Tod Daniels

Here is what tod-daniels said on 25-Dec-2010, a few days ago.

"I didn't know the company but a quick Google found it. <SNIPPED>

Actually that's exactly what I posted on the now closed other thread.

However I couldn't go back and edit my post as that thread was closed by a mod about a minute later.

So yes, I posted in error.

Thanx "Baht" for your meticulous policing of my posting penchants . I stand humbly 'erected'.

Now does anyone actually have any current info on what exactly happened, or how Claudio apparently ran amuck?

<SNIPPED>

The service has always seemed a step more shady than other similar ones, but...

Even though the illustrious poser <sic> poster known as TAWP has said the service in question is “shady”, in perusing their site they seem right in line service wise and price wise with the plethora of other wisa run services offered in Bangkok, Jack’s Golf, Quick Thai Visa Run, etc. (To name a few, errr really only two).

Could the poster in question elaborate on his definition of “shady”? I mean after all he’s posted over 7500 tines in 5 years!

Oh, that’s right a MOD already said stick to FACTUAL things.

Note to ‘TAWP’ I guess what I asked is a rhetorical question, (that means an answer is neither required nor wanted).

FWIW: I’ve sent MANY people to Claudio, just like I have sent MANY people to other visa run services and NEVER EVER had a complaint from any of them.

And now back to the pissing match already in progress. ..

NOTE 2 MODZ:

I wanted to post this in the "Best Thai Language School" pinned topic but f*cked it up.

If you can move it, move it to the appropriate thread and thanx. ..

If not, let it run here.

Really it IS a GOOD quality thai language school..

I know I reviewed this thai language school before in the Best Thai Language School pinned topic, but to be fair to them it was shortly after they opened.

I recently noticed on Language Express’s site that they offer a ‘premium thai language course’, and thought it’d be worth my time to go see what exactly their definition of premium was, lol. Here’s the link to their website which explains the differences in the standard and premium course with the pricing;

Language Express

(Sorry this is long, but my penchant for being overly wordy is all too well known!)

Their school is located on the ground floor of a building right next the BTS Station at Ploen Chit (take exit number 2). It is a real looker of a school, bright, airy, inviting, has a coffee shop inside, free wi-fi and computer terminals for students to use. The classrooms are well lit and big enough for a good sized group of foreign students to occupy without feeling cramped.

The following review is ONLY about their premium thai course, not their ‘standard’ one which uses Benjawan Becker’s thai books.

I honestly hafta say in all the thai language schools I’ve been to, without reservation, this was the most enjoyable 2 hours I’ve ever spent at a school, and I didn’t even observe a class!

The staff was friendly, had excellent engrish skills, and took more than enough time to show me their new “talking step level’ course books which are used in the premium level courses.

Last time I was there, they’d only just come out with a few of these books and were relying predominantly on Benjawan Becker’s books to teach thai. The new course books they have now are based on the teaching english talking step method and each level has two books, a workbook, a textbook (and a c/d too!).

In this course you start learning how to write and read thai characters right away. The books have phonemic transcription for the thai as well, so even though you’re learning to read actual thai, you can work out what’s what and get speaking quickly without having to front load learning to read thai before you can start speaking. They go hand in hand quite nicely.

These are some of the best textbooks I’ve ever seen for teaching thai to foreigners in ANY school I’ve been to. I looked at all the levels up to level 6 and they really contain some quality material. Obviously a LOT of hard effort and time went into putting this material together and it is more than evident in the way things are presented. Even though this method is based on the english talking step method they just didn’t translate engrish into thai and run with it. They basically rewrote them from the ground up taking into account dissimilarities in the languages, culture, levels of address, etc. Really quite amazing books if I do say so (which I just did!)

The level one lessons are straightforward starting with introductions, what is your name, where are you from, etc. Vocabulary is introduced and more importantly USED in the lesson again and again. Ample time is also devoted to role play and spoken interaction of the material covered. This is critical in retaining the stuff you learned. Anyone can sit in a class and ‘parrot’ out thai answers to questions from a teacher outta a textbook, but in reality how valuable is this in actual language acquisition if you don’t use it?

