Tod Daniels

<SNIP>

I would rather we didn't gotten to know each other = จะเป็นผลดีกับทุกฝ่ายถ้าเราไม่รู้จักกัน

I think that sentence construct while possibly accurate is quite clunky and artificial.

I'd go with something far simpler like: คิดว่าเราไม่เคยรู้จักกันดีกว่า

It is my experience when trying to say something in thai, the simpler you can convey the meaning the easier it is for thais to understand what you’re on about. You start making a phrase or concept too descriptive and you can go off the proverbial script quite quickly.

Foreigners (especially engrish native speaking ones) tend to suffer the most from ‘mother language interference’ when tryin’ to speak thai. This can and does make the understandability of what you’re saying go WAY down to your average run-‘o-the-mill-thai out on the soi

In other words, when in doubt, I've always found it better to follow the old acronym K.I.S.S. (NOT the name of the famous rock band, you goofball ) but the phrase; “Keep It Simple Stupid!”

My landlord usually uses a hotel supply company for all the furniture she puts in her units. It’s high quality, durable, excellent construction, etc.

She also goes to those Furniture Fairs that they have at either Bitec, Muang Thong Thani, or Queen Sirikit Center a coupla times a year when they roll out new designs, and she buys last years clearance stuff.

All of her units have really nice furniture in 'em; although they're the obligatory 'thai height' stuff as far as the couches, loveseats, foot stools, etc. I always feel like I'm sitting in a house for munchkins (with my knees up around my chin ).

Really though; you can get some great deals at those furniture fairs. ..

Often times on the last day you can buy the display stuff dirt cheap, as the vendors don't wanna lug it back to their showrooms. (Usually delivery is free too)

FWIW: the next furniture fair at Sirikit Center is from the 18th - 26th this month.

Here's the link;

Furniture Fair at Queen Sirikit Center

You might get better answers to your query if you perused the pinned topic in the Thai Visa Thai Language Sub Forum called Best Thai Language School (which at last count had 22 PAGES of posts!)

It's here; Best Thai Language School Thread

You also might notice the plethora of sponsors advertising thai language schools and visa assistance scattered thru-out the T/V website.

BTW; in regards to the usage of the word ‘legitimate’. Most, if not all private thai language schools are registered with the Ministry of Education, (that gives them the ability to give you paperwork to extend your ED visa inside the country). Pretty much, any of them in the greater Bangkok area which offer ED visas are legit.

Right now the current 'going rate' of tuition and a years education in thai language at a private thai language school which offers visa assistance is around 25K baht (give or take a few hundred baht). Depending on your definition of 'dirt cheap', it may fit your budget or exorbitantly expensive, I dunno .

Remember the old adage "Good things are NOT cheap ! Cheap things are NOT good ! In other words, you get what you pay for. ..

NOTE TO MODZ: Maybe this topic would get better responses in the Thai Language Sub-Forum. .

Unless I'm mistaken, in thai the colloquial phrase is better ดีกว่า dee^M gwaa^L is used when youre comparing two things, two choices, etc with one being a better thing to do or what you'd 'rather' do.

Here's the link to thai-visa-dot com's definition and example sentences;

better-rather

I have also heard thais use the words instead of แทนที่ thaaen^M thee^F used with ดีกว่า as it adds a more comparative meaning. Heres that link;

Instead of

As for the second part of your question;

You have to realize in thai there are MANY different types of suffering; mental anguish, physical suffering, just plain hardship, suffering as a good buddhist is supposed to, etc.

The real word for 'suffer' is ทรมาน thaaw^M ra^H maan^M, but even a brief perusal of thai-language-dot com yields MANY different words depending on the way a person suffers. The word ทุกข์ thook^H seems to be a high use word as it comes up first under 'suffer'.

Go here Thai Language Dot Com Dictionary and type in the word suffer. See for yourself.

It would seem in thai, the "type" of suffering you're intending to do is critical when selecting the correct word to carry the nearly all encompassing english meaning of 'suffer'. Especially so a thai would catch the meaning in the context you're speaking about.

As far as the sentences you're wanting. I'll leave that for you or other more illustrious posters than myself to figure out.

