Tod Daniels

I forgot to add, that something which I feel goes hand in hand with learning the tones. That is learning proper vowel length when pronouncing thai words.

In engrish, no matter how I say the word; hello , whether I say, heeeello, hellllo, heelllooo it's the same word and carries the same meaning.

Unfortunately the same cannot be said for the thai language. I find a lot of foreigners go 'off the script' when trying to clearly pronounce a word, especially if a thai doesn't understand it the first time around. They'll either shorten the word or draw it out; both can and are counterproductive to a thai knowing <deleted> you're going on about.

Drawing out the pronunciation of a thai word which has a short vowel, will NOT make the thais understand it better, in fact it's just the opposite. Learning the tones and vowel length are critical when speaking this language with any high degree of comprehension on the part of the thais. Especially so when meeting new thais, who you haven't interacted with before.

I know my male thai friends on the soi where I live understand me fine when we sit and drink Blend 285, and SangSom at nite. I think it is more a fact they learned to understand my foreign accented (and sadly mispronounced) thai, than that I am speaking clearly.

I have seen situations where new thai people will join our group for the first time. There is a definite learning curve for them to dial their hearing in to where they get past the accented thai I speak and start understanding what I'm saying. I can almost see the light come on above their heads, as my accent finally sinks in and they can hear me without having to ask someone what I just said. It's both a testament to just how badly a person can speak thai and yet be understood IF the listener is motivated, and just how far I still hafta go to speak clear thai...

As an aside to the poster known as 'sarahsbloke', you are again using frozen phrases, or groups of words which are 'locked together' which the thais hear and use every day because it is specific to their job requirements. Especially so in any thai food stand that ever gets a foreign customer. It's the same at the shoe repair shop, the 7/11, the supermarket. No matter how you mangle it, if you say it enough they'll probably get it as they know the vocab first and foremost as their job requirement. True you might hafta run thru the pronunciation a few times, trying to get the rhythm down closer to how a thai'd say it, but it’ll sink into them eventually.

I will completely agree with you that especially in 'frozen phrases' the rhythm or cadence is important to them catching what you're saying the first time around. If you pause at the wrong time, or break the sounds wrong, they go blank.

I still stand by my assertions, If you don't learn the tones or vowel length you close the door on almost EVERYTHING this country has to offer once you manage to break the sizeable language barrier.

While you might get away with speaking thai in a monotone for the most basic mundane every day things, you're severely limiting yourself in actually unlocking what's going on in these peoples heads, how they perceive things, and more importantly what their opinions are of the world at large.

You don't need tones to read, write and understand spoken Thai.

3 out of 4 ain't bad!

You only need tones to speak to male Thai strangers and they pretty much don't want to talk to you anyway. I certainly don't want to talk to them.

(my mum warned me not to speak to strangers)

Unless you go around on your own normal Thais won't interact with you anyway, if you are with a Thai, you usually get totally ignored.

If you just want to impress the locals, learning to write a few words or sing a Thai song is much more impressive to them.

PS

which set of tones do you learn, different regions use different tones.

Seeing as last time I checked, every single one of the 63 odd million thais here is compelled to learn CENTRAL THAI when they attend ANY school (as it's the ONLY government approved version) My advice; stick with bangkokian thai, and give the regional dialects a pass until you've got central thai down fairly proficiently. Even is extremely rural areas, I've had NO problem getting thais to both speak and understand central thai.

Funny you say thais don't want to talk to you, because I find (even given my serious demeanor ), that most thais will interact with me just fine, and once they know I can speak thai, they'll even go out of their way to chat with me after they've seen me walk past their shop a few times.

As far as being interested in impressing the locals. .. I personally didn't undertake learning the thai language to impress anyone, but to communicate with them in their language instead of what passes for engrish in this country.

I would hazard a guess that speaking clearly toned thai would impress them (the indigenous natives ) more than either writing a few simple thai words or parroting a few lines of any b/s thai song. Then again, maybe the thais around you are easier to impress than the ones around me. True you're likely to get smiles if you know some lyrics, or can scratch out a few words in thai, but IMHO I believe a person would garner far more accolades being able to speak clear understandable thai with both good pronunciation and correct language structure than either of the other two novelties .

Ill concede your point about not needing to know the tones to read/ write. Both of those require only memorization of hundreds and hundreds of words, as well as knowing how similar sounding yet completely different words are spelled differently.

However to understand spoken thai, other than the most basic 'frozen phrases', I think a good grasp of thai pronunciation/toning is most definitely at the top of the frickin' list . True, when reading, a lot of the words can be gleaned via context; but can you differentiate the thai words for; white, rice, knee, enter, news or he/she, or the words; tiger, shirt, or mat just by hearing them as stand alones? (Granted the previous words are some simple examples )

Given thai is a totally tonally dependant language and emotion cannot be imparted by changing the pronunciation of words like it can be in english; saying you don't need the tones to speak clear thai is one of the most ludicrous statements I've ever read concerning the learning of the thai language.

