Jay_Jay

Through spending a lot of time at the FCCT over the years - playing jazz and teaching Thai there, I was fortunate enough to spend many hours over the years chatting with him speaking many subjects, though mainly things that dealt with Jazz, linguistics and I.T.

Domnern was a very humble man - and never seemed to want to be in the limelight. There were many opportunities that I've heard about in the past where people had asked him to be part of a panel discussion, press conference, attend an event and I think someone was even wanting to write a book about him - though he decided not to. He enjoyed the world in which he lived in - a world that he'd earned.

I can remember the first time I met him about 10 years ago. Someone introduced us and I asked him his name in Thai. He replied - 'Domnern' ... looking at his face, I suspected that it might not have been his name since birth. I then asked him what his 'Farang' name was. He responded with a chuckling smile - 'Domnern'. I got it.

Back in 2001 we met and spoke quite regularly during the final stages of compiling and putting together the audio / PC interface of the latest version of his dictionary that was soon to come out. His aim was to include high quality 'native' sounding equivalents with deep insight from both languages. From katana's comment above, it would seem that he was successful in achieving that goal.

Although we have spoken a lot in the past, I don't feel that I'm at all qualified however to mention anything of his past - or anything outside of the scope of what we'd spoken about. He was one of those guys that you always felt like you were just scratching the surface of his wisdom when he would sit down and 'shoot the breeze' about something.

Domnern will be missed. Both a very cool and very humble man.

He gave me his copy of Dr. Marvin Brown's "From Ancient Thai to Modern Dialects" about 10 years ago saying "You're probably the only person left on the planet that would get a kick out of reading this!" - and I did. That book that sent me on a whole new line of study for years to come.

R.I.P.

When I address friends, I address many of them as หนู / เธอ / น้อง

ที่รัก - used with close friends... why does it have to be a working girl? ... just as I'm addressed by many of my female พี่/ ป้าๆ friends

ค่าตัวแพง - makes no inference as to her occupation?... it's my hourly rate. This is one มุก used regularly to good effect

อยู่กะพี่ - the person is with me? ...

Again, this is very common fun banter that would / does go on amongst close Thai friends.

That you filter my comments like this though is a good / interesting reminder to consider other people's experiences / world view before I post a comment lest it be filtered / construed the wrong way.

....

In saying all that to แ้ก้ตัว ... I'm sure the above sentences could be put to good use under other circumstances

Jay Jay why do you assume the OP was talking to a working girl?

you started ok with the กลับบ้านเถอะ and than just carried away in an imaginary conversation with a young girl....mmmmm,,,,,

I'm sitting here trying to work out what it was that I wrote that led you to assume that I assumed the OP was talking to a working girl? Sadly, the examples I used are the result of a brief bout of introspection on the kind of banter I regularly engage in with my friends.

The fact that I used the word 'พี่' 'phi' in reference to myself is that if I wasn't a พี่, there's no way I'd be telling someone to go home .

Another alternative is to just start biting your toenails in front of her and then ask for a kiss

or maybe

ค่าตัวพี่แพงนะ.. จะซื้อชั่วโมงเพิ่มมั้้ย? - kha tua phi phaeng na - ja seu chua mong poem mai? - My rates are quite expensive - would you like to add an extra hour?

Depends on what the situation is and what you want the outcome to be

กลับบ้านเหอะ - klap baan hoeh - 'You'd better get on home now'

กลับบ้านเถอะ - klap baan thoeh - same as above

เมื่อไรจะกลับบ้านซะที - meua rai ja klap baan sa ti - 'When are you gonna get your butt out of here and go home?'

กลับบ้านเดี๋ยวนี้ - klap baan diaw ni - 'Go home right now!'

อยู่กะพี่ยังงี้ไม่เบื่อเหรอ - yoo kap phi yangi mai buea roeh? - 'You're not bored hanging around me like this?'

ตกลงหนูกะว่าจะกลับเมื่อไรครับ - tok long noo ka wa ja klap meua rai? - 'So when was it that you planned to head home?'

ถึงเวลาแล้วนะที่รัก - 'theung wela laew na thi rak' - 'The time has come my dear'

ไฟไหม้ ไฟไหม้ - 'fai mai fai mai!' - Fire! Fire!