Good luck, (Personally; I try to suffer as little as possible and I'd rather make others suffer first, but that's just me ).

Oh one more thing. If you use Thai-Language Dot Com's dictionary, make sure you go to the "site setting page". Click the tabs which say "Enable Racy Content", and the one which says "Enable Gay/Lesbian Content". By doing that you get much more contemporary word usage and far more common slang than leaving those boxes un-checked.

I had the same housekeeper for nearly 4 years. She came once a week and I paid her 200baht each time. I have a two bedroom, two bathroom, living room, and western kitchen sized apartment. On average she spent about 5 hours each time; dusting, sweeping, mopping the floors, cleaning the bathrooms, and straightening up the house. She didn't cook, do laundry or iron.

FWIW: she seemed more than happy with the arrangement (or I’m sure she’da just stopped showing up for work). She’d probably still work for me if her father hadn't died forcing her to go back home and care for her nearly blind mother with cataracts. I do indeed miss her!

Good, stand up thai person, honest as the day is long. Once I misplaced (as in stupidly lost) 5000 baht. After tearing the house apart a couple times looking for it, I wrote it off, but mentioned it to the house keeper when she showed up. Low & behold when I returned home later that afternoon, there was the 5000 baht sitting on the coffee table! She’d found it for me in about 5 minutes. I tried to give her a 1000 baht as a reward but she wouldn't take it. I finally ended up secretly putting it in her pocketbook when she was busy cleaning.

While it's technically against the law to hire burmese workers, several foreign friends of mine kinda share the same burmese housekeeper. They said she's about 300baht a week and comes twice a week; doing their laundry, washing dirty dishes, cleaning etc.

Many times you can go to a foreign frequented hotel and ask the housekeeping staff if anyone 'moon-lights' as a house cleaner, many of them do.

I personally wouldn't pay anyone; thai, laotian, burmese, cambodian, (or insert your S/E asian nationality here) over 500 baht a week. I wouldn’t pay that kinda money even IF they came twice a week, did my laundry, cooked, cleaned, and everything. The cost of good labor here is dirt cheap, especially as the 'official' minimum wage in Bangkok (which BTW is the highest in the entire country) is only 206 baht a DAY for 10+ hours!

It makes very little sense to pay more than the 'going rate' a thai in the same socio-economic niche would pay for a similar service. You're highly unlikely to get any better quality of work by paying more money.

I know the foreigners who pay their maids crazy money will vehemently disagree, but that’s my experience in visiting people who have high priced maids; seeing the condition of their place versus the condition of mine.

Your mileage can and in all likelihood will vary. ..

Sometimes, at least for me, here in the glorious "Land 'O Thais", life can get me down a little. When living here starts to wear on me, I listen to this song, by: KISS (go figure, lol).

Believe me, I've had more than my share of "Crazy Crazy Nites" in Bangkok over the last 5+ years, as have most foreigners living here.

Enjoy;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=din5bpPcEX4

BTW: here're the lyrics! Sing along, I'm sure you can all keep up.

Whoow!

Here's a little song for everybody out there.

People try to take my soul away

but I don't hear the crap that they all say

They try to tell us, we don't belong

that's alright, we're millions strong

This is my music, it makes me proud

These are my people and this is my crowd

These are crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy nights

These are crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy nights

Sometimes days are so hard to survive. Oh Yeah!

A million ways to bury you alive. Hey!

The sun goes down like a bad bad dream

You're wound up tight, gotta let off steam

They say they can break you again and again

If life is a radio, turn it up to ten

These are crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy nights

These are crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy nights

These are crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy nights

These are crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy nights

And they try to tell us, that we don't belong

but that's alright, were millions strong

You are my people, you are my crowd

this is our music, we love it loud

These are crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy nights

These are crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy nights

These are crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy nights

These are crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy nights

<SNIP>

However low class consonants can carry rising or low tones by simply adding ห หีบ in front of the leading consonant with the low tone also requiring ไม้เอก. LIKE THIS หนาว rising tone cold<SNIP>

Thanx for that info;

That was actually covered in a part of the book called “ห leads a word starting with a low class consonant”.

