Khun Paul

8 hours ago, Richard W said:

 

Although I have serious doubts as to the possibility of truly counting the allophones of a phoneme, let us recall the practical issue of grouping observed allophones (neglecting observational inadequacies).  Which allophones go together?  There's the complication that the RP vowels controlled by the ghost (usually) of the /r/ are actually separate phonemes in RP.

 

Now, for the START cluster (rhotic) or vowel (RP), TO suggests three non-rhotic correspondents - TRAP (the traditional short vowel), PALM (the old Modern English lengthening) and BATH (the geographically restricted Modern English lengthening).  Iezy Ignglish (II) has the same symbol for PALM and BATH, and that therefore seems the best to use for START, which would be II start. However, there are two other cases, words like marry and words like Marion and Maryam, where RP (or at least, my idiolect) does seem to have /r/ before a consonant.  Would they become II maery, Maeryen and Maeryaem?  I presume starry will become II stary, breaking the homography of the adjective and verb tarry, which would become II tary and II taerry respectively.

 

There are more questions with the other vowels affected by (former) /r/.  In particular, I am still not at all clear what is to happen with verse, worse and nurse.  Do they become II vèrs, wors and nors?  (In TO, nurse is written with the STRUT vowel.)

 

At best you're using strange terminology.  Nowadays one tends not to extract a phoneme of length.  In English, it certainly doesn't work well, and it's doubtful even as a feature in American accents.  You're forming clusters of phonemes.  Your '/o/' group contains STRUT as well as LOT, THOUGHT and the pure diaphoneme CLOTH.  What I don't understand is why bought becomes II bot rather than II boet.

And Thais will understand this HOW v?????????????????????????????

1 hour ago, Stupooey said:

Another flippin' bus. I blame the flippin' drivers.

No blame the incompetent owners of the buses which allow the overloading and the lack of properly trained drivers, plus of course the Government failing to ensure safety on the roads by proper enforcement, the driver is just a very small cog in a big wheel he has no say, no drive no money.  

I did not see anywhere , it states the driver had broken legs or is that a supposedly educated guess, and I assume in your hi-so position you have heard of wheel chairs. if niot learn a little bit about them , they are designed for people who are unable to walk to move about normally with someone else helping but they can be propelled by the person sitting.

And as for the insurance you have had the answer, which is common practice with THAI insurers.

11 hours ago, JetsetBkk said:

 

Well, it's not as if the driver is going to run away any time soon. 

 

Really I have known of injured people legging it from hospital just to avoid the subsequent actions of the Police, so that statement may be true but it could happen .Especially whjen you consider the charges and the subsequent insurance claims etc, a lost driver would impede the legal process and subsequent payouts.

Ok little effect coming from this Govt when it states Tourism is up , when it is in decline, Education improving when it is not, financial targets kept when they are not, iplanes wil continue to fly when some companies are losing their licences, TYhai fishing boats complying when some are going elsewhere. Actually the onkly fact that is certain is that nothing is actually doing very well at all, the more they dig the more they find things wrong/ illegal/ un-licensed, every day something thought to be good is ion fact not good at all . Truth is hard to swallow but Thailand has to tell the truth before it can re-emerge positively.  

We all have rights of freedom of exp[ession and freedom of information unless of course the Thai Govt deems that it could harm the people or the country. UNFORTUNATELY they always look externally never internally , which is where most of the negativity is emanating from.

3 hours ago, seahorse said:

Assassins need to be educated to know that killing is wrong. That should stop this kind of incident, shouldn't it?

Well then they would not be assassins would they, obviously a reasonably well thought out HIT, bike will never be recovered and probably using false plats in any event.

40 year old something children, how pathetic, if all they can di is to fight over a dog then there is something seriously wrong with the mentality of Monks and these two in particular.

We ( the public ) did not really expect any other scenario, therefore it is OK for all Officers to receive money for advice. LEGALISED BRIBERY, WELL DONE RTP.

Ok crackdown on criminal activities , that would be good but then qualifying it that is a mistake but then as they say This Is Thailand.

At the end of the day this discussion is useless and meaningless, as most of us know full well the Thai education system is flawed from the top down and they will not under any circumstances change to ensure their students improve unless they themselves can see kudos in doing so. Logic is not their strong point , never has been, so let us just sit on the sidelines and watch what used to be near the top of the ASEAN tree slide down to become third rate educationally and also internationally.

