simon43

Haha, you are so funny! Are you from Germany by any chance?

Mostly data and SSTV. There is an SSTV contest all this month 🙂 I have an Advanced level Thai radio ham licence, allowed to use 1 KW, but 100 watts is fine. Re French, I used a lot of French in Laos last year, but mainly with the many French tourists who can't (refuse more likely!) to speak English...

Perhaps that is because hardly any Muslims live in Scotland..... according to Google stats England has 3 times more Muslims that Scotland. It's the ordinary people in England who have had enough of those of a foreign culture and faith who refuse to integrate and try to impose their own rules on our culture.

It would be something like ရေတံခွန်ဝက်သား But I've never seen that dish in Burma. Apart from tasty Shan salads, I usually only found something like pig's balls in engine oil..... Never keen on most Burmese food!!

lol, could be a loop antenna (project # 123). Nope, I build my shortwave antennas using cheap wire that is taped to 10 metre telescopic fibreglass poles. I need to build a halfwave antenna for 20 metres and 10 metre band, because I've just moved to a new location on Lanta Island. There are 5 of these poles in my car just waiting to be used 🙂

I absolutely disagree with your comment 🙂 .I have been learning languages all my life (my father was a professor of languages and a polyglot, fluent in more than 10 languages). I personally believe that the ability to learn languages to a high level of fluency is hardcoded into your DNA. For some it's not difficult, but for others, your comment about late teens being too late to learn probably holds true.

Yawn, same old, same old! This thread is not about how good I think my Thai is (MA in Thai from Chula University, 22+ years in Thailand, Thai wives blah blah blah). It is about the brain's perception and recognition of what language you are speaking, and assumptions that you make. Let's make it easier for you 🙂 . 30 years ago, I was working in France and sat down to a long dinner with some French suppliers for my Belgian employer. We got round to talking about foreigners (of course, we were all speaking in French). My would-be supplier started a conversation about how much he disliked the English! I encouraged him to tell all.... Only when he had finished his tirade did I point out that I was English 🙂 He assumed that I was a Belgian speaking French, since he assumed (wrongly) that I couldn't be English because I spoke French so well.

Just to note that the Thais that I've been speaking with in Koh Lanta are speaking Bangkok Thai, not southern Thai, and speaking the former between themselves as well. So there's no issue of them not understanding my Bangkok Thai 🙂 As mentioned, once they switch their brain into "Oh, he is a foreigner speaking Thai", then we can converse fluently in Thai.

Off-topic, but my late academic father once had an interesting conversation on a train in Romania with a local professor. Both linguists, the only common language that they found to converse was Latin!!

The UK police would have a much easier job if our politicians actually listened (and acted) on the wishes of the majority of citizens.

I was born and raised in Leicester (UK) in the 1960's, when immigrants from south Asia started to arrive, (the city already had immigrants from the West Indies, and they had integrated well). The new immigrants from south Asia - Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist etc all integrated well. The immigrants who refused to integrate were the Muslim immigrants, and that has been the case ever since. Their religion of peace (excuse me while I die with laughter), their appalling treatment of women and girls, their hate of dogs and pigs, their cruel method of killing animals for halal meat... I could go on and on. I have no issues with individuals - it is the religion and its laws that I despise. Ask a Muslim where his priority loyalty lies - to Britain or to Islam... We know by now that they will never willingly integrate into British society, and laws should be passed (and imposed) to assist Muslims to integrate. Ban Sharia courts, ban the hijab, ban the building of new mosques and reduce the number of mosques already existing, require every Muslim in Britain to affirm their loyalty to the UK - and video record this in case they commit any act against UK law. Am I right-wing? I certainly don't think so.These riots no doubt include far-right thugs, but the majority are ordinary British citizens who are sick and tired of being second-class citizens in their own country.

Yes, that happens of course. But in my 'test' in the hardware store, we engaged in conversation about my plans for this wire (making an antenna) - so the Thai man certainly wasn't bluffing. Also, my post is nothing to do with boasting that I speak Thai. Posters who made these kind of comments have totally misunderstood the reasons for this thread. It is to do with how the brain makes linguistic assumptions that can render understanding impossible, until the person 'clicks' that you are speaking Thai, not English.