Hope these have helped

like simply refusing, they cannot make you ( despite what any police says , they cannot make anyone take a piss test

If you can't piss then they can't make you however they can hold you down and take your blood. They do this to people in the US who refuse a breathalyzer for DUI stops.

They do? Hmmmmmm... May I ask what state are you referring to? I do not know all the states' laws in relation to DUI offenses but I have never heard that one before. Sounds like an urban myth... I do know that if you refuse a breath analyzer test the you are like automatically forfeiting your license for a year in most states.

http://www.startribune.com/local/stpaul/19407084.html

I sometimes go to eat in ยำแซ่บ (shop/restaurant with Isaan style food that you can find in shopping malls all over Thailand) and I've always wondered why they put mai eek on แซบ. Does anyone know?

You're right - according to the rules, แซบ would be a falling tone naturally. The thing is, when you say it in Thai, it's an irregular pronunciation - it's a short vowel sound - แซ็่บ ... Whoever brought it into the common Standard Thai marketing lexicon first probably thought that throwing a ็ in there made it look too foreign - but knew that a short dead low class vowel needed to have a mai ek to make sure that it falls.

Another anomaly is the irregular pronuciation of น้ำ .. this one is the other way round. อำ is usually short, but in this case it comes out as น้าม

And turn on any station at 8pm - you can watch the พระราชสำนัก 'phrarachasamnak' where a lot of the language is used.

If you go to any Thai bookstore, there are many little pocket books out there with standard Thai --> Rachasap charts.

If you're really looking at getting into it, I recommend doing a crash course in Sanskrit 101. Get some of the affixes under your belt and a vocab of about 100 or so roots will really enhance your 'Rachasap' experience

เก็บตก - In most cases it means to 'gather', to 'get from'... picture a table with a bunch of crumbs on it - someone sweeps them off and you try and catch as many as you can... or picking up fruit that has fallen from the tree. It can be used like "What are the 'take homes' of this seminar" etc.

ธาตุ - /that/ .. from the Sanskrit word dhatu धातु

... but don't expect your average Thai to know what you're talking about if you ask them what the ธาตุ of a certain word is. The other word that is commonly used is รากศัพท์ - rak sap - 'root word'. When getting into deep and meaningful language discussions with Thais, this is normally used in reference to the etymologies of the Sanskrit words / particles in a word.

From the definition of รากศัพท์ I found คำอุปสรรค and คำปัจจัย are these prefix and suffix?

I've successfully(?) used these words for

prefix คำเสริมหน้า

suffix คำต่อท้าย

Yeah - I think in general conversation, คำเสริมหน้า and ต่อท้าย will work ok. I put a list of คำอุปสรรค up on the net a few years back. I would love to bring these back into the Thai education system in a 'fun' way. Having a good grasp of them lets one start to be more creative with their language.

When I'm putting training programmes together, I've often invented new words based on the Sanskrit particles. Upon first hearing them, there's a little bit of a startled look... but I think it's more because the participants think that I'm using a real word that they ought to know! After hearing it a few times, I can go on and use it as the regular term for whatever it is that I'm speaking about.

One such term that I've coined came from need to find a nice สั้นกระชับ word for "Activity oriented" versus "Results Oriented". Results oriented is used a lot in business and personal development books - 'เน้นผล', but I wasn't taken by the "Activity Oriented" words used... so I started using เน้นกิจ versus เน้นผล.

I've been using that pair in particular for about 7 years now and so far haven't had any complaints

Thank you Jay Jay.

I think I know exactly what you mean. It's almost as if you hint at a spanish single r (like flicking the tongue against the alveolar ridge just once) but you don't quite make the sound. I've been told about this when learning Spanish, almost like a silent r, but never learned to hear the difference.

By the way do you teach at a school?

It really depends who you're speaking to. I've been involved with TV news-reading classes and they really stress the importance of getting your ร's and ล's in the right place. This in itself goes to show that it's not natural in the standard colloquial Thai sound system. The natural sounds in the past for ร have been ฮ and ล.