Before you even start a class, you take an in-house online level assessment test. I was apprehensive to take it, not knowing exactly what it’d be, but am glad I did. It’s a slick program, which consists of word matching (thai to engrish), multiple choice questions like identifying activities in photos, putting sentences into correct thai word order, etc. The words are written in thai and phonetics too, so you can work it out even if you can’t read thai. I got an 89% but that’s because I still don’t know all of the thai months, lol. I also got a couple word orders wrong in some of the longer sentences.

After the online level testing they have you sit one on one with a thai teacher who asks you a series of questions in thai that you must answer back with complete sentences. So when she asks your name, you can’t just say your name, but instead must say “My name is Todd.” The questions get progressively harder, you must identify items in pictures, tell where they are located, describe the activities in photos, give directions to places from a small map, etc. This question answer type thing goes on until you max out your thai language ability and can’t answer the questions anymore. Based on a combination of these two types of testing you’re assigned a level in which you’ll start learning. This places a student in the appropriate place, instead of being either over your head or bored stiff when you start class.

I’ve never ever seen this type of intensive level testing in any thai language school before. It is somewhat reminiscent of the way Wall Street assesses a prospective student’s english ability when enrolling in their school to learn engrish.

I couldn’t sit an actual class, as it’s the holiday break. Classes resume after the 10th of January and I made an appointment to come and sit one then. The classes are 2 hours long with the first hour being writing and reading in the workbook. The second hour being situational conversation based stuff from the textbook.

I talked with both owner; Simon and Michael for a while and they both are really dedicated to providing a high “bang-4-the-baht” in this premium program. In fact I’ve rarely met more sincere people who come across as really wanting to give something of quality for the tuition a student pays. It was refreshing to realize people like this actually exist in the private thai language sector.

I strongly urge ANYONE who is serious about learning the thai language to stop in at Language Express, take their level testing, look at their material, and decide for yourself. I am far from easily impressed by thai language schools. However, this material is some of the best stuff I’ve EVER come across in ALL the schools I’ve toured!

Remember these are MY observations ONLY. Your observations may, and in all likelihood will, differ from mine. As always I urge anyone to scope out as MANY different thai language schools as you possibly can BEFORE paying a single satang of money. The last thing anyone needs is a year’s worth of thai language lessons in a school whose methodology doesn’t click with the way you learn.

BTW: I am NOT affiliated with any thai language school

Ahhh. We are talking about "Tinglish" here. One of my pet hates.

<SNIPPED>

Sorry, guessed you missed reading the actual original post . Evidently a lot of posters missed it too. It’s not about using ting-lish, or a mishmash of engrish thai words together (something that is for your run-o-the-mill thai a tough thing to figure out. You wanna be understood, speak one language; don’t feel you hafta throw in your marginal thai vocab to impress anyone. )

As far as the O/P, changing the way words are pronounced to accommodate the way thai ears are used to hearing engrish. Most if not all engrish is taught here using THAI grammar pronunciation rules. That’s why you will hear a thai who hasn’t had higher level english classes put a short ‘a’ after engrish words which start with an ‘s’ like; sa-top, sa-lowly, sa-peak, sa-tupid. In thai the letter ‘s’ has a short ‘a’ which can and does go with it in a lotta thai words.

You’ll also almost always hear the second syllable of an engrish word accented or stressed more; wa-TER, po-WER, com-pu-TER, as that’s how they’re taught engrish. Even uni educated thais will revert to the thai pronunciation of engrish words, as it was pounded into their heads when they first learnt their engrish as a kid in school. About the only thais who don't do this are ones educated abroad.

I don’t have any problem morphing my relatively unaccented middle-america engrish into something a thai would understand better if I pronounced it the thai way. Like another poster mentioned, do I wanna spend 20 minutes pronouncing engrish correctly or do I want to have a thai know what I'm on about?

FWIW: I was at Changwattana Thai Immigrations the other day and had one of the officers who knows me ask if I'd translate for him. Now he speaks engrish FINE, but the person sitting at his desk spoke engrish with terribly thick french accent. The officer even asked me in thai in a whisper, "What language is he speaking?"