As for as myself; I took it to mean that the word actually starts with a silent but most definitely a ‘hi class consonant’; ห, compelling it to follow hi class toning rules.

I left it off the chart, much like the 4 ย words which อ 'leads' (อย่า, อยู่, อยาก & อย่าง) which again to my understanding means those words start with อ compelling them to follow middle class consonant toning rules.

If my understanding of it is off the mark lemme know.

And thanx again for the feedback!

I'll add one more thing to this empty thread.

I've studied thai for going on 3 years (a coupla hours a day at home and 180 hours of group lessons at a private thai school), can read/understand what I've read quite well. I also seem to converse pretty easily (at least with thais who already know my squirrelly foreign accent and my abysmal toning ). It's only been these last three days that I've attempted to 'get' the toning rules.

Before that I purposely blurred low, mid, hi tone words, and concentrated on only learning the hi-frequency falling or rising toned words which I'd use in daily conversation.

It has made me come to the realization that it's gonna be quite a tough frickin' row to hoe 'un-learning' my wrong pronunciation on words and then forcing myself to re-learn the words using the correct tone.

In hindsight, I think it'd have been far easier to learn the correct tone to start with . Then again I’ve got boxes of hindsight here at the apartment for things in my life which I learned after the fact. (I guess every one does too, to some extent).

When I first started learning I concentrated completely on learning thai words, meanings and its approximate sound totally by sight recognition and memorization of how the word was spelled in regards to similar sounding (to foreign ears) words which had different spelling and meaning. FWIW: It has given me an incredible vocabulary of written thai, but alas, a not so good one as far as spoken thai goes.

Un-learning is a tough process in and of itself.

Still, I feel there might be hope for me yet in actually being able to communicate with some semblance of fairly clear, coherently spoken thai. However it is all too apparent that will be some way down the proverbial road in language acquisition.

Looking at a recent graph (one sadly I can't find now ) which showed densities of foreign population broken down by province here in thailand; I think you'd be well served to do Udon Thani. The number of expats up there is literally mind wobbling.

Nakhon Ratchasima (Korat) could be another one as it's definitely growing although it’s far smaller than Udon in terms of numbers of foreigners living there.

As An Aside; Mac, while you 'n I have certainly had our differences: I sincerely mean it when I wish you; Good Luck on your Phuket branch!!!

Can one of the language pundits on here take a look at this document I made up concerning the thai tone rulez?

Thai Tone Rulez.doc

I tried to incorporate stuff from a couple books Ive got. Im trying my best to see if I can get my head around the toning of thai words. (I guess its about time, lol. )

One thing; in the document I made up, from the several books I perused I use the term non-short vowels which encompasses all the long vowels, plus the vowels อำ, ไอ, ใอ, เอา and also เอย.

I could be missing some of the ending consonants too, but that's all the book had listed. I know the terminology doesn't jive with other books, but at least so far I understand it.

I just wanna know if the toning rules under each class of consonants are correct. I tested it on some common single syllable words and it seemed to work, but on some compound words it didn't. Now whether I didn't know how to delineate the syllables or whether the words I tested it on were irregular pronunciation, I dunno.

The I think Im correct on a couple things;

*the second ANY thai word has a tone mark, both vowel length and final stop become irrelevant (unlike when theyre unmarked and either consonant-vowel constructs, or consonant-vowel-ending consonant constructs).

*low class consonants can NEVER carry a low or rising tone.

*middle class consonants can carry all 5 thai tones.

*high class consonants can NEVER carry a mid or high tone.

Are the above four things correct?

Again, Im trying as hard as I can to figure this stuff out after all this time studying thai. I could be making it more complicated than it is, but at least this way I'm starting to have it 'click' for me.

Any input is appreciated, and ALL corrections are welcome.

Thanx in advance (Sorry for the bother. .. )

Tod

Sorry, I must amend my earlier post (#3 in this thread) about a triple entry tourist visa being valid for a year.