The Thai curriculum states quite clearly that British English is the norm. Unfortunately  as we all know so well that Thailand will not pay and probably never will pay enough to get good native English speakers and the requirements required also pit many good possibly retired English speakers off.

In ten years of teaching here, I have met and worked with a mere handful of teachers whose command of the English language is acceptable, the rest however makes me cringe when they speak and they also do not have the knowledge of how English can vary or for that matter how to say the same thing differently, I have found that Sentence construction coupled with writing is in many cases not taught at all, it is then that you need the grammar .

personally if the Coach driver was in the worng, then he should be spoken tooi outside the bus and then the situation would automatically be diffused. But then that is logical. Something not on Police training curriculum.

4 hours ago, jpinx said:

There are so many versions of English (Spanish also) that it is hard to know where to set the standard, but there is no doubt that most Thai "English Teachers" are hard pressed to have a conversation in English with a native UK English speaker.

Unfortunately that is true and even more amazing is that native English teachers are sidelined when it comes to exams, they rather have the Thai English version which most if not all are very badly set out and they also have many ,many mistakes. When questioned the stock answer, depends on what the examiner was thinking................Total B/S that is why after 10 years I stopped teaching , you can take a horse to water but you cannot make it drinkl, likewise Thai students you can teach them but you cannot make them learn and in todays educational culture in Thailand  everyone passes even the stupid ones.

This is showing the rest of the world that in fact religion rules Thailand no-one else and to upset it would be foolish.

The Government is asking for adults to take the responsibility for the children , well where are the adults in Government, as they act and think like children most of the time.

Suggest wal;k home, collect money and then return with helmets to collect the motorbike, nit return no problem , no-one at home , not the Police problem, when will Thai Police get some courage to do what they should do. ENFORCE THE LAW...period.

It would be nice if all across the country the Police adopted the same attitude, sadly they do not and I doubt if the fines are standardised as the police chief stated.

1 hour ago, Loeilad said:

What you are indulging here is confirmation bias - it is not critical thinking it is based on prejudices - amongst which are race and perceptions of superiority.

in fact the incidents you describe can be found in ALL countries, they are not evidence that Thai drivers are racially stupid or subject to fate, luck or divine intervention anymore than anyone else.

 

in a similar post it was claimed that the tragedies of cyclists killed in Thailand is some kind of proof about Thailand not only is this flying in the face of common sense it ignores such things as  the 21,000 cyclists injured or killed in the Uk.......

Looking at individual incidents and allowing confirmation bias to take over only clouds your judgement and leads to  misconceptions about any topic.

, I agree there are misconceptions based on race here, however after over 30 years in law enforcement, and seeing so many accidents blamed either on faulty maintenance or drivers allegedly not knowing the road, one can come to only one conclusion that drivers here are not trained , nor are they experienced and the companies fail to maintain the vehicles correctly. A good driver would never take a badly maintained vehicle on the road and a good company would not allow it either. So it just goes to show that enforcement is practically zero on many counts and the passengers, and the innocent suffer and die . +

Regarding the comments about checking the computer, one therefore assumes that the IO`s are capable of not only operating the computor but also finding the right information.

They asked me where I live and for verification, the production of a yellow book dated some 13 years ago was not sufficient, the Police do not believe any other agency in Thailand , which really shows the lack of trust in Thailand . The matter was sorted out to their satisfaction eventually , using a lawyer .

I do not get asked anything NOW !!

Everytime I pass the TAT Office I Udoin Thani it is either shut ,if by chance it is open the staff are unhelpful and almost zero information in English. TAT should look at upgrading and making information customer friendly as werll as employing polite helpful staff.

But as this is Thailand they thik they6 know the answers. so my comments are in reality a complete waste of time.

100% proof Rum , vast quantities does help and keeps you warm, but keeping dry and out of the wind helps too. Plus good food.

Driver unfamiliar with the orad, what a load of absolute nonsense coming from the police , familiar or not a DRIVER would drive to the conditions, before him. BUT THIS MAN is not a driver in the true sense fo the word and should be prosecuted for anything that he ca be including causing the death of 18 people.

Changing the national culture would be like trying to get a dog to talk,  bloody impossible.

You have it wrong, it is THAINESS an attitude much applauded by the PM, and shows itself even onto the roads .

Do not be surprised, they have legalised stupidity, selfishness and downright ignorance.