about using the word racism...

[Zaad]

Fly,

 

try to understand the world the taxidriver is coming from. that bloke, if exposed to farang, is generally exposed to a farang who married his sister/cousin/etc. who brought her to live in the west, does not speak thai, spends often vast sums of money. and he is exposed to countless passangers he picks up with prostitutes.

 

Ok, this might be a reason for their behavior but certainly not an excuse as you now make it sound like.

Or are you telling me that they (we) should copy the manners from the people/customers whom we deal with?

 

you guys start pissing me off.

What for, little fly?

For expressing our opinions with the same persistency, stubborness, devotion, warmth and love as you do?

 

I like you better when you have a smoke! ::

[Guest]

i will reply to all that when i am less shitfaced.

i don't really post on serious matters when pissed.

[Guest]

>>>I'm to fuckin' stupid, fuck you, dont nodd your head in agreement!!!....seriously, I cant get my head around it, thats the truth!<<<

 

 

only one thing:

that is bullshit. to be able to communicate in thai is simple, and you are not too stupid. you most likely only went the wrong way.

thai on a colloquial level is a piss poor simple language, way easier than all european languages, and there are some very easy cheats around.

first, forget about the tones for a starter, forget about the way how you learned languages in school. that will only confuse you.

just speak! begin with the simple things, such as: "i am hungry", or "where is this/that/whatever". never speak single words, only memorise complete sentences. let your missus speak them for 'ya, and then repeat them, simple. that way you straight away get into the flow, and the tones will start to come automatically, and even if you hit the wrong tone people will understand what you are saying out of the context.

simple.

you have only very little grammar in thai, no verb changes, no cases, easy.

OK, that way you won't be able to be perfect during a formal dinner, or a palace visit, but you will be able to communicate, and that is all what languages are about.

 

how do you think bargirls learn english? by sitting in front of a fucking teacher and memorising vocabulary? no way! and lots of them are not really einsteins either. and i would consider english a far more difficult language to learn than thai on a coloquial level.

 

if you forget about all the crap fed into your brain while in school you will find out that you don't need to learn languages - they will come automatically if you do the effort and communicate with people.

[Pescator]

Hi Flyw,

 

If one is not into a more acedemical approach and let´s face it, few of us are that is the way to go

Couldn´t agree more.

And I guess a lot of us started out this way and made it from there. Nothing beats the encouragement of actually being understood however basic one´s approach is. IMO Sure beats the hell out of learning thai script as a starter.

 

Cheers

Hua Nguu

[pattaya127]

Damned, you got a point, FlyW.

I remember last january when the GF and I drove to visit LP up to Nonthaburi. It would have been much better if he had been able to talk thai to her when i drove and explain how to get to his forlorn moo baan. Instead, he had a thai talk to her... and we got lost! :D

[Guest]

Fly has made a lot of very good points here. But it's interesting that many of you appear to look too deep into the reason for Thais calling us farang.

 

Josh_ingu did touch on something earlier in the thread.

Thais tend to address people whom they don't know well by some form of classification. A taxi driver is addressed as "taxi", a maid as "mae Bahn", a plumber, electrician, male hairdresser etc as "chang". A person with a dark skin as "blacky", and obese girls often have the nickname "moo" or "Uan". Someone looking old and wise is often addressed as "Ajarn". I can really go on here.

To Thais we classifiy as "Farang" and are addressed as such, be it in second or third person.

 

I don't say that it's never used in a negative sense, but usually it's just a means to identify or classify. We westerners see classifying people as offensive. For Thais this is a way of life.

[think_too_mut]

TTM>>>I have an answer for you: sent her to school, now uni. In a year, she'll probably have more education than you. That changes a lot, does not it?<<<

 

FlyW:

no, it doesn't. it doesn't even have anything to do with the question. my question was about her relatives, and if you feel about them the same way you feel about the taxidrivers you posted about.

because unless you send them all to school they will still be halfliterate blokes who have to get by somehow between riceharvests.

 

So what I do then? Send the whole village to school? Or I look after my wife and our own family?

 

Other children in her family already have English in school and love practicing with me. And I'll be helping them with English. There is enough Thai in the family, they can get by without me knowing it.

English as a skill is what bothers them and what they want to acquire.

[cardinalblue]

Orand,

 

You are correct, Thais communicate and understand through classifying things and people. The problem though lies that this creates a propensity towards discimination (can be positive or negative) which in turn leads to even stronger stereotypes with built-in barriers and inflexibility.

 

I don't think their intent in malice or mean-spirited when using this word, but the end result results in discrimniation and racism nevertheless. Putting prices aside, It can be to a falang's advantage in many situations. Think about how thais think about indians, japanese, hmong, etc and their process is no different than how they classsify us. Their feelings and beliefs will range from very negative to very positive..

 

I think thais process every race in this way of classification having a preconceived notion of stereo-typical traits attached to each ethnic group or race or occupation or social characteristc or whatever.....

 

It sure can lead to erroneuous misconceptions with no system in place to try to tear it down. We do the same thing or try to do the same thing individually but we have laws, regulations, penalties, and other system and social structural mechanisms in place when we cross the line.....

 

Cardinalbluie

[Zorro]

I agree with you about Thai being a simple language grammatically.

 

I have never spent an extended length of time in Thailand but have been more than 50x's over the last twenty five years and average around a month a year in Thailand but i can get by on a survival mode in Thai and feel sure that if i spent enough time could converse at a reasonably good level.

The sentence structure in Thai is very simple.

Pronunciation is the most difficult thing to master but as fly said people will guess from the context what you are saying and thus you will be able to communicate at a basic level.

I have been living in Arabic speaking countries for a long time and that language is much more difficult to learn than thai.

I also speak French and the grammar is more difficult as well.

If you really want to learn Thai no reason why you cannot reach a reasonable level of fluency with time , effort and patience.

[Guest]

you have been circumventing my question.

my question to you was triggered by a rather disdainful comment about "illiterate buggers". now, if you just said that to let of steam, or to piss me off, that is OK. ; 0 what i wanted to find out from you is if you hold the "illiterate buggers" of you wife's relationship in that disdain as well?

i did not ask if you are a white knight and help everone there to a degree, that would hardly be possible.

 

by the way, IMHO command of english is good, only for the vast majority of thais rather useless. they do need first the necessary papers from school to compete in their own land, or land and fair prices for their agricultural products.