A good way to get your tongue moving in a similar fashion to a Thais tongue is to start off by yourself really belting out the 'rrrrr'. Drill yourself for about a day or so as you're walking around town. A good technique that allows you to practice language exercises like this and still look sane is to stick your headphones in and then when you're there jabbering away to yourself, people think that you're on the phone.

After your tongue has gotten used to that, start to ease off. When you say 'krap', motion your tongue up as though it's going to make the 'r', but fall just shy of the alveolar ridge (hard bumpy bit after you pass the top of your teeth heading for the roof of your mouth). Do the same with your ล's that don't appear as the secondary consonant in clusters like ปลา- Most Thai teachers would be screaming bloody murder to have that suggested to a student insisting to learners of Thai that all Thais say ปลลลลา ...

Priming your tongue like this is good as it keeps it still in the action - and makes the transition easier if you find yourself in the company of people that you have to be particularly rrrrroly with.

Yup - that's right - just like in Spanish.

As for responding to your question that followed... I must refrain - as I think that the forum moderators would count it as soliciting. Just referencing a blog entry in the past has seen posts deleted and been cause for stern warnings to be sent my way.

It really depends who you're speaking to. I've been involved with TV news-reading classes and they really stress the importance of getting your ร's and ล's in the right place. This in itself goes to show that it's not natural in the standard colloquial Thai sound system. The natural sounds in the past for ร have been ฮ and ล.

A good way to get your tongue moving in a similar fashion to a Thais tongue is to start off by yourself really belting out the 'rrrrr'. Drill yourself for about a day or so as you're walking around town. A good technique that allows you to practice language exercises like this and still look sane is to stick your headphones in and then when you're there jabbering away to yourself, people think that you're on the phone.

After your tongue has gotten used to that, start to ease off. When you say 'krap', motion your tongue up as though it's going to make the 'r', but fall just shy of the alveolar ridge (hard bumpy bit after you pass the top of your teeth heading for the roof of your mouth). Do the same with your ล's that don't appear as the secondary consonant in clusters like ปลา- Most Thai teachers would be screaming bloody murder to have that suggested to a student insisting to learners of Thai that all Thais say ปลลลลา ...

Priming your tongue like this is good as it keeps it still in the action - and makes the transition easier if you find yourself in the company of people that you have to be particularly rrrrroly with.

ธาตุ - /that/ .. from the Sanskrit word dhatu धातु

... but don't expect your average Thai to know what you're talking about if you ask them what the ธาตุ of a certain word is. The other word that is commonly used is รากศัพท์ - rak sap - 'root word'. When getting into deep and meaningful language discussions with Thais, this is normally used in reference to the etymologies of the Sanskrit words / particles in a word.

It all depends on what your goal is. Normally when a Farang is learning Thai, they'll go through a few stages. I've noticed that in the beginning, Thais will teach Farang the 'standard' Farang kind of version of Thai. It might not be extremely formal, but it uses language patterns that aren't used that naturally in everyday language.

For example -

Where's the bathroom?

ห้องน้ำอยู่ที่ไหน

hong nam yoo thi nai?

Where as if this was to come out naturally from a Thai, it would probably be

ห้องน้ำอยู่ไหน? - hong nam you nai

or

ห้องน้ำอยู่ตรงไหน? hong nam yoo t®ong nai?

While 'yoo thi nai' isn't formal, it's not that 'normal', and makes the Farang sound like a - Farang.

You'll probably find that ตรงไหน is used in everyday speech a lot more often than ที่ไหน, but never really taught to Farang until later on - or until they pick up on it themselves.

Thais will normally teach / correct a learner of Thai in the language based on what they 'should' be learning - which is often quite different from what's REALLY used. An example of this is hearing Thais correct Farang by ensuring that they say Sawatdee KHRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAP or Sabai Dee RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRReu, where this rolled 'r' sound is quite foreign from your average Thai's subconscious Thai soundset.

When Thais are listening to 'Farang Thai', then the whole paradigm of what a Farang is, isn't, understands, likes, dislikes might filter the way they communicate with them in the words they use, topics they talk about etc.

Super polite Thai should be used in situations befitting super polite language. If there's any doubt though, it's probably better to err on this side of caution.