Until you know the tones youre out in left field as far as speaking clear thai is concerned.

I recommend มานี มานะ.

Its what all the little'uns use to learn Thai. It even puts spaces between the words.

Thanks I just did a thread for which this may be the perfect answer.

FWIW, if you don't have a thai national handy to help you with the pronunciation those Maanee/Maana books are about as worthless as tits on a bull.

It's the same as most thai language books for school. You NEED a native thai speaker to help you with the vocab, the toning and vowel length. Without one (a handy native thai speaker) those sort of books carry very little bang for the baht. I also think the entire Manee books are online somewhere with sound files too.

I looked for a thread about low/intermediate reading materials but didn't see it (this new look to the forums screws me up ). Anyway, I'll post it here;

For general not too difficult reading I mentioned before that I stumbled across the books by the guy whose known to all thais as "คุณ แอนดรูว์", or Andrew Biggs.

His books, obviously written in thai for thais to learn english, are really quite interesting and easy to read. They contain a LOT of common sense things that can be applied to foreigners who are learning the thai language as well.

The book I bought first was;

เฮง, เฮง,เฮง, ขายของไห้ฝรั่ง - กลยุทธ์ดูดเงินจากกระเป๋าฝรั่งโดยใช้อังกฤษเป็นอาวุธ

My poor translation is;

Triple Good Luck! Sell things to foreigners - "Tactics to suck money from the pocket of foreigners by using the english language as a weapon". (Actually, if the truth be told, I neither knew the word for tactics/strategy กลยุทธ์ nor the word for weapon อาวุธ until Id bought the book and looked 'em up in the dictionary. But hey; there're two more words to my vocabulary..)

Still it's an interesting easy read for anyone who has even a low intermediate grasp of thai, (and comes with a c/d to work on your english pronunciation too ).

Except for the book I just mentioned above, which is available almost everywhere, his books are frickin' tough to find and even Chula bookstore doesn't stock 'em. I finally went out to his school at Major Ekami and bought some more (plus you get 10% off buying 'em there)

The other three I bought today are;

วิธีพูดภาษาอังกฤษเหมือนฝรั่ง - Methods to speak english like a foreigner

ภาษาอังกฤษง่ายนิดเดียว เล่ม ๑ English; its a 'piece of cake', Book 1

ภาษาอังกฤษง่ายนิดเดียว เล่ม ๒ English; its a 'piece of cake', Book 2

(FWIW I didn't know the thai term ง่ายนิดเดียว was an idiom which carried the same meaning as its a piece of cake, or easy as pie until a thai told me.)

Anyway, for not too difficult of stuff to read, they're well worth the baht, and if you happen to have a thai significant other, they can help them in learning better english as well.

Funny, I always thought Pink Lao was Spy.

And here all this time I thought Pink-Lao wasn't Sa-py but ยาดอง สีแดง (Red Yaa-Dong) . That tasty red stuff they make with the herbal block called สิบเอ็ดเสือ (11 tigers), and white whiskey เหล้าขาว (lao-khao).

Truly serious purveyors of fine thai spirits know it's the one they sell for 10 baht a shot on nearly every soi in the city, (and for the hard core drinkers; available in an M-150 bottle for 30 baht, or a flat SangSom bottle for 60 ) The guy outside my house sells close to 12 LITRES of it a nite, mostly shot by shot!

Live and learn, thanx James for clearing that up. ..

Another pitfall when sa-pelling ANY thai word in engrish is the fact that a native engrish speakers' brain will immediately key into the words it recognizes in the engrish language FIRST no matter where they occur in a thai word sa-pelled in engrish.

While slightly off topic; here's a somewhat funny example.

I was at 7/11 once and a foreigner came in saying he couldn't get a taxi to take him somewhere. He asked the clerk where Central Pink-Lao was. Blank stares all around. Even I didn't know where he wanted to go, because of the really strong engrish pronunciation of Central, and the mispronunciation of Pinklao

He said it about 20 times, and got progressively louder as he did. I finally broke in and said, "These people aren't frickin' deaf, they just can't understand what you're trying to say. Are you sure you've got the word correct?"

He dug into his backpack and showed me the business card one side engrish one side was thai. It was immediately evident he wanted (เซ็นทรัลปิ่นเกล้า) Central Pin-Klao, NOT Pink-Lao. Even though to an ear tuned to engrish and not used to hearing thai, they're pretty close in sound, just not where the syllable breaks.

I said, Pin-klao and every person in the 7/11, workers, people who were eaves dropping, just busted up laughing, and started repeating it first the way he'd said it and then the correct way. The foreigner took it in good form, and once he knew where he was going got a taxi straight away.

