samak Posted December 15, 2002 Report Share Posted December 15, 2002 "The state of English ability in Thailand is quite sad" if you compare with china, japan and korea, thailand is far far ahead! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jp1 Posted December 15, 2002 Report Share Posted December 15, 2002 if you compare with china, japan and korea, thailand is far far ahead! are you so sure? The ability of Chinese to speak English progressed quite fast over the last couple of years. In the big cities there are a lot of students who speak English fairly well. As for Japan, many Japanese can read and write English but have a problem to orally communicate. I think one should avoid any generalization about the ability of Asians to speak good English. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pescator Posted December 15, 2002 Report Share Posted December 15, 2002 Much of the broken English banter you hear from Thais is based on bad example from us I really don`t think so. A lot of thais haven`t had much contact with english speakers and they also talk like that. The level of upcountry english teachers teaching english in primary classes is generally appalling. I`ve had the "pleasure" of overhearing several of them teaching my innocent nephews and cousins upcountry. And as you also said, thais who has only learnt english for a few years will naturally translate thai directly into english dropping for instance the auxilliary verb to do and personal pronouns alltogether thus resulting in this broken form. No grammar lesson is needed, just an example of correct English and they will catch on. In my experience they certainly do not. You can correct them dozens of times if you like but the old versions always seem to stick. Anyway, I certainly prefer to be able to get the message through by whatever means available to me, and if that means I have to talk Thenglish, then I do it. That sure came in handy in Cambodia. Cheers Hua Nguu Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goodthaigirl Posted December 15, 2002 Report Share Posted December 15, 2002 Friendlyfrind: No grammar lesson is needed, just an example of correct English and they will catch on. Hua Nguu:In my experience they certainly do not. You can correct them dozens of times if you like but the old versions always seem to stick. That shows that the person has no desire to improve their English. But some catch on as the other poster said. So, I think for the benefit of both parties you'd better speak proper English to them. I do the same to farang friends too. I try to speak Thai more clearly and slowly to them. I don't mind say it several time if they don't get it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted December 15, 2002 Report Share Posted December 15, 2002 "I really tried the "proper" way. Honest! But when I used prepositions, articles, plurals, etc., in my conversations with the average b/g, I may as well have been talking to the wall." Ok, I take your point but I guess I wasn't talking about Thai bar girls. I was more or less referring to Thais who are students of English and are wanting to speak correctly. In my 5 years I've never really encountered a bar girl who was too serious about learning English properly...of course more often than not their level of education lets them down. Many are not proficient in their own language I guess... But you are correct, for immediate comprehension it's sometimes necessary to modify your language. FF Bibblies: 'amount of times'? What's wrong with this ?? That's correct English in my neck of the woods. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khwaimaisabai Posted December 16, 2002 Report Share Posted December 16, 2002 Says friendlyfiend: Bibblies: 'amount of times'? What's wrong with this ?? That's correct English in my neck of the woods. Hi ff, Something to do with "a time" being a countable noun so you should say "number" not "amount", same-same (sorry) as you would say "many times" not "much times". I agree, though, that to say "amount of..." like that is a common usage in the UK even if technically incorrect. Somebody with a TEFL certificate could probably give you a better explanation. Khwai Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bibblies Posted December 16, 2002 Report Share Posted December 16, 2002 That's it. Amount is unspecific and number is specific. The amount of water in the fountain versus the number of ducks. Same sort of thing with fewer/less. There were fewer girls in the gogo bar so he had less fun. Found a resource for looking these sort of things up: http://public.onelook.com/?w=fewer&ls=a. (I took one example from the UVic Writer's Guide.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gobbledonk Posted December 16, 2002 Report Share Posted December 16, 2002 GTG, Let me ask you a question : when you are trying to communicate with another Asian, someone who has no Thai and little English, do you speak grammatically correct English ? For example, I find that if a lot of Mandarin (or German) is thrown at me, unless I can extract a known phrase, I have to try to parse it and determine the meaning of the sentence. I expect that its no easier for anyone else : more words = harder to translate. I usually try to get my sentences down to single words, accompanied by a truly tragic mime act Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goodthaigirl Posted December 16, 2002 Report Share Posted December 16, 2002 >Let me ask you a question : when you are trying to communicate with another Asian, someone who has no Thai and little English, do you speak grammatically correct English ? < What I do is using short grammatically correct sentences. Sometimes I use one word with a raising tone to indicate that it is a question. It works pretty well so far. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pescator Posted December 16, 2002 Report Share Posted December 16, 2002 Hi GTG Yeah, I guess you are right. But I also see their point of view. They have been using this same incorrect term hundreds of times and heard it as many times used by their friends and it have worked just fine till now. So what is this know-it-all smartass farang up to with his fancy english? Cheers Hua Nguu Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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