OFF-TOPIC:

As far as ting-lish, or even worse that baby-talk-engrish I hear foreigners doing with their significant thai others. I concur with the quoted post, I HATE IT , it makes me cringe , and it's about the only time I actually feel ashamed that I am a foreigner here!

can anyone translate the word 'sentence structuring' to me in thai ? thank you

Do you mean making up sentences? สร้างประโยค or เรียงคำตามหน้าที่ในประโยคตามต้องการ

Construction of a sentence is การสร้างประโยค .

โครงสร้างของประโยค is sentence structure.

In thai for sentence structure you'll also hear รูปประโยค (ruup^F bpra^L-yohk^L) quite a bit in thai language schools. In fact I've NEVER ever heard โครงสร้างของประโยค; although I've not doubt it's the correct grammar word.

FWIW I've hardly heard โครงสร้าง used when talking about grammar although that was the word I learned when I first started talkin' grammar with thais. Even the thai language teachers who teach thai to foreigners use the more colloquial รูปประโยค when talking about the difference in sentence structure between thai and engrish. However when they ask you to ‘construct’ a sentence in thai using the vocab we just learned they do use สร้าง.

It is my experience, thais totally understand the phrase รูปประโยค without fail when talking about sentence structure (i.e. whacky-thai-word-order versus sometimes equally whacky-engrish-word-order).

Given that the word รูป can mean appearance, in additional to the more common meaning of 'picture'; 'picture of a sentence' or how a sentence 'appears' works for me too!

<SNIP> I would call it ignorance of native English speakers. Most native English speakers only speak one language.

By that nearly unintelligible post ; did you mean ignorance exhibited by native Engrish speakers due to the fact they can speak engrish only? Or did you mean people that don't speak engrish are ignorant of the needs of people who are engrish speakers , or were you goin' for a more obtuse or obscure meaningless meaning.

Just by chance, engrish ain't your native language, is it? (BTW: that’s a rhetorical question, which means an answer is neither required nor wanted).

BACK ON TOPIC. ..

FWIW: pick up ANY thai language magazine, read the interviews of thai dara's or other hi-so people of note and you'll find engrish words littering nearly EVERY single sentence. Those words always give me fits, as I'll be reading along and hit a strangely spelled thai word with a 'garan' or three in it, and hafta sound it out. Finally it'll dawn on me they're using an engrish word just writing it in thai. Common ones are เซ็กส์ซี่ (sexy), บิกินี (bikini), แว็กซ์ (wax), สเปค ('spec' short for specification) or ซิกแพ็ค (six pack in reference to abs). Even the thai newspapers use them over and over, so it's not just an isolated thing.

Didn't the powers-that-be here who allegedly control the 'purity of the thai language' come out in the papers not to long ago, bemoaning the fact that people were answering their phones with 'hello' versus the phrase สวัสดี (sa^L wat^L dee^M). Which BTW was coined by the late Prof. Phraya Upakit Sinlapsan of Chulalongkorn University in around 1935, and isn't even a thai word, but pali or sanskrit! It was an effort to stop thais from using up until that point in time the more colloquial or standard forms of addressing someone, "Have you eaten yet?", or "Have you taken a shower yet?"

Language's are alive, and need to be thought of as living entities. They morph, grow, change based on the demands put on it by the society as a whole. Any language that doesn't change or tries to remain static is due for the trash heap. The more 'connected' the world becomes the more the languages in every country (that does any international business) will change,

While, I can understand the myopic Chinese mindset (as they've never been known for forward thinking); we'll see if it'll play out, and also how well it'll play out to international companies doing mega million dollar marketing campaigns in China for their imported product(s).

Geez, that is TOTALLY spurious, erroneous, err, (lemme use a smaller word for the T/V readers ; how about BAD info.

I didn't know the company but a quick Google found it. When I called, HE (as in the Claudio referenced in the O/P's post) answered the business’s mobile number. When I mentioned it was on Thai Visa that he'd been arrested he laughed out loud.

Anyway, it took all of 10 seconds on Google and a 3 baht mobile call to prove this post abso-tively, posi-lutely wrong.

NOTE 2 MODZ; perhaps it might be better to just delete this mis-informative post.