Just this morning I had the chance to see the guy's passport with my very own eyes and it is NOT valid for a year. Evidently he is more than slightly numerically and/or calendarly <sic> challenged . Be that as it may, I can confirm with certainty that his visa is indeed a triple entry and is also valid for 9 months.

I concur that 6 months seems to be the 'norm' on tourist visas. But hey, you're out nothing for asking it be valid longer; the worse they can say is no.

That works out nicely when a person does the 30 day extensions after each 60 day stay as it takes the pressure off of having to pay close attention to the visa's expiration date.

Again, sorry for the erroneous info, but at least I corrected it.

We pay on average 35-45K baht in installments for year-round classes

MY god? plus u opay how much for the visa?

Its seems very expensive. <SNIP>

While I could be worng <sic> err wrong; I believe the O/P might have meant that they pay in TOTAL about 35-45K baht via an installment payment plan during the year; which at the end EQUALS out to be the figure he mentions.

When I called the two schools down there I mentioned in an earlier post, I seem to remember that 35-45K baht seemed to be close to the going tuition rate for a year long study program in Phuket at a private thai language school.

The cost of a students extension of stay would be the same whether the extension of stay was granted for the usual 90 days or if Phuket Immigrations gave them a year's extension; 1900baht

FWIW: I dunno if L/A will give you a triple entry "tourist visa" (even with your travel pre-booked in and outta the country ). They seem to be pretty myopic when interpreting the laws reagrding visas here in the glorious "Land 'O Thais" , BUT, with that being said:

Almost EVERY honorary consulate WILL issue you a triple entry tourist visa (usually with a validity of a year ) IF you ask them for it.

Being in america, you are NOT obligated by any wild stretch of the imagination to use the nearest thai embassy or consulate. Last time I checked, you could use who ever, where ever you wanted to as long as they were either a thai embassy or honorary consulate.

I'd give 'em (as in L/A) a call first 'n see, and if they don't wanna play ball, call another consulate on the west coast or the western states. There are more than enough who WILL issue triple entry tourist visas, you just gotta call 'em or email them and find out. ..

As an aside: a friend from the US just entered the 'kingdom' yesterday holding a triple entry tourist visa (which BTW had a validity for a year too ), issued from an hnorary thai consulate in the US. So the info I have is pretty recent, (as opposed to some 'stale' info ).

Good Luck,

Oh, and your 'master plan' sounds fine, as long as your visa has the validity for the time you need to stay here (it’s NOT your permitted to stay stamp that matters {as in the stamp they put in your passport when you enter good for 60 days} but how long the tourist visa valid for). You could come off the rails if you don't pay attention to that date. .

Call around to the Honorary Consulates and check. It's quite easy to do and they're pretty darned friendly as opposed to D/C or L/A which from reports, are pretty one-way with things ...

Good Luck

P/S: Sorry for the edit(s), I didn't use spell-check FIRST!

I’ve seen the exact scenario painted by the O/P happen before when a foreigner suddenly gets ‘in-the-mix’ regarding thai in-laws and the obligatory extended thai family.

Sorry this post is long, but it’s true and nearly mirrors the O/P’s story. .

I knew one thai woman who had a small food shop, hair/nail salon, a video rental shop, a moto-bike repair shop as well as a small mini-mart lining the front of her family's property on a busy highway thru their small village up past Saraburi. The family raised fish, pigs, and farmed rice on quite a sizeable amount of land across the road from their property, and had quite a lucrative home brew ‘Lao Khao’ business going on too. They'd sell shots in the morning to the thais who worked at the cement factory up the road from them. Every nite they’d measure out shots in little plastic bags, and then sell them starting at about 4:30-5AM. Sometimes 1 or 2 HUNDRED shots would be sold in the span of just a couple hours! (IF you work at a cement factory I guess you ALWAYS want a buzz on! )

Certainly these people were not rich; but for thais in the middle of nowhere thailand they were more than just getting by. Even though it was quite a small village their place was the ‘hub’ of activity, everyone would come and gossip, sit around, eat, etc.

