Speaking Thai. Essential?

[Guest]

I see this skill as essential as knowing how to count out money.

 

 

 

I have lived in Thailand for 7 months. Whenever I venture near an area that has a number of tourists present, I am presented with rip-off situations. Be it a taxi-driver near a tourist hotel, a food seller, or a gogogirl in nana. These people, whoever they are, take full advantage of the fact that tourists arent aware of local prices and dialect. If they speak English to you to introduce themselves / their product, expect to be overcharged, by anything from 50% to 500%. I challenge anybody who has lived in Bangkok for longer than I have to dispute this view. I suspect most of them avoid the tourist areas altogether. Im sure a few will challenge it anyway, just out of the desire to argue and criticise.

 

 

 

This evening I was sat at a beer-bar near NEP. I asked a girl how much ST was. She told me 3000baht. I questioned her in Thai, and she walked away, embarrassed. I could give you 100 other examples of how non-Thai speakers are taken advantage of. Will I be banned for this thread? Do the gogobars rely on naivety for their profits? for sure, sex prices dont contribute to bar profits, but that is just the surface.

 

 

 

My advice. Learn some Thai if you wish to enjoy Thailand fully. The more you can learn, the better. It may only take a few hours, but it could save the regular visitor a lot of money. Will I be criticised for this post by regulars, for speaking so simply? I expect so. I suspect that most regular visitors can speak some Thai already. To you, I apologise to you for the topic of this thread.

 

 

 

Smeg

[sanukdee]

<<This evening I was sat at a beer-bar near NEP. I asked a girl how much ST was. She told me 3000baht. I questioned her in Thai, and she walked away, embarrassed. I could give you 100 other examples of how non-Thai speakers are taken advantage of. Will I be banned for this thread? Do the gogobars rely on naivety for their profits? for sure, sex prices dont contribute to bsr profits, but that is just the surface.>>

 

 

 

I think more likely this girl was just not so eager to go out or to go out with you so she quoted a high price.

 

 

 

And to answer your more general question; yes of course the more Thai you can speak the better. But also bargaining for products or services is an art and I've seen it done very well by tourists who don't know any Thai also.

 

 

 

 

[Guest]

Nice assumption, but wrong.

 

 

 

She changed her price to 1000baht a few minutes later, as I was leaving the bar. I had lost interest by then.

[Guest]

In the tourist "areas" being a "falang that know too much"

 

( thai language and what goes on) is not a popular thing.

 

 

 

Hard to be scammed ( or at least takes more effort) if you know what is going on.

 

 

 

 

 

I understand some thai, and it always ( well,, maybe not so much these days) what is said in thai about you/ behind ur back. when they think you don't have a clue.

 

 

 

 

 

I find it to my advantage to not let on I know what is being said.

 

 

 

( maybe the old addage "better to keep quite and be thought of as a fool, than to speak and confirm it") works here

 

 

[Guest]

Maybe.

 

 

 

But it does piss me off when i hear the taxi drivers that camp outside my apartment building in a little commune calling me "fat idiot" or "stupid foreigner" when I walk out of the front door some mornings. Im certainly not fat, and I would hope that any Thai with more than 2 brain cells would know that Westerners that live in residential areas are likely to speak some Thai. Maybe they just dont care, because there are lots of them there.

[Guest]

smeg:

 

 

 

I know the feeling:

 

 

 

but probably those same guys would be climbing all over each other if you wanted a taxi.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The only time I can recall truly being upset was going throught passport control and the "little shit" immigration person ( would not diginfy him with the term "officer") at the desk ( behind the booths) refered to me as "fan falang"

 

to my 14 year old daughter. really hurt her feelings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[khunsanuk]

Hi,

 

 

 

Smeg, I think you need to adjust your attitude a bit if you inted to keep posting on this board. A lot of your posts are full of negativity ("Will I be banned for this thread?", "Will I be criticised for this post by regulars, for speaking so simply?").

 

 

 

Maybe if you just went with the flow a bit more, you would not be critised. People are not criticising you for asking questions, they are however criticising the way you ask them, and your attitude when asking them.

 

 

 

Lighten up.

 

 

 

Sanuk!

 

 

[rchapstick]

I think smeg is confusing two separate issues. I would agree that, if you are planning on living in Thailand, that it is a good idea to be able to speak at least a rudimentary level of Thai. This would apply to nearly any ex-pat living situation I could think of.

 

 

 

I would disagree that you need to be able to speak the local language to avoid getting ripped off. I don't need to speak Thai to know to avoid tuk-tuks and touts. Knowledge of Thai is irrelevant when it comes to knowing the prevailing prices for goods and services. Gleening an understanding of prevailing prices and practices is one of the many things that make this, and other BB's, so useful to visitors.

 

 

 

As far as knowing when some taxi driver makes snide remarks at me, who gives a flying f**k! I certainly know enough about the taxi drivers that park outside hotels with "broken meters" to avoid them. Unless I am the type who runs around looking for a fight to get into, who cares? Speaking of which, this personality trait would seem to apply to smeg. Smeg, I'd suggest you have a drink, but I've read your other posts.

[Stickman]

Speaking Thai is ASBSOLUTELY NOT ESSENTIAL for living in Thailand, but it sure helps. I would say that for those who do not have so much money, then speaking Thai is far more important for them than for folks who are rolling in it. In my opinion, a correlation exists between the necessity to speak Thai and the income that you have.

 

 

 

Obviously, there are certain experiences that are not possible, or at least are far more difficult to experience, if you do not speak Thai.

 

 

 

Stick

[Guest]

I don't think I really understand your reasoning here. Are you saying that if you have money then it's ok to pay more and possibly be ripped off? I don't think this is really a rational stance to take on the issue.

 

 

 

Cheers,

 

FF