Learning to read/pronounce even rudimentary thai is so critical to getting by here unless you live in a tourist area where you can usually compel people to interact with you in engrish. (And YES I routinely misspell the word ‘engrish’ on ‘porpoise’ )

Sorry this is long, you know my penchant for bloviating.. ..

Living almost directly behind what is purported (by the owner) to be the 'largest thai language school in the world', I have met quite honestly HUNDREDS of thai language students. To a person they enroll in the school thinking that simply by attending the 4 hour minimum requirement the MOE has as a qualification for an ED visa they will suddenly start speaking/reading thai.

Unfortunately, in the 3+ years I've known those students (and many of the former and current thai teachers too); I've never met a single person who came into the classes 'cold', knowing neither how to speak or read, and yet after attending a year of 4 hours a week could do either with anything resembling proficiency. Even the students who have attended several years are far from speaking coherent semi-structured thai in anything but the most basic situations. In fact, I can count on a single hand with some fingers (and my thumb) left over the number of students I've met who can carry on a conversation in thai without having to break back into engrish when they forget a word. Most of those people have native language interference to such a great degree that when speaking thai their structure is almost unintelligible.

IMHO, there is NO short cut to learning thai; no magic pill you can take, no magic method that fills you with the language within a specific time frame. It is an investment of a lotta time and a lotta effort too, nothing more. True, different people learn differently, and a particular methodology may work better for me, and not so well for you, but it still boils back down into the time you’re willing to put into learning.

Invariably I meet people who profess to being able to speak thai, some have been here 15-20 years, have thai wives, kids, etc. Yet when I hear them speak it's more along the lines of '2-word-tourist-thai', or 'horse-peak' (bar-thai). That manner of speaking is certainly NOTHING I'd ever want to speak at say, Immigrations, or when dealing with anyone who holds a position in even a semi-official capacity here. It makes me sad that someone could live here in this country, have a thai wife, thai kids, houses, cars, buffaloes, etc, yet never put the time into learning the language.

The excuses I've heard for people failing to pick up even rudimentary thai are nearly universal; I'm too old, I’m tone deaf, and can't hear the tones in the words, I'm not good at languages, blah-blah-blah. It's all b/s because they won't/don't put the time into learning. I am no language pundit, nor do I excel at anything in particular. I'm far from the sharpest knife in the proverbial drawer but I was able to do it. If I can, anyone can, plain and simple.

I've been here over 5 years, but I've only studied thai about 30 months now. I taught myself to read, first by learning the alphabet, but NOT in the traditional way. I didn't give two shits what a letter was called nor did I care what its corresponding word was. I learned by recognizing the characters which (to me) made similar sounds. Here's an example; (And I included the chart I used to learn as well)

Thai has

1 - 'g' sound - ก

5 -'k' sounds - ข,ฃ,ค,ฅ,ฆ

3 - 'ch' sounds - ฉ,ช,ฌ

4 - 's' sounds - ซ,ศ,ษ,ส

6 - 't' sounds - ฐ,ฑ,ฒ,ท,ธ,ถ

AND SO ON.

I learned to recognize the initial sound a character made and the corresponding ending sound. I also learned the vowels and more importantly vowel length (a BIG deal here). Sadly I spent zero time learning the tone rules, and freely admit I've no clue about 'em at all other than the most rudimentary ones. I taught myself to recognize written thai words by memory ONLY;

white – ขาว

news – ข่าว

rice – ข้าว

he/she – เขา

knee – เข่า

enter – เข้า

I also learned to weed out spurious definitions when reading by the context of a sentence. If I am not certain of the meaning of the word I look at the words around it or in the previous sentence. Many times I can get a words meaning simply by ruling out similar sounding words whose meanings don’t make any sense in the sentence.

Face it, if you read a word and don't know the meaning, you just don't know the meaning, plain and simple. Being able to pronounce it perfectly does NOT help you remember the meaning, it only gives you the ability to pronounce it and maybe ask someone what it means.

This is one of the reasons I'm reticent to speak thai daily as my pronunciation is, well, it's outta whack. I mean it's totally understandable, but I hafta do what I call the normal "song and dance" (ice-breaker), "Hello, how are you?”, “I’m fine thanx.” “Can you speak english", "Oh I can speak thai a little as well, maybe we can chat.” “What do you think about that?". Now if I do that; to a person every thai I speak with understands me just fine. Just as the thais I interact with on a daily basis understand my foreign accent when speaking thai to them.

However if I walk up to someone I don't know / doesn't know me, and ask a question without doing the seemingly prerequisite "song & dance"; nearly to a person thais will not put the effort into understanding me. (FWIW, my thai teacher friends said they’d never met someone who knew more thai, could read and understand thai as well as I do, and yet spoke such off toned thai. Actually when they said that it made me very sad Although they said if I put in a month or so of only speaking thai I'd be able to dial it in to something less mangled )

When I first started learning I made up my own sheets of common verbs, opposite words, directions, common foods, etc and drilled with them every day. I also made flash cards of every vocab word from my language school, by chapter, and drilled them until I could recognize each word when I saw it. The same with Benjawan Becker’s “Speak Like a Thai” series.