While I was never involved with the woman, I knew her story; that she’d worked in the bangkok bar industry for 5 years, scrimped, saved, never lent or borrowed money, didn’t drink alcohol, smoke, or do drugs, etc. Then after 5 years she ‘retired’. Every thing she had saved up went for the things she built, bought and managed, employing family and friends for the various shops. I spent many an enjoyable day and evening there visiting with nearly every person in the village.

Then she met a foreigner thru a thai friend. He married her and started giving a very generous allowance to both her and the in-laws. Suddenly, brothers, aunts, uncles, cousins and about anyone else who crawled outta the woodwork needed financial help.

Several years’ later whist driving thru the village, I passed what before had been a very prosperous stretch of road fronting their property. It looked like a bomb had gone off in a garbage dump!

Every single shop was closed; in fact they were gutted of anything remotely useable and reduced to just concrete shells. The extended family was drunkenly lazing around in hammocks, chairs, empty whiskey, beer bottles and garbage was strewn all over the ground. There were two new Isuzu trucks parked under some trees, a few new Honda Clicks and a new Fino too.

The land opposite their houses which previously had been farmed religiously was fallow; the ‘iron buffalo’ was mired past its axles in a field nearly obscured by weeds. The fish ponds were reduced to just small mud holes, and the pig pens long since emptied of animals.

Actually, I thought there had been a natural disaster or a toxic spill. The difference between what I’d seen BEFORE the foreigner got into the mix and after was just staggering.

I stopped in to ‘visit’ what before had been a happy, close knit, semi prosperous family and was met with more open hostility than I’ve ever experienced in thailand before. Even inquiring about the woman raised their suspicion. Given the redness of their eyes and their alcohol slurred thai, I didn’t push it.

At least to me, it was really sad to have seen than happen in the span of just a few years especially as the woman seemed to have a good head on her shoulders as far as business savvy, and acquiring a modicum of wealth.

I know this many not be the way it always goes here with thai/foreign marriages, but it goes this way enough that it’s certainly NOT an uncommon occurrence.

Saw him a few times, years ago in the states. ..

Other than the songs, as a live act he's total crap! He's got the stage presence of limp, wet, soiled dish towel. No interaction with the crowd, no eye contact, no nothing. Sheesh, what an incredibly innovative performing 'style' to be known for, NOT !! Clapton's actually worse than Bob Dylan (if in fact, anyone can have worse stage presence than that .

Given the fact Eric's playing at Muang Thong Thani's Impact Arena; which other posters already pointed out is a place you'd be hard pressed to find worse acoustics to listen to a live concert. Factor in the poor seating, exorbitant ticket pricing, the near log jam traffic getting outta there after a show and it’s really much ado about nothing as far as a ‘must see’ concert.

Now if the rock band; KISS came to Bangkok, it'd be a horse of a different color entirely, at least for me, lol . ..

I'll pass on this.

Sorry I got timed out and couldn’t edit the previous post.

In perusing the T/V Thai Language Sub Forum I saw a post by none other than Mac Walen himself , which would seem to indicate his Phuket branch has just opened.

Maybe in a few months we’ll hear from some of the students about their experiences dealing with Phuket Immigrations.

BTW: Lest there be some confusion; other than being a former student at the Walen School ‘O Thai, I have abso-tively posi-lutely NO affiliation with Mac or his schools .

I’m just offering out info as I’ve come across it

FWIW: I tried to find the info on the two schools I phoned in Phuket, but I've got more private thai language school stuff squirreled away on this p/c and couldn't be bothered to sift thru it all

FWIW: This topic came up once before, so I called and talked to the foreign owners/directors (whatever) at two different private thai language schools based in Phuket. Mostly just to be nosy . ..

They both said, once their students have their first single entry 90 day ED visa, getting a one year extension of stay based on education and studying thai at a private thai language school thru the Phuket Immigration office was the 'norm', rather than the exception. I know strange huh?

Conversely it is just the opposite here in Bangkok and in Pattaya, 90 day extensions of stay are norm and usually all theyll hand out for continuing education for attending a private thai language school.

Unless I am mistaken (which I could be ), I believe 'forum sponsor' Mac Walen early on at his Pattaya location did have a few of his students receive extensions of stay for a year. However, from the recent reports Ive heard it seems they dialed that back to the 'usual' 90 day extensions now.

