Thais speaking English

[ranma500]

I recently asked a Thai teacher the phrase for good night.

 

 

 

He came out with a phrase, which I learned, (and have subsequently forgotten)

 

 

 

I asked him later why I never heard any of the other people using this phrase when they went to bed.

 

 

 

He told me that Thai people rarely use this phrase.

 

 

 

So I tactfully asked why he had taught it to me.

 

 

 

He said that this is the phrase taught in Thai text-books, but no-one ever says it. Then he looked puzzled, and maybe for the first time wondered why he always taught this phrase to people.

 

 

 

I think it is the same with English.

 

 

 

How often does one use the word 'upcountry' in native English? But I bet it is in all the English text-books.

[gobbledonk]

Wow ! This is an awesome thread. I had never heard of the tongue operation, but it puts a lot of things in perspective.

 

 

 

I'm currently learning basic Mandarin in preparation for my trip to China in September. I know that I wont be able to say a great deal, and they may laugh at my attempts, but I view it as an improvement on my preparation for Thailand - not even so much as a phrasebook ...

 

 

 

One of the things I AM happy about is that I am beginning to understand a lot of what our teacher is saying, without her needing to slow it down. Armed with some printed Chinese for my hotels, and a few simple phrases, I hope to be able to get around.

 

 

 

Back to the topic - the problems Asians have when learning English. We all accept that a tonal language is difficult to master: thats where the (majority) of the complexity seems to lie in their languages (OK - from my beginners point of view..). English doesnt place the same importance on tone (although we do use it in conversation) - its our grammatical rules that provide so many obstacles for non-English speakers. I suspect that many Asians also see our use of so many pronouns, prepositions etc as 'syntactic sugar' : you can strip them from a sentence and people will still get the basic meaning 90% of the time. Forgive me if it sounds like I'm stereotyping Asians - many have superb English skills, in addition to several dialects of their native tongue. The mistakes Phil mentioned are also evident in the speech patterns of many new English speakers from places like Lebanon and Greece : the difference is that they usually have better access to native English speakers.

 

 

 

Some European languages also freak me out - assigning gender to inanimate objects (German, French); the Dutch technique of 'spitting out' their words etc. Fortunately, the spread of the fast-food culture has given us a common language : we can all be understood if we speak like Colonel Sanders

[Pescator]

Good Night.?

 

Would that have been anything like Rah Tree Sawat?

 

 

 

Now when I come to think about it, I too have never heard a thai use it.

 

The same thing applies to Good Morning.

 

Sawasdee Dton Chao

 

never heard a thai use that as well.

 

 

 

Even "Thank you" Khop Khun (khrap) is much more seldomly used in thai than in european languages.

 

Many foreigners coming to Thailand say Khop Khun Khrap all the time to just about anybody - to kids, servants, waitresses etc.

 

 

 

Hua Nguu

 

 

[jasmine]

Hello,

 

 

 

It is funny though, my niece's class are taught to sing the song "ABCD EFG, HIGKLMNOKLMNOP QRS ...., now you know your ABC .....", this song, my daughter used to sing when she was little (she was born and grew up in the States), my niece said the class sing "H" as "H" (correct way)! I cannot figure this out how the "H" was prononced incorrectly but they can sing and prononce the alphabets correctly, you would think ones can notice and learn. I always was taught (in Thai schools) the correct way.

 

 

 

Cheers!

[jasmine]

Hello,

 

 

 

You do not sound arrogant at all. My father explained it why when I was around 10 years old. You are right, the context is very important. I just made a boo boo in a meeting yesterday, I could not say Fujitsu Box (Computer brand) so I said "The F box", the looks on other people faces made me quite embarrassed, and I was at lost for words. I have got to make sure my brain is as fast as my mouth, what can I say. Thanks for explaining.

 

 

 

Chhers!

[gobbledonk]

Thanks, Jasmine - I laughed so hard that I may have to send you my drycleaning bill ! The F Box - fantastic stuff

 

 

 

One of the joys of working in IT is that there seems to be an entire industry out there that is dedicated to 'buzzword compliance'. CORBA, .NET, ASP etc. One of my favourite acronyms is 'PHP', a superb server-based scripting language (I believe that Nanaplaza may have been written using PHP). Shortly after its popularity exploded throughout the world of web programming, I read a (hopefully) satirical news article which claimed that a student had been expelled from his school in the Midwest because his teacher overheard him tell another student , 'Yeah, I'm using PHP - its great : you should try it ! Come by the lab after shool - there's a whole bunch of us who are into it.'.

 

 

 

Exactly what this has to do with your problems pronouncing 'Fujitsu' escapes me for the moment, but I'm sure that I'll be back on track when next we meet online. Happy Trails