I went to a language school for a year and it increased my reading ability but not my speaking. I've bought, begged, borrowed, and stolen more thai lesson books from the various and sundry language schools out there than I care to count. It has taken HUNDREDS and HUNDREDS of hours to even get to the level I have, and I've a long way to go to be anything resembling proficient in this language.

To me learning thai is about one thing(actually two things really), but the first one; word memorization is the ball breaker. The second is thai language structure, which is outta kilter from english structure in MANY areas (I know it's still a S-V-O structured language, but you know what I mean). I also think english language interference when speaking thai can send you "off the script" faster than poorly pronounced or enunciated thai.

Remember what works or worked for me, may not for you, your mileage may and likely will vary, there is no expressed or implied warranty, some restrictions apply, call now operators are standing by.

And NEVER EVER forget the thai saying; "Something is better than nothing", colloquially spoken as กำขี้ดีกว่ากำตด or coarsely translated as; "A handful of shit is better than a handful of fart". Knowing ANY thai is better than knowing none.

Good luck, in your language endeavors,

Thai_Consonant_Sounds_Initial_Ending.doc

To the O/P:

Do let us know how this turns out when the time comes to try to convert it to an extension of stay based on retirement.

FWIW: I was unable to convert my Non-O-Type ED visa into an extension of stay based on retirement inside the country. I was told by the official at Suan Plu that it's the ONLY type of visa which can't be converted to an extension of stay based either on marriage or retirement.

I ended up going to Lao PDR, getting a 90 day single entry Non-O based on retirement, and then extending it for a year at Suan Plu before it expired.

I also had a person I shepherded out to Changwattana denied converting the ED visa he was on into an extension of stay based on retirement, nor was he able to get even a 90 single entry Non-O and then he could have applied for the extension of stay once he had the correct type of visa. I was told again (by a different official) that ED visas can't be converted to another type.

This could be spurious information, but that was twice I wasn't able to do it; once for myself and once for another person. Any real info to the contrary would be appreciated.

Again, your mileage may vary, and you might actually be able to do it, but I wasn't. BTW: I'm relating just my personal experience, not wanting to start a pissing match about it.

FWIW; I don't acknowledge other foreigners here and foreigners rarely acknowledge me either . I may give 'em a brief once-over glance, but that's about it scope of it.

The simple fact that we are foreigners just isn't enough of a 'common bond' to compel me in the slightest to acknowledge anyone based only on the dissimilarity in race we share compared to the indigenous natives here in the glorious "Land 'O Thais".

I do routinely acknowledge and speak with other foreign students from when I attended thai language classes. I also hang out with the working class thais on my soi in the evenings after they're off work and relaxing. However, as a rule, I give most foreigners here a pass. They're just not worth my time. If the truth be told; I probably wouldn't piss on one if he was on fire (unless I had to piss ).

Now some of this can be possibly be attributed to the area where I live (right between Nana Plaza and Soi Cowboy on Sukhumvit) and the demographic of foreigners who seem to populate this area. It has been my experience that the majority of the foreigners I've met seem to be from the shallow end of the proverbial gene-pool. Neither do they appear to be the sharpest tool in the shed .

Most of them I pass during my daily sojourns out and about are of the old, fat, beer-bellied, cheap sandal, singlet/cargo short wearing persuasion. They are the ones who always seem to have the obligatory, "young enough to be their grand-daughter", gold encrusted, tattooed, 'thai-in-tow' as they waddle down the street. That just gives me even less incentive to acknowledge and/or speak to them.

I imagine if a foreigner is so insecure in his life in this country that he seeks affirmation or acknowledgement from another foreigner, he's got more issues than can ever be addressed on this forum. I suggest seeking professional help QUICKLY!

Okay man.. ..

You totally got me on that thai-rap shit. ..

I am WAYYYY too old for that style of music.. .

There is NO way, unless I freeze every screen, and every frickin' phrase, I could ever understand it; AT ALL (and even then maybe NOT)!!

I will now bow down to your superior knowledge of thai.

Believe me (man!) I suck at thai. ..

But thanx 4 the video..

It only shows how far we (as foreigners) must go (come) to actually learn thai. . ..

But you didn't correct my 'rap' from ขัน (Khan) in the โลโซ song, so now you have a -5 for that!!

Some day I wish I can meet you, and talk to you too, but NOT today. . .. (as I am drunk on SangSom!!)

You take care,. na?

Here's one for you "learn the thai language thru song" punditz out there.

เสก โลโซ (Sek Loso) has an new album out called "Sek Plus" (NOTE it is NOT Sek MINUS ). This is evidently a collaberation album with other allegedly famous thai bandz.

