writing first. Took maybe 35 lessons so far, with 100s more to follow. At that rate, probably 4,000USD until she can go into conversation lessons. During school holidays, class every day, now 1-2 per week. The material is the official textbook used by Thai schools. 

And, no need for a Thai keyboard. Hand writing.

A question for our fellow board members who have mastered Thai language:
When it comes to conversations, it may make a difference where the teacher is from (Surat Thani) and if her accent and diction would devalue the learning outcome? My wife says they (Surat Thani) speak too fast, mumble, the rest of Thai have difficulties understanding them. Not that my wife (Sa Kaew, Wang Nam Yen) is better but just as a warning.
 

It obviously doesn't mean sex is out of the question. 

No girl ever called me ลุง.

Can someone explain this?

(playing around with attaching pix...)

Purleeze! Thanks lads.

Hopefully it doesn't say: 'This bloke's a hopeless drunk. Everything he touches turns to shit.' People know that already.

jack

What is the word for "signal" in that sense?

And how do you say "weak signal" and "bars": "Now the signal strength is only two bars on my phone."

Also have been looking for "WiFi" in Thai and only the English WIFI comes up. Phonetically it would be something like ไวไฟ in Thai, but I haven't seen that either. Do they say it some other way, or do they just use English?

Thanks,

Gaw Guy

What does that last bit mean? I can translate the words but I don't get the meaning.

Thanks.. Gawguy

How is this for a guess - if it is poorly worded, why? :

ไม่ได้เห็นคุณมานานๆà¹à¸¥à¹‰à¸§

I have in recent years found myself drawn to that greatest of Thailand's national sports, the true unifier to which all Thai hearts adhere, which offers a happy way to spend my afternoons in bed in constructive and edifying pursuit: watching the Thai women's volleyball team on the tube.

Also, I should say that I have on occasion found myself engaged in energetic results-oriented bed-based multiple-player physical activity, where perhaps one or two of the support staff are inclined to cheer along encouragingly, urging me to that inevitable goal-line.

And what I hear is something like this: "Su su!" There's a kind of supportive raising of the fists that goes along with it. It sounds virtually the same as what my former Swahili-speaking assistance used to say when she had to go to the toilet - "can we stop for five minutes so I can su su?" But the meaning, I think, is different.

So, Thai language gurus, what is this 'su su' I think I hear? What does it mean, how is it used, and how does one write it in Thai?

Thanks in advance.

YimSiam

"I like you because you have a happy disposition" or "happy personality"

I see ร่าเริง but I thought I had heard it another way too.

Thanks...Gaw Guy

มาควันนี้ เลือดฉันมาพอดีคงไม่สะดวà¸à¹„ป อีà¸7วันเราค่อยเจอà¸à¸±à¸™ เลือดฉันหมดà¸à¹ˆà¸­à¸™à¸™à¸°à¸„่ะ

Google Translate doesn't get it: "The smoke is still not easy to fit into my blood. 7 days we'll meet. My blood before me"

The first phrase should not be about smoke. Maybe she was trying meuh kheun nii - last night, and just misspelled it.

I think she's saying her period started last night (with a good flow, a funny way to put it to a foreign guy) and will be a problem for 7 days until the blood stops. I'm guessing. I did talk to her on the phone yesterday afternoon and told her I wanted to see her the next day and she said ok and I said I would text her. This is her text back to me today.

Gaw Guy

But I have been told that si lom (สีลม) also translates to "four winds".

If I google "four winds in thai language" it returns si tit (สี่ทิศ) which I believe means "four directions". That makes sense I guess, given how "four winds" tends to be used in English.

Am I right to assume that si lom means both windmill and four winds, depending on the context?

Thanks, Jim

also how do you write "Pii" as in big brother Pii, as in P'flashermac?

gratzi...

Thanks..

GG