As other more illustrious posters than I have mentioned; NO thai syllable can end with a "F" sound. In fact, I gave a coupla dictionaries a quick perusal and couldn't find a single 'real' thai word (one that isn't a foreign loan word) which ends with either of the thai "F" letters (ฟ, ฝ). If someone does know some, I'd like to hear about it.

Given that fact, you're gonna be hard pressed to have a thai make heads or tails out of what ever you go with in tryin' to represent the actual sound of your 'nickname' in thai.

I think you've got more than enough examples, especially for a tattoo (because once you go back to where ever you come from, no one will be able to read thai script anyway). You might as well tattoo "I Am A Retard" in thai..

It is my observation of the oh-so many thai script tattoos I've seen inked onto foreigners; very few, if any, carry a real meaning to your 'run-of-the-mill' thais.

In fact, most thais wonder why foreigners get tattoos with their name or other meaningless mumbo-jumbo written in thai script in the first place. I don't know a single thai person (except 4 whores who use ting-grish) who have their name tattooed on them. So it's not common at all except amongst foreign wanna-b-thais.

The foreigners who tattoo their name (or nickname) on their arm is useful only if your arm is severed and someone (who knows your name already and can read thai) wants to return your severed limb to you. Other than that, it's about as worthless as tits on a bull, but it looks cool!! Huh?

You wanna get something 'thai' inked on you, go to a temple and get one of the Khmer script buddhist tattoos on your shoulder, like SO many thais do. They're cheap as chips, thais respect them, (as it's their dealy), even if the script is cambodian. They also play far better than 'cutesy' engrish phrases written in thai.

That's my take on things, your mileage will in all likelihood vary, and I by no means have I meant to "piss on your parade". Good Luck. .

Reading your previous post(s),

Man, if you didn't have bad luck, you'd have NO luck at all, huh?

Go on Holiday to Cambodia

Post passport to friend at home via DHL

They sent passport to Birmingham/Hull/Cardiff consulate for new VISA

Friend post passport via DHL back to you in Cambodia

Should take less than 2 weeks

While I am loathe to agree with the poster known as "sarahsbloke" his method NEITHER breaks ANY thai law, nor any law in the UK or the US. I know of well over 50 people, who in the last several years have done exactly what was suggested.

Thai law states you cannot apply for a visa to thailand via a thai embassy or consulate in another country WHILE inside the kingdom. There is abso-tively posi-lutely NOTHING written in thai immigrations laws saying you hafta actually be in the country where you're applying for a visa, NOT a single word or sentence. In fact I've got an email from Hull saying they'll issue a visa to anyone from an EU country whether that country has a thai embassy or not, and I should just allow more time in the post to receive the passport back.

Most people use Philippines, rather than Cambodia as the place to camp out while waiting for their passport and visa to wing its way back to S/E Asia, but I dunno why you couldn't sit out a coupla weeks in Cambodia. I also I know an american foreigner who has a guest house in Phnom Penh where MOST of his clientele are foreigners waiting for their passports to come back from either the US or Hull.

Copy your entry stamp and cover page of what ever country you’re in and keep it with you whilst you DHL or FedEx your passport to someone in the UK (or the US), they can send it on to a thai embassy, and post it back to you with the new visa.

Those are totally baseless and mistaken rumors about thai immigrations at the border 'catching' people who were in Cambodia yet possessed new visas issued from Hull or the US. NOTHING in thai law prohibits this, so how would they get caught? It’s just more bar-stool experts, parroting second or third hand distorted information as gospel.

Sorry to piss on your parade, but I’ve seen with my own eyes many, many passports which have it done without a hitch (or hiccup) comin' back into the glorious "Land 'O Thais".

Now, just to pacify the nay-sayers; hypothetically is the person who does this breaking an immigration law in the country where he's waiting while he sends his passport out? Hmmmm, maybe, but because this is the THAI visa forum, I fail to see the relevance of bending laws in another country.

It is my experience what ever country you’re in, if you keep a low profile and don’t muck run you’re unlikely to ever be asked for your passport other than as proof when checking into a hotel, or some other ‘semi-official’ b/s task.