On this album there is a song called จ๋า, which has ขัน (Khan) from ไทเทเนียม (Thai-tanium). ..

Other than the incessantly repetitive rhythm, and the ultra-cheesy chorus, it's not that bad of a song. (After all, I like the band KISS for exactly the same reasons ).

Anyway, if anyone can understand the frickin' 'rap break' that Khan does in this song lemme know. I've listened to this song ALL god-damned day! Yet even when the video is full screen, I can't read the lyrics clearly. Guess I am too old!!

The 'rap' starts about 2:26 in the song.

This is what I have so far;

One, two, three, น่ะ โดน โดนเด็ม เด็ม Mama-miya

Oh my God ใช่เลย Senyorita

เธอคือที่มา ทำให้ใจผมน่ะ Dance Fever

Baby wanna Beat ya <--(I guess it can't be 'real' gansta-rap without a reference to beating women! )

ขอหอมหน่อย ขอกอดหน่อย

ไม่ทารุณโหดร้าย และไม่ขอบ่อย

พี่นะทะลึ่ง และก็ตึงตัง

ของเขาแรงพังกำแพงเตียงมันจึงพัง

Any (and I stress the word ANY) help is appreciated!!

I stuck it here in this thread, because I didn't want to make a new topic for such a mundane thing as this.

Feel free to correct it, thanx in advance. .. ..

As an aside; I thought those faggy key-tars went out just after they were introduced, which was the early ‘80’s. Ummm, evidently NOT. ..

FWIW; Those are some HOT thai gurls in the vid, especially the one wearing pearls and the baseball cap!

Let's not forget the นกเขาไม่ขัน or the "dove doesn't coo anymore in the morning", for a guy who just doesn't have enough lead in his pencil.

I may have posted this already as this is a VERY old thread. If I did; sorry 'bout that gang.

Here's two word documents I made of impolite and sexual slang which I copied from the back of one of Benjawan Becker’s “Speak Like a Thai” books. The c/d didn't have sound files for the words, they were just at the back of the booklet.

Feel free to drop me a P/M if there are misspellings and/or corrections, I typed them LONG ago.

Common_Slang_Words.doc

Sex_Words.doc

Actually when exiting a place there are usually signs in thai which say ทางออกชิดขวา or "Exit stay to the right side", and on most foot-bridge crossovers the phrase เดินชิดขวา or "Walk to the right side" is painted on the rise of at least several steps.

However I've never ever in over 5 years here seen a single thai follow the directions on one of those signs..

This leads me to only one conclusion; that thais can't read thai.

I too am flumoxed at the thais penchant for stopping before getting on an escalator and seeming to count the passing steps or wait to get it right before walking on and simply adjusting your footing before the steps seperate.

It's the strangest thing I've seen other than when they gather sheep-like at the foot of an escalator at 6PM when the national anthem plays.

They're a strange race of people these thais. But hey, this being thai-land I have come to accept that's why there's so many of them here. ..

do u just sit by the computer all day or what.

Yes....I get paid to sit by the computer all day...

I wish I got paid to sit by the computer every day like "Soutpeel". ...

I might like it here more if I did.

Me thinks with engrish transcription/transliteration like this;

"Agart mai dee pro wah lon mak khab. Mee lum khab" the O/P should possibly and learn to differentiate an 'L' (ล) from an 'R' (ร) is spoken thai. This is NOT to denigrate him but point out how important learning to read thai is to overall pronunciation. I can have a thai tell me a word 15 times, but until I see it spelled out in thai, I often mis-hear and mis-remember it too.

FWIW: I am NO fan of rolling my R's when speaking thai (as it always ends up sounding like a pretentious wanna-b hi-so thai ). Often depending on my audience and for the sake of clarity I let the R sound a little 'L-ish' , but if I hafta talk to someone I don't know at all, or talk about anything to anyone in an official capacity, I do my best to enunciate as clearly as I can.

Thais are one frickin' racist group of people when it comes to pronunciation and/or regional accents. I can't even begin to count the times I've sat with a group of thais, and when someone left the table their accent and or pronunciation was ridiculed, even though during the conversation nothing was said.

I think the O/P has realized that spelling any word in thai in with the english alphabet or even beginning to argue about how to spell it is a GIANT time waster right outta the proverbial gate.

I also concur, the O/P should teach himself to read thai as fast as he possibly can.

Last time I checked (which I do quite often ), the thais; even during this violent protest didn't specifically target foreigners.

While situational awareness seems to be in short supply here (given the thai penchant for wandering willy-nilly along the sidewalk as if they were the only ones using it ), a general awareness of what's going on around you can and does go a long way in keeping you (a foreigner) safe and out of harms way.

Honestly, I didn't give it a second thought and I live less than 2 kilometers from both Rachaprasong & Lumpini.