As Macs ad says Phuket coming soon it will be good to see what, if anything, his students in Phuket will say or receive as far as extensions of stay once he's up and running down there.

P/S: As far as the O/P dpoing his 90 day reporting in Nong Khai, more and more private thai language schools now offer online classes for people to study thai but who don't live near the location of their school. Perhaps saying you attend online would fly, dunno. It certainly wouldn't set you back to try, all they could possibly say to you would be; "Cannot!" . I also agree call Phuket and see if you can mail it in to them.

To the O/P; I'm sure you made quite the impression on the young(ish), friendly, and for the most part quite the good level of english speaking staff which mans the 'info desk' when you first enter the place before you go and get a number at the equally friendly queue number area.

What an inconvenience having to make your way out there a whole 4 times a year! The incredible injustice of it all is just too much for me to even fathom. ..

An intelligent person might be lead to ask you several questions which have already been asked & answered, so I wont waste my time posting them.

IMHO: After having gone to both the old and the new immigrations locations many, many, many times; even on its worst day (like after a long holiday when they're busiest) Changwattana is about a MILLION times better than Suan Plu was on its best day (of which they were few and far between). At Suan Plu air con sucked, there was no organization or design for efficient thru-put flow of customers; toilets, amenities, etc were sorely lacking. It really was a dump which was WAY past its 'use by date' given the sheer volume of foreigners they dealt with on a daily basis.

Conversely, Changwattana is a breath of proverbial fresh air; tonz of parking, open building design, cool, nicely laid out, adequate seating, and clearly delineated areas for different functions. The entire basement of that building has more copy shops, photo shops, coffee shops, fast food places, bank branches, not one but TWO thai food courts and even a 7/11 than you could ever find around the old immigrations at Suan Plu. You can access them all without ever leaving the air con, instead of slogging around on the street like before. I give them two thumbs up for moving it, and in its design.

When you mention the location, did you bother to look at the buildings in the immediate area when you went down Changwattana Soi 7? That area has nearly ALL the governmental main offices are out there. Perhaps you noticed the catchy name for the new building housing Thai Immigrations? I guess they got it right calling it something like the Changwattana Governmental Complex . Once they finish the construction on Changwattana, with the flyover(s) and the traffic light on Soi 7, itll have a LOT better access too.

As far as friendliness goes; most of their staff is the same people who were at Suan Plu. In all honesty, I don't know how pleasant I'd be after a long day of dealing with the; kine (cattle), obstinacy (buffaloes), band (gorillas), mischief (mice), tribe (monkeys), scurry (squirrels), gang (weasels), wisdom (wombats) or insert your catchy classifier for groups of animals in regards to the horde of foreigners which descend on that place every single day; day in, day out, from opening to closing.

FWIW: having sat out there for hours and hours, as well as making over 100 trips there this year alone, it's most definitely a tough row to hoe being a worker there. It must be truly mind numbing job to do on a daily basis! If I even had a single baht every time I overheard a foreigner say to an immigrations officer But, my situation a special one , Id be a millionaire (at least in thai baht, ).

The things Ive heard foreigners spout off out there has made my mind literally wobble . The O/Ps complaint included. Sometimes it almost makes ashamed to be a foreigner living here, (as I said, almost ).

To the people who question the rules as to why foreigners are compelled to report their address every 90 days, why is the extension process the way it is, why is blah, blah, blah. Last time I checked, (which I do periodically for my own state of mind ), were in the glorious Land O Thais, its their country, and that might possibly give them the right to make up ANY rules in regards to foreigners living here. I guess "we ain't in Kansas anymore Toto".

Conversely the O/P could always go to Bumrungrad Hospital and shell out the 500 baht they charge as a fee to report for you. Then again thats probably too far a slog for him too. ..

There is a word for coupon in Thai

บัตรลดราคา = but - lod - ra - ka

Not to disagree, or be picky (even if it may seem that way ) but. ..

It is my experience that บัตรลดราคา or using thai-language dot com's pronunciation guide; bat^L loht^H raa^M khaa^M; is two or three thai words (depending on how you parse it out) combined to carry a meaning. คูปอง khuu^M bpaawng^M however is the stand alone foreign loanword used in thai for 'coupon'.