A while ago I printed out some small pieces of paper which I staple to my blank passport pages which say in thai "this page is reserved for visas from other countries". (Sometimes I'll even staple all the blank pages together with that note on the first one;

The thai wording looks like this;

หน้านี้จองไว้

สำหรับวีซ่า

ประเทศอื่น ๆ

Before I enter thailand, I also put a yellow post-it note which marks the page in my passport which has an empty spot for the thai entry stamp, with the words "put the entry stamp for thailand on this page".

The thai wording looks like this;

ให้แสตมป์เข้า

ประเทศไทยหน้านี้

FWIW: This tactic is usually enough to have the immigration official put the stamp where I want, instead of in the middle of an empty page like they want to do all too often. Also it often gets a chuckle from them, that a foreigner would have 'stamping instructions' written in thai in their passport.

This isn't the same group of obviously 'in-the-know' Chula lecturers who were quoted in the paper earlier in the year saying something along the lines of;

"due to thailand being so far from the poles, melting ice would take many years to 'run' all the way down the globe until it finally got here "

I was just reading a thai magazine called ดารานางแบบ and it had an interesting analogy in it when describing the physical attributes of one of their cover models (a girl from ร้อยเอ็ด, named กุ๊งกิ๊ง กิติกา).

Sadly, I can't find the mag now as I think some thai friend 'borrowed it'; I seem to remember that it said something along the lines of; หน้าประถม นมมหาลัย or face like a primary school student with breasts like a college girl. The other nite out on the streets the thai guys I sit with said it's usually spoken with มัธยม and not มหาลัย at the end. Still I thought it was a great idiom to describe a young-ish looking, yet well endowed thai girl. ..

In other news, (while I might have posted this before, it came up again just the other nite) when I was sitting outside drinking Blend 285 and SangSom with my thai guy friends .

Usually we drink, eat, watch the hordes of tourists wander down my soi to the over priced, marginal quality, totally bland tasting thai food restaurant Cabbages & Condoms. We talk sports, politics, spend time ogling the women, and offer out comments in poor taste about the people passing buy, (in other words, pretty much the same thing guys in any other country would do passing time drinking, )

A VERY attractive foreign gurl walked by; however, it was oh-so obvious that her hair was dyed . I mentioned to my friends we had an idiom in english which asks the question, "I wonder if the drapes match the carpet?" When I explained it to them that by drapes we meant the hair on her head, and by carpet we meant the hair the in the other area; they fell about the place, laughing until they nearly were weeping. They said there is no similar analogy in thai as most thai women have dark 'drapes' and unless they are 'carpet-less', they have one that matches too. They did think it was funny though.

FWIW: those guys have given me more hi-usage middle aged thai guy interaction idioms, slang, and colloquially spoken phrases than I can even remember. Now if I don't take my small notebook outside when I go, I end up having them เข้าหูซ้ายทะลุหูขวา just minutes later.

It is my experience especially in the area I live, that ANYONE can make friends with thai women, but finding quality thai guys to hang out with who are close to my age, education, etc was a tough row to hoe, early on. It's one of the reasons that even though I hate the area , I'm loathe to move ; I've got such good thai friends.

I concur that list is way too long!!

Plus as theyre just stand alone words, youre not gonna know how to string words together into a coherent sentence structure. If you get the word order wrong, a lot of what you think youre saying will be just plain nonsensical gibberish to a thai. (That can give less than the desired bang-4-the-baht in terms of showing off )..

Those phrase books are cheap as chips, usually are written with the thai spelling, the engrish spelling and the thai words spelled in some form of karaoke too.

If a phrase book is something youre not wanting to do, you could just as easily type each word into thai language dot coms website on their dictionary page, here;

Thai Language Dot Com Dictionary

FWIW: I wholeheartedly agree with the poster known as kriswillems, and disagree with your assertion that all I need are those words and thats enough for me .

Be that as it may I still say; Good luck in your endeavor.

I thought I'd heard of that school before and when I went to the Emporium Tower branch I remembered the logo on the text books from touring their other location.