Right, I was out and about this morning and I went into a hardware store. Speaking only Thai, I asked "Do you have 100 metres of single-strand copper wire, 1.5mm diameter, with black plastic insulation?" The Thai man looked at me blankly and asked in English "What do you want?" So I repeated my phase in Thai, at the same pace as I just spoke (ie normal speaking pace). You could almost see the light-bulb light up in the guy's brain 🙂 He smiled and showed me his choice and wire, asked more questions about what I planned to do with it and - as you can see - I walked out of the shop having had a successful conversation!!

I'm sure that there are many foreigners who think that their Thai language abilities are better than they really are. However, I'm pretty sure that my Thai is very good, as demonstrated by the 99.99% of Thais who have no problem to understand me immediately when I speak Thai 🙂 What is also clear is that you do not understand my very dry, very British SoH!

Are you suggesting that my spoken Thai is accented?!! I can speak Thai as good as Churchill speaking French - even a little better!

Perhaps 'annoy' is a tad too strong, but it does give me an opportunity to demonstrate my warped sense of British humour by slowly saying "Do you speak Thai?". Perhaps I can rub it in next time by slowly saying "Are you from Burma"? 🙂

I'm not talking about 'pidgin' Thai. This is a question for those of us who can speak Thai to a high level. I just had one of those experiences, at a hotel on Koh Lanta. I wandered in and asked if they had any available rooms and what the price was. The reception lady looked at me completely blank. I repeated my request and got the same response. I therefore said in slowly-spoken English 'Do you speak Thai?'. (Actually, I was 99% sure that the woman was Thai, and this was my way of winding her up!). Yes, there are many Burmese working in Thailand, but I was pretty sure that she was Thai. Anyway, the only way to complete my transaction was in English... The point being, I'm pretty sure that she didn't understand my spoken Thai was because her brain didn't expect a western foreigner to speak Thai. The hotel had many Swedish tourists and I'm sure the poor lady was trying to decipher my utterances as some form of English spoken with a thick Swedish accent!

I did, but I redeemed myself by sending the money on after I left in a hurry 🙂 I was staying at a luxury hotel in the centre of Amsterdam (in the days when I had $$$). Unfortunately, I maxxed out my credit card the previous evening on some expensive hookers! My Mazda sports car was in the underground car park and I feared that the security door of the car park wouldn't open until I paid my bill. Luckily, it did open and I left in a hurry, then contacted the hotel once I crossed into Belgium and explained that I had forgotten to pay my bill and I arranged to sort out payment. Anyway, it was money well-spent (The hotel, not the hookers.... I think!)

Well, I can maybe understand if you threw the crispy chicken skin - in the bin, not at the staff! The only healthy part of KFC et Al is the chicken meat (and that is stretching a point...)

No

Lol, that's me planning for the future...

I'm 65 years old, but it seems that some others don't consider me as old. My last job was teaching kindergarten at an international school, when I was 63 🙂 But my Thai nieces do address me as 'loong Simon', which is a little better than 'papa'!

To be honest, she sounds like my ex #3. A good girl, no known father, looked after her mother and (real) brother, worked hard in a camera factory, no tattoos, no bar-work etc. She was cute, pretty, always checking if I was ok, but the sex and intimacy was totally lacking. She would grit her teeth during sex! We knew each other for maybe 15 years off and on, and finally we legally married. But within year we agreed to amicably divorce because we realised that we were much happier as close friends, but not as BF and GF or husband and wife. Nowadays, she is the only Thai woman that I trust, and she will look after me in my dotage without complaint. A true friend, but definitely not a GF or wife!

If you refuse to pay the import tax, the item will not be returned to the sender - it will be destroyed. This happened to me a few weeks ago when a friend in the UK sent me a free GPS antenna (no payment from me). Unfortunately, he sent it by courier >> big mistake! I asked the courier to return it to the sender, but from previous experiences I knew they wouldn't.....

[quote] As you know there is not a day that passes without a random little French guy or American asking you what British food is like. It can happen multiple times in one day. ... [/quote] Nope, never ever happened to me....