In the quoted previous post; บัตร bat^L just means card, as in บัตร เอ-ที-เอ็ม; ATM card, นามบัตร; business or name card, บัตรเครดิต; credit card, etc. The word ลด loht^H means to reduce or lower, and ราคา raa^M khaa^M means price/value. When eavesdropping on thais ordering McDonalds, Burger King, etc via the phone I've only heard them use the word 'coupon'; even if that coupon gives a lower price or something for free with the purchase.

In many super markets they have a บัตรสมาชิก bat^L sa^L maa^M chik^H or 'member card' where indeed you do get a ลดราคา 'lower price' on sale items.

Still, I hear the english word ‘coupon’ with the thai pronunciation spoken much more and every thai in the country seems to understand it too. In fact more and more thais are starting to use the english word 'card' การ์ด gaad^L nowadays over the thai word บัตร bat^L.

Be that as it may, I think you're 100% safe using 'coupon' as long as you pronounce it like a thai would. ..

The thai word for coupon is coupon, spelled like this in thai คูปอง BUT pronounced with thai pronunciation rules like this; khuu^M bpaawng^M.

You will hear them sometimes use the word แลก; laaek^F as that means exchange. Like when you're changing money, exchanging an item, or redeeming a coupon for a product.

However in EVERY thai food court I've wandered thru in the entire country which uses a coupon based system for purchases; the counter where you buy coupons always uses the word coupon spelled in thai (sometimes even the english word 'counter' spelled in thai as well ), and the shops all have signs saying they only accept coupons not cash.

FWIW: thai has more 'loan words' from various and sundry languages than you can shake a stick at.

P/S: to make it plural or more than one coupon you use the thai classifier ใบ bai^M which denotes multiples of mostly flat objects. So two coupons would be คูปอง สอง ใบ (except with no spaces between the words ). That translates literally as "coupon two piece"

I know of several private thai language schools in the Bangkok area which rely almost exclusively on Benjawan Becker’s books; Beginner, Intermediate & Advanced in their programs for teaching thai to foreigners. (Dunno what Benjawan thinks about it though , lol!!)

Even though a person may possess a high number of thai vocab words, nouns, verbs, time markers, etc, unless you know how the thai language is structured you're gonna still be wading in the shallow end of the pool as far as thais understanding what you’re sayin’ when you speak thai.

After you go thru the Beginner book of Benjawan's, where you can read thai to some degree I'd suggest getting a book called "Everyday Thai for Beginners" by Wiworn Kesavatana-Dohrs. I say AFTER you go thru at least the first Benjawan book because "Everyday Thai for Beginners" is written ONLY in thai!! There is NO karaoke thai written with english and a mish-mash of other characters, no pronunciation guides, just thai and the english translation. This book teaches thai language structural patterns, using situational settings to introduce vocab, verbs, how to answer questions, how to ask questions, etc. It also has an accompanying c/d which makes it a fair value for its price of 695฿.

I would also caution you; DON'T buy the Benjawan books without the c/d, even though they are cheaper. Without the c/d's those books are about as worthless as 'tits on a tomcat' .

Oh, one other good thing about the first three Benjawan books is; there is a website which has extra study aids on it. They have word matching, jumbled sentences, comprehension, and other online exercises for free.

Here's the link to the exercises for the first book;

Beginning Thai Exercises

Good luck, good learning,

I don’t know that I’ve had a real honest to goodness “Ahhhh Moment” , but this is about as close as it comes for me.

Friday night I had the choice of;

A.) Sitting outside my apartment gate with my thai friends and drinking.

OR

B.) Going to some bars with my foreign friends and drinking.

Truly, it was quite the conundrum as both choices included my ‘hobby’; drinking.

However I decided to stay with my thai friends rather than go hear the same old stories from my foreign friends which seem to run on an ‘endless loop’ kinda thing.