I think they've got good material. Their basic level stuff is available in karaoke or thai, and their conversation based materials are as well. The more advanced thai reading writing class materials are just in thai of course. Their reading books are ones I've seen before at other schools. They have short stories about topics such as seasons in thailand, fruits of thailand, etc, with questions after the stories to gauge comprehension.

The price of the school is in line with everyone else, although I didn't ask them about ED Visa assistance. In the price sheet they gave me it shows a reading, writing, conversation based class is 3 hours a day, 5 days a week, which last for 10 weeks, so about 150 hours. I don't know if you could spread it out further or not.

The staff was friendly and it is a nicely laid out school. I asked about sitting a class for observation, but this is the holiday and their students don't come back until after the new year. They did say I was welcome to observe one after they started back up.

I think you'd be fine going with them. They are certainly on par with Pro Language, Thai Language Solutions, Language Express, etc in regards to their material, their methodology, etc.

I would advise you to sit few free classes at some different schools to get a feel for which method 'clicks' for your learning style.

Good luck, hope it helps. Sorry the review was a few days late. True Internet isn’t all it’s cracked up to be sometimes, lol

I'm sure I scoped out their school at some point in time. Not the Emporium Tower branch but the other one, as the address seemed familiar. Quite honestly, I can't recall it, as all the schools I've observed tend to blur into each other. They won't stick in my mind unless they have a stellar program or a whacked one, lol.

I did call the Emporium branch to see when it was convenient for me to show up.

FWIW: when I call new schools, I compel them to speak engrish ONLY, like I'm a 'fresh off the boat' foreigner wantin' ta learn thai. When I called Nisa’s Emporium branch I had to go thru two different people before the third one spoke adequate english. I finally did end up speaking to her in thai; only because to qualify for the level of class the O/P was asking about, without attending their earlier levels you hafta speak, read, and quite possibly write at least some thai.

In looking at their marginally functional web site , I saw the posted pix of their student field trips. It would appear based on the pix the school is comprised of mostly asian students with a very few long nose's (foreigners) thrown in. I would think they're kinda like the other private thai language schools which concentrates their marketing to other asian countries.

I've sat sample classes at thai language schools filled only with Koreans and Japanese students. Unless you're REALLY motivated to learn, those asians will leave a 'normal' foreigner in the proverbial dust with their almost maniacal drive to excel in thai. It can be off-putting to some foreigners who attend thai language classes with only asian students.

I'm going over there tomorrow after lunch around 1PM. I'll letcha know what I think of their material. ..

Please remember these are my observations ONLY, and I don’t work for nor am affiliated with ANY thai language school. I just scope ‘em out for fun and out of boredom .

My observations may differ from yours.

That ghost angle is by far the best and easiest angle to capitalize on. These people are totally 100% petrified of ghosts, even more so if their from up-country and just bangkokian transplantees. If you don't believe me, try to get ANY thai to bend forward and look back behind them between their legs at nite; evidently the sure fire way to make thai ghosts visible to the naked eye. No one will do it, no matter how drunk they are, they’re just freaked by the mention of doing it.

Have your thai significant other or housekeeper, spread around the ghost rumor, saying you've seen one, heard one, etc, and thais will pay attention. Maybe some late nite clanking of chains, or mysterious loud bangs will help things along.

Another suggestion is getting some pigs blood at the local market, and making bloody footprints down the hallway right to their apartment door in the middle of the nite. That definitely freaks thais out (and is in nearly all the thai horror movies too). It also helps if you make them backwards, so it looks like someone walked OUT of their apartment with bloody feet. FWIW: if you buy a kilo or so of fresh pork at the local market, they'll usually give you a small water bottle full of fresh pigs blood for the asking.

(Oh, BTW: don't make the footprints yourself, as thai ghosts don’t have foreign sized feet, except that tall big-footed blue ghost but he ain’t all that scary, lol. You need a thai sized footprint to carry maximum shock value, a thai child would be best really. Those kiddy ghosts here in thailand are pretty vicious from what I've seen on thai movies )

Good luck, sad to hear that the other thais on the same floor won't deal with it the thai way. We had some slovenly neighbors living in the next compound who thought our compound was their trash area. That is until we collected their garbage for a week and threw it all back over the fence in front of their door while they were out. Never had it happen again.