Working along the same lines of logic - if you can get the natural rhythms of what you call 'street Thai' - I would just call 'Thai', after a few seconds, your face as a Farang will take a back seat and you'll be able to interact with Thais more like a Thai - speak about topics that are more interesting to Thais and use more natural language when conversing.

Having taught Thai for many years now, I often go into the work places of many of the students and speak with the Thai employees about how to build an environment that's conducive to the expat (usually their boss) learning Thai. Amongst the complaints, I often hear something along the lines of - even if the Farang speaks Thai well, they speak about rubbish, or they come into the middle of a conversation and with a few words just kill it either by making it uncomfortable for the conversation to go on (because they think that they have to adapt the language used to suit the Farang), or the Farang likes to bring up topics or points of view that aren't 'sanook'.

I would say that it's important for learners of Thai to learn about as many registers of Thai that they can simultaneously. - 'street language', formal, 'Farang' Thai, 'internet' Thai, SMS Thai. Defining the differences between them can actually work as memory pegs.

Jay Jay,

I ran ห้องน้ำอยู่ไหน? - hong nam you nai

or

ห้องน้ำอยู่ตรงไหน? hong nam yoo t®ong nai? by my neighbor who helps me with my Thai. Here's how she explained the difference to me.

If you were in a restaurant and expected the bathroom to be in the general vicinity, you'd ask ห้องน้ำอยู่ไหน?and expect to be given sort of specific instructions.....as: "Down the hall, to the left."

If you were at a big park and weren't sure if the bathrooms were nearby, you might ask for more general directions with ห้องน้ำอยู่ตรงไหน? and expect an answer such as: "On the other side of the field, over there (while the person is pointing in the general direction)."

Either way, she said, you'd get the answer to your question. Thanks for your useful tips on the language.

I'm sitting here picturing the two situations... I guess you would use it in those cases. There's a lot of grey area between the two. The important thing is to embed these structures so that they start coming out sub-consciously and get rid of the farang sounding 'อยู่ที่ไหนครรรรรับ'

It's not just Thai. I was coaching a friend yesterday with his Bahasa Indonesia. He's been really gung ho doing the Pimsleur series. The results are great and he's really becoming fluid with what he's learning, but sadly, the Indonesian used there is very different to what you'd here on the streets of Jakarta in an every day conversation. It's as though people think that they're 'sinning' if they told the learner the way the language REALLY sounds.

I'll often drill people in my Thai classes with question / responses with 'attitude' like:

ห้องน้ำอยู่ตรงไหน?

อยู่ตรงเนียะ

จะลงฝั่งไหน?

จะลงฝั่งเนียะ

จะไปรู้ได้ไง?

(ทำ)ไมจะไม่รู้ดิ

I find that these start to build more natural rhythms and responses.

From what I understand, it's one in the same - Gary Orman's course.

I know Gary - I've heard that he personally put in a lot of $$ and effort in putting the product together. Gary is a very creative guy - I think he may hold the De Bono license for 6 hats here. I've looked over the original material - I think there were a few linguistic glitches there in the versions that I saw, but on the whole, the concept works.

I'm a strong advocate when teaching Thai to get people into reading the Thai script and understanding how it relates to the tone rules as soon as possible. For many, this seems to be a huge obstacle. Hopefully Gary's programme can help a lot of people get over that speed hump.

As for the cost - if it works, I think it's worth it. I've seen people spend a lot more over years and still struggle with it.

(Just for the record... i have no business connection what so ever with Gary or the programme. )

I've had problems getting these here in Thailand. One place that I've found the best resources for Lao in Thailand is at Ramkhamhaeng University.

The BEST resources I've found for learning / teaching Lao outside of Laos were actually in China!

Thank you Stuart; I appreciate your helpful reply. I'll try Ramkhamhaeng first.

They have their own printing facilities there... I'm not sure about wall charts though. I was just thinking this week about creating a set of wall charts in several indic scripts to hang around the place. If I do get them done, I'll send you a copy.

One of my ex-Sanskrit students (Luke Cassady Dorion) has put a great set of charts together for Lao on his blog. Maybe you could do something with them: Lao and Thai Comparative Charts

On the topic of charts - here's another great chart put together by Luke - Sanskrit Thai Chart - it's part of this blog entry.