Sitting outside with my thai friends; listening to, participating in their thai conversations about various and sundry things we share as common interests; (in random order; politics, sports, women, world news, etc), me trading english for thai and them trading thai for english, at least at this point in my life here is a far more enjoyable nite out for me. I couldn’t even work up the slightest interest in trudging off with my foreign friends to some bar beer to hear the same old song and dance.

This could be due to several reasons; I have really good thai friends , I have piss poor foreign ones or any combination of the two .

Like I said, whilst it’s probably not an “Ahhhh Moment”, I thought it was worth mentioning.

It took me a while, but I also found this one on thai-language dot com.

ตายประชดป่าช้า (dtaai^M bpra^L choht^H bpaa^L chaa^H)

thai language dot com

They have the literal meaning as; "to die just to spite the cemetery", and use the american idiom of "cut off one's nose to spite one's face" as the definition.

In reading the RID definition of the idiom I think it would lend credence this phrase carries the connotation of doing something against another party, only to have yourself become the party who suffers the most from the action.

FWIW: Here's the RID definition of the phrase;

ตายประชดป่าช้า /ตาย-ปฺระ-ชด-ป่า-ช้า/

[กริยา] (การใช้: สำนวน) แกล้งทำหรือพูดแดกดันประชดอีกฝ่ายหนึ่ง แต่ตัวเองกลับเป็นฝ่ายเสียหายจากการทำหรือพูดนั้น.

I am in no way discounting David Houston's post ! Plugging his phrase into thai-language dot com yields the same meaning, (just no accompanying RID definition of the text).

thai language dot com

Sadly, I have no idea which phrase is more colloquially spoken or would be understood by thais easier.

(Apologies for making the thai font big; otherwise I can't read it . I have also found bigger font often helps people learning to read thai )

FWIW: I hafta agree with "Rikker" on this

The strings of thai letters you type, especially ones that are either above or below your 'home key finger set' are just muscle memory, NOT typing! By moving your fingers up a level or down a level anyone can type the string quite easily.

However, it is my experience; once your fingers come off the ‘home keys’, it’s like you're ‘walkin' in the dark without a flashlight’ as far as tryin' to touch type thai. In other words, you’re just bumbling around . .

Those home keys are the gold ring to touch typin’ thai, (even if the finger load in thai is skewed to the right hand), Well at least in the Kedmanee keyboard set up it is. Which is the standard thai set up as opposed to the Pattachote one (which spreads the finger load out more evenly, but NOONE uses, as it never caught on. ..)

If I don’t keep my two index fingers almost glued 100% to the home keys, I am suddenly typing gibberish thai. That can be disconcerting in ‘chat’ scenarios via the internet, lol..

Now if they had consonants or even small short words (of which thai has plenty) which used the different levels whilst keeping your two index fingers glued to the home keys, it'd be far better of a program.

<SNIP>The absolute dire flaw of Thai-Typing Tutor v 1.04 was this muscle memory issue. Indeed, it made the programme pointless.

On this point we must agree to disagree;

The one thing I liked about the old thai typing tutor program (v.1.04) was you could add any ‘note pad’ file into it that you’d previously typed or even ripped off the internet and then practice typing “real thai”. In that program I’ve got 30 or 40 ‘text’ files which I used when I was first learning to touch type thai that I just copied off the internet; short stories, songs, bits of news, etc.

<SNIP>

I want to congratulate the maker-- much appreciated. I have been using it all evening. I have complained so long for somebody to come along who has some notion of what typing tutors look like. Have a look at Mavis Beacon for a perfect typing tutor programme, but this is an excellent attempt.

On this point I agree 100%, no question about it , for a totally free resource, it’s pretty darned good .

I give them allot of points for trying .

There is a poster here on the T/V Forum whose user name is; "Colabamumbai".

He recently did a trip to Vientiane and received a Single Entry 90 day Non-Immigrant Type-B visa without too much trouble and with just the 'normal’ required documentation.

However, if I remember correctly, I believe he was already in possession of a work permit, so this may NOT be applicable in your situation. Still it is pretty recent info about getting a Non-B visa in Vientiane Lao.

I'd use the search function and look for him under 'members' to find his post(s) about the experience.

Good Luck, and if you use Vientiane, let us know how it pans out for you. .