Don't read more into this than there was; stay out of areas which have protestors, keep your wits about you and you'll be fine here. It's certainly NOTHING like living in Afghanistan, or Gaza as far as overall danger . ..

I must however concur with 'neverdie'; &lt;deleted&gt; is this doing in the thai LANGUAGE forum?

I would guess it is indeed Thai/Lao or Issan-Thai dialect. ..

Benjawan Becker has a series called "Speak Like A Thai" (พูดแบบไทยๆ). At last count I think she's got 7 in the series. (Most are quite good, especially the slang & idiom one )

The 5th one in the series is called "Northeastern Dialect".

The first page of the book has the following sentences and examples (the spelling is copied outta the book too);

"How are you?"

ภาษากลาง (Central Thai); สบายดีมัย

ภาษาอีสาน (Issan Thai); สำบายดีบ่อ

“How is it going?”

ภาษากลาง (Central Thai); เป็นยังไง

ภาษาอีสาน (Issan Thai); เป็นจังใด

"Where are you going?"

ภาษากลาง (Central Thai); คุณ(จะ)ไปไหน

ภาษาอีสาน (Issan Thai); (เจ้า)สิไปไส

"Where have you been?"

ภาษากลาง (Central Thai); ไปไหนมา

ภาษาอีสาน (Issan Thai); ไปไสมา

"Have you eaten?"

ภาษากลาง (Central Thai); กินเข้ารึยัง

ภาษาอีสาน (Issan Thai); กินเข้าล่ะบ่อ

Given the often irritating thai penchant for dropping unnecessary words in conversational colloquial speech ( ); it is no great stretch of the imagination to see that ไปไส is indeed Issan-Thai for ไปไหน, factor in the sheer number of Issan thais who make their living in Bangkok and I'd wager it's almost a sure thing.

While I certainly struggle enough with Bankokian thai, I found this c/d-book (and really most in the series) to be really quite the interesting read and well worth their cost.

One caveat if you get the Northeastern Dialect book. Listen to the c/d FIRST before tryin to belt out the Issan-Thai (even if you can read thai)!! The tones for Issan-Thai sound screwy (at least to me) compared to Bangkok thai. Speaking any of the Issan-Thai words with a central thai accent will get you laughed right off your proverbial plastic chair!

Good Luck

The things I love about the glorious "Land 'O Thais" and its resident population of ever smiling, yet diminutive, indigenous natives, hmmmm.

Lemme try a sensible answer as the O/P said to keep this light

Let's see. ..

The things I love about thailand would be LESS AND LESS EVERY FRICKIN' DAY I'VE BEEN HERE. ..

Another set of books I completely forgot about but which I have found to have good value is the extensive series which the illustrious Andrew Biggs has published. They're written in thai for thais to increase their english language acquisition.

Here’s his website;

http://www.andrewbiggs.com/

(If you go to Major Ekami where his school is, you can get the books cheaper than anywhere else).

Also he hawks his books & c/d's thru thai ticket major here;

http://shopping.thaiticketmajor.com/index....ers_id=15000005

I'd recommend Benjawan Poomsan Becker's books. Work you way thru all three (get the ones with the C/D's too, as they're worthless without ‘em). As you go thru them, you can get some of her "Speak like a thai" series as there's some stuff of value in there too.

If you can get all the way thru the three levels (Basic, Intermediate, Advanced) you should be able to read, write and certainly converse (depending on your interaction with thais as you learn) at least at a very understandable level of thai.

Granted, you might not be talking about savin’ the frickin’ pangolins, global warming or solving world peace but you will be talking to them. Also, depending on your native accent you may still sound like a foreigner speaking thai, BUT hey, at least it'll be semi-cohesive fairly well structured thai rather than '2-word-tourist-thai' or 'horse-peak' .

Once you get thru her stuff maybe get either; "Thai Reference Grammar (the structure of spoke thai)" by Higbie & Thinsan, or "Thai (an essential grammar)" by David Smyth. They are NOT books to teach you thai, but to teach you how the thai language is structured. I've found them to carry the most value of almost all the books I've got ONCE you understand enough spoken thai to make heads or tails out of ‘em.

Although this is slightly off topic I think it still has marginal merit ;

I'm trading english for thai to some thais who live on my Soi but who can't read english beyond the most basic level. They can speak & understand english well enough, have a good working vocabulary, they just can't really read nor write it.

I found there are TONZ of thai books designed to teach english conversation to thais. Most have the thai word สนทนา (converse) in their title and Se-Ed Books has shelves of them.

It's the exact same basis for the phonetic engrish we see used in almost all the books to teach thai to foreigners, just in reverse.

There will be an english sentence written out in english, under it is the same sentence written out phonetically in thai script and below that is the thai translation of the sentence. It's pretty frickin' close to sounding like english when it's read out loud by a thai.

Here's an example I pulled from the book I'm using on them;

Do you remember me from the party last nite?