It's sad that Thailand doesn't put out as much rich linguistic material as China does. You'd think that being so close to Laos that there would be more. There are some bookstores Beijing that I like to spend days in - usually, no matter how obscure the topic i that I'm looking for about languages all over the world I can find several books / charts / DVD's etc. on it.

I've had problems getting these here in Thailand. One place that I've found the best resources for Lao in Thailand is at Ramkhamhaeng University.

The BEST resources I've found for learning / teaching Lao outside of Laos were actually in China!

Great stuff David! I needed to have some of those words spring to mind the other night when I was interpreting at the FCCT for the 'red shirts' press conference. You get used to hearing it so often in Thai, but I was struggling there trying to put the right English equivalents to the terms!

This might be a good time to introduce the word 'เสือก' - 'seuak' - low tone

.. loosely translated "Go stick your !@#$ nose in someone else's business why don't ya!"...

ok - maybe better not to use this word unless you're looking to make enemies and quite possible cop a backhander. It is one of those words however that where in just one syllable you can change the entire mood of a room!

Between what's happening with the economy around the world, compounded by what's happening here locally of late, I thought that over this long-weekend, Thai hotel / resort owners might have changed their tune.

I started searching for places to stay over the long weekend in Pattaya or Hua Hin for my family and friends. We were looking for around 5 rooms for 2 nights accommodation. Nearly all of us are either ลูกครึ่ง 'look kreung' of some description and / or hold dual citizenship.

Out of 15 places that I made enquiries too, 13 of them charged up to 200% more for Thais whem compared to the 'Farang' price.

The first question was normally 'Farang or Thai' (speaking in Thai).

With one of them, I asked 'Does it make a difference?' ... 'Just a moment'.

After being put on hold, they came back asking - please tell me if you're Farang or Thai.

I said 'what if I hold dual citizenship?' - 'what nationality?'

After about another 2 minutes, she came back and said - the Farang price is 2990 Baht per night - Thai Price 4500 Baht per night. That was the Long Beach Garden Resort. Incidentally - The slogan for this resort is "A Place Where You Belong..."

This echoes discussions with many other places. When speaking with Pattaya Park Beach Resort, I was told that I would need to fax a list of the names to reception upon booking. If any of the names look Thai, they will cancel the booking. Should we turn up there and they discover that anyone looks Thai in the group, we would be sent away, or be forced to pay twice the price of the Farang price.

This is very sad. I am not for two tier pricing in either direction. I would have thought that the Thai tourism industry would be doing anything they can to get revenues in these politically / economically unstable times.

In Thailand we always hear about 'samanachan' and 'samaki' - reconciliation and unity ... but at the same time, we're also actively implementing apartheid policies that do nothing to help either of these 'Thai' values.

Since the Oct 7 incident, everyone was given a lesson in Ping Pong explosives. If someone heard it before that, they might have well thought that it was the climax to a show in Pat Pong

Jay-Jay,

Help enlighten the rest of us. Are these home-made blasters or are they military ordinance? Some on other sites are referring to the 40mm grenades launched by the M-79 grenade launcher but have not referred to the ping-pong balls. This is not a military geek question but rather an issue of how dangerous these are and how much damage they do to life and limb. We see lots of reports in the English language press regarding "bombs" being thrown and exploding.

Thanks for your input.

There were a slew of posts just after the October 7th incident that were trying to analyse what might have caused so much carnage. Here is one of those pages.

This link shows a stash found.

At first they saw the 'ping pong' looking device in the policeman's hands and thought it was a traditional ping pong bomb - normally explosives stuffed into a ping pong ball with some kind of fuse, then often bound.

From the posts that I read, it was concluded that it was actually type of tear gas delivery device made in China.

Since the Oct 7 incident, everyone was given a lesson in Ping Pong explosives. If someone heard it before that, they might have well thought that it was the climax to a show in Pat Pong

"ปัจจุบันนี้จะเห็นได้ว่าสุนัขเป็นสัตว์ที่ทำรายได้ให้แก่ผู้ทำธุรกิจเกี่ยวกับสุนัขได้อย่างมากมาย"

I might idiomatically translate this as:

"We can see that nowadays dogs have proved to be quite lucrative for people in the business of canines."