I think part of the problem could be them spelling thai words with engrish letters

The closest word I could find which carries the connotation of 'eternity, forever, undying, is อมต and pronounced like a^L ma^H dta^L.

Here's the Thai Language Dot Com Dictionary link to the word;

อมต Thai Language Dot Com

Hope it helps. ...

Then again it could possibly be the wrong word. Although I did find an alternate spelling of it อมตะ too. ..

A foreign friend of mine is making between 1500 and 3000 baht a day being a background 'extra' in that movie. He's been in more scenes than you could shake a stick at.

Literally, I mean days and days of shooting; which mostly means sitting around doing nothing until it's time to 'act' in a scene for a few minutes. Then you go back to doing nothing except eat at 'craft services', sit around and shoot the shit with the other 'extras'. It's turned out to be a great gig for him. ..

Plus the catering isn't that cheap thai food, like they feed you when you're in a thai soap opera, but 'real' international food. Go figure.. ..

YES!

Since moving here almost 6 years ago, I've ALWAYS sent Christmas cards to my family and friends in America (for the thick, that's the US ).

However I only send the cheezy ones written in thai with the b/s pictures on 'em.

<SNIP>

ฉิ้งฉ่อง pee

<SNIP>

OFF TOPIC (but of marginal interest never the less. .. )

FWIW: Although I don't know the sex of the O/P (as I didn't bother to look at their profile ), a male would RARELY ever say ฉิ้งฉ่อง, as that's usually a term reserved for kids and/or younger people. Maybe in a group of close friends they might say ปวดฉี่, but I hardly ever hear guys say ฉิ้งฉ่อง.

Normally, a male would say; ไปยิงกระต่าย (go shoot a rabbit) whilst a female would say ไปเก็บดอกไม้ (go pick flowers). Obviously the action of holding a 'gun' in your hand whilst 'shooting', and the other action of squatting down whilst errr 'picking flowers' comes into play here.

I've heard these same two idioms from boardrooms to rice fields, all over the country spoken by every socio-economic level of thais.

Even sitting on the side of my soi I don't hear people say ฉิ้งฉ่อง, even when they're gonna piss in the plastic tank outside my apartment which we set up just for that purpose. (Before we set up the tank, the smell of urine the next day was pretty darned strong! Now at least we can dump it down the sewer at the end of the nite!

Then again, my observations may differ from yours. ..

A quick perusal of the ต้อง page on that site here;

Thai Language Dot Com - ต้อง

shows BOTH the short and long pronunciation of the word.

Under the pronunciation notes field, it also has the following:

In this word, the vowel is pronounced with a short duration. See the irregular pronunciations page for more information

Could you please explain the second word for a doctor in Thai? The word maw i know about but the second word is new to me.

OFF TOPIC ANSWER:

The word หมอ (maaw^R) is the colloquial word for doctor and spoken in casual thai speech. The REAL word is in fact แพทย์ (phaaet^F) and very few people who go to the hospital would ever dare address a medical doctor to his face as หมอ (maaw^R). Instead they would use the polite 'official' term นายแพทย์ (naai^M phaaet^F). The different levels of politeness in thai and the words that carry the same meaning yet on different levels, can be disconcerting.

BACK ON TOPIC:

If the figures quoted by "geriatrickid" are correct (and I have no reason to doubt them), it does indeed paint quite the dismal picture for the thais suffering with any form of mental illness. Sad really. ..

This has to rank up there as possibly the most mindless thai song ever written ; (especially given the typical predictable b/s format of thai songs, it is indeed quite an accomplishment ).

This is a song by the weirdly named and seemingly marginally talented 3 thai gurl band called; "Blueberry R Siam", or in thai; บลูเบอร์รี่ อาร์ สยาม. It's called "Chi-mi Chi-mi" or again in thai; ชิมิ ชิมิ.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0buajXGCms

It is almost impossiblt to go to any club playing current thai music and NOT hear this song at some point in the evening, often several times! It's even played on the stereos of the sidewalk beer bars which populate lower Sukhumvit after the bars close.

Sadly I cannot get the mind-numbing chorus out of my head.

Enjoy, or not. ...