ดู ยู ริเมมเบอะ มี ฟรอม เธอะ พาร์ทิ ลาสทฺ ไนทฺ

คุรจำฉันที่อยู่ในงานเลี้ยงเมื่อคืนได้ไหม

(FWIW; I'm NOT sure what the subscript dot under some of the ending letters denotes, as I've rarely if ever seen it used except in the RID when the word comes from pali or sanskrit)

To answer 'halfsquat' and the question about learning where one thai word stops and another starts; Sadly there's no short cut to this and it comes down to 100% word memoriziation. Until you can see a thai word and recognize it, you're gonna be at the bottom of a very long learning curve.

No one who learns to read, ever reads ANY language letter by letter except at the very very early stages. They read by recognizing 'groups' of letters equate to a word and the corresponding meaning in your native language. It is a hard slog to memorize enough vocabulary so you can the individual words in a thai sentence 'jumps' out at first glance.

Good luck, DON'T give up, if I can teach myself to read, type and to a lesser extent speak thai, anyone can, as I'm far from the sharpest knife in the drawer

I concur with farangnahrak; thai compound words which carry a completely different meaning than the individual meaning of the component words are indeed tough 'rows to hoe' in garnering the real meaning. His example รับผิดชอบ (receive-incorrect-likes) is priceless and one that stumped me for AGES.

I thought this post is pretty indicative of how much thai is 'internet-i-fied' or 'bastardized' when younger thais speak to each other via blogs or some chat program and even in SMS’s.

The other day when my home internet was on the fritz, I went to an internet shop populated by predominantly 20 something y/o thai-gurls (not to be confused with a 20 something y/o 'tigers' ). The gurl next to me was typin’ away like a mad-man (or mad-woman), and because she had long nails the clacking was incessant!!

Even though she had her font set at about a '36' (evidently she wasn't wearing her contacts or glasses ) I still couldn't make headz or tailz out of what she was writing as it was written in exactly the same style as the O/P's post. And although I tried several times I could only pick out a word or two at the most.

FWIW: I found this book in the bargain bin at B2S in Robinsons for 50 baht;

ทำไมผู้ชายชอบเที่ยว

ISBN: 974-94498-0-0

159 baht, 205 pages.

It was an interesting read from a college girls pov about what motivates some girls to turn to 'freelancing' or the P4P game. Actually it's well written, and certainly doesn't use big words, (although the explicit sex scenes take some getting used to with the high use of idiomatic expression ).

With that being said, I was reticent to carry it around given the cover pic and the title so wrapped it in a book-cover (to continue to further my pure image here ).

The site (which I have NO affiliation with) http://thailandbookcenter.com/ has books of a wide variety of subjects, and different levels of difficulty.

When I moved here from the US back in early 2005 I weighed close to 270 US pounds or 122+ KILOS.

Now I weigh between 83-85 KILOS (depending on if I've shat before I weigh myself ), or 182.6-187 US pounds.

So moving here I lost nearly 37 KILOS of dead weight (read FAT) . Once the weight came off; I was able to stop my high blood pressure meds, my acid reflux med, my chronic allergy meds, and a plethora of other stuff I was on for YEARS in the US.

I eat thai food; veggies and fruit every single day, and rarely ever will indulge in a pizza or US type food. FWIW: I drink a small bottle of ‘SangSom’ (which btw; is thai RUM not whiskey like some thais think ) several times a week, but don’t drink beer, or anything else.

I doubt I could maintain the level of weight loss I have experienced here if I were to move back to the US, as the cost of cooking good food in your own home is outweighed by the prevalence of cheap to-go stuff.

Also being somewhat disabled due to a severe spinal injury I rarely exercise, haven't run or ridden a bike in 10+ years and walk with a cane, but still, the weight is off now, and I'm a much happier camper than the pig I was when I arrived.

I’m sure a few months in the US and if I returned here I’d look like those fat beer bellied foreigners wearing a Singha singlet & cargo shorts; waddling down the Sukhumvit with a thai ‘girl friend’ who looks like their granddaughter.

I am sorry to say I agree with the woman from Chiang Mai, the Abhisit government is not legitimate, it rorted the normal electoral process.

It is also cynical, shameless and unprincipled. I believe Abhisit's objective is simply to hold on to power and he doesn't much mind at what cost.

OMG: Another newbie member as of yesterday with a whopping 4 posts has morphed into a thai know it all political pundit!!!

What rock are these people crawling out from under? Yet another red apologist is spawned, or should that be 'spurned', (one more for the ignore bin).

As far as the article goes;

It was my experience during my interactions with the red-rabble people down at Rachaprasong and at the Rama VI monument during the protests; that their level of even the most basic and/or rudimentary understanding of the thai political process, or the events which brought about the TRT/PPP/PTP losing the majority in the Lower House wouldn't begin to fill a frickin' thimble.

Any real questions were answered with the pat answer; “you don’t understand thai culture”. When I pointed out this was thai politics, NOT culture, they became immediately hostile. And FWIW: I talked to them in perfectly understandable thai, NOT baby talk engrish, ‘2-word-tourst thai’ or ‘horse-peak’.

They listened to the speakers on the stage at Rachaprasong for 8 weeks, and they bought it all hook line and stinker. .. And stink it did, of hate filled, violence inciting, anti-government propaganda.

Can anyone here say, "mindless brain-washed red sock-puppet" in thai??

Why do you guys assume that the ID cards were thrown away by red shirts?

WHO ELSE WAS IN THE RED RABBLE AREA BEFORE THE SOLDIERS AND POLICE KICKED 'EM OUT?

But that's just an assumption, isn't it?

And NO it's not 'just an assumption' about the enrollment process to garner money as a 'paid red rabble protestor'. Thai I/D cards were turned in and in the protestor got a piece of paper which looked like a small time card. Twice a day the protestor had to show up and get the card initialed; depending on if they were there protesting for a half day or a full day, if I'm not mistaken it was in 12 hour increments.

A friend of mine was นปช. (UDD red guard) security and said they had a special area near the stage at Rachaprasong where people went to get their time slips initialed. Now whether these people were paid every day, or the time sheets were to be turned in after the 'peaceful rally' ended for reimbursement, I don't know, but I DO know that it worked sorta like I outlined. Bummer for the red rabble if it wasn't a pay each day dealy as I'd wager they're out their back wages for protesting. I'll see if I can't track down one of the papers as there are more than a few redz living on my soi who 'moonlighted' as part time protestors down there.

FWIW: any thai no matter the color of their proverbial "shirt" usually has at least 2 or 3 valid thai i/d cards floating around their house. Most of my thai friends have a couple, and some taxi drivers I know have 4 or 5, just in case the police stop them. They can turn in one of their i/d cards and still have a valid one. The Lumpini Police Station has a GIANT metal cabinet FILLED to nearly overflowing with thai i/d's that the police confiscated, yet no one turned up to claim. New thai i/d's are easy to get; simply go and report yours as lost, receive a piece of paper saying so, and then go get another one for I think 100 baht.

As an aside (and slightly off topic) : what the government should have done BEFORE putting the 'poor peaceful civilian protestors' on totally free busses to be ferried back up to Nakhon Nowhere; was to give 'em each a broom 'n dustpan and sent 'em out to clean up the frickin' mess they made the last 8 weeks, instead of relying on the BMA or the 5000+ volunteer who came in after the fact and cleaned up the red rabble protest areas.

At the very worst I think the UDD or the PTP should be presented with the clean up bill. After all, that's who supported this 'peaceful rally for democracy' which turned more into an all out riot for anarchy than anything resembling the democratic process.

The entire crack down was carried out with as little loss of life as could be expected given the heavy resistance the red radical faction put up once it started.

More and more munitions are being found in what were red rabble held areas. Most if not all the looting/violence videos are disenfranchised reds angered at their illustrious leaders surrender, venting their anger.

I think the country has a long way to go, but at least the P/M got thailand thru this so far, so let's see what he's gonna do to address the issues he freely admitted were valid during negotiations with the red-rabble leaders.

I listened to sock puppet red radio from the stage at Rachaprasong for nearly 5 solid days before this crackdown and NOT ONE SINGLE TIME did I hear anything that resembled talk of reconciliation, a call for peace, or a call for unity. All I heard was hate filled, violence inciting, divisive brain-washing to the red-rabble protestors.

They listened to it for nearly 8 solid weeks; of course they're a little brain washed in their way of thinking. Is it any wonder some of the more radical element wouldn't buy the surrender when it came and preferred instead to burn, loot and destroy anything they could get their grubby little mitts on?

The blame for this entire debacle deserves to be laid at the feet of the core red-rabble leaders (Jatuporn, Arisman, Suporn, Nattawut, Kwanchai, Wing-Nut Weng, et al), they could have stopped this WEEKS ago as Abhisit had already acquiesced to every 'demand' they'd made. Instead they made more and more unreasonable demands, so much so that Veera Musikapong finally just disappeared from the rally. The hard line leaders forced the governments hand in this; I hope they get what they deserve.

As an aside; I think the BMA is doing an incredible job in getting this city back on track and running again, they are the heroes now.

Just as the young soldiers who were tasked with a difficult job during the crackdown were the heroes during that time.

Is it me or is the T/V Forum now flooded with newbie members who've got a handful of posts yet have morphed somehow into thai political pundits? To a person they seem to be mindless foreign sock-puppet red-apologists, refusing to let something like FACTS get in the way of their red tinted posting penchants. Truly sad and pathetic. .. Take of your red goggles and try Google before you post mindlessness. (My ignore bin is filling up )