kwilco

I have found as my language gets more fluent, I worry less and less about tone. Partly because I'm getting better at pronunciation but more do with that listeners can make out my meaning by context. If you speak in sentences rather than just individual words the meaning becomes clearer. One thing I've noticed is that people tell me quite often that I say "Sawatdee Khrap" like a Thai person. I have a friend who spent a lot of time and money on reading and writing lessons....however his spoken Thai is absolutely awful. His pronunciation is so bad he just embarrasses Thai people he is speaking to as they can't understand a word he says, but don't know what to say. He just puts it down to THEM being stupid!

I don't think you quite undstand. "Central Thai is the "official" language of Thailand. If you learn that, you will be understood wherever you go in Thailand. In Issan they speak a dialect that has a lot in common with Laos language.... there are a few notable pronunciation differences but you should have little difficulty understanding "Central Thai" ...the Thai equivalent of "Received pronunciation" in English. I have on occasion had to explain my language to Central Thai people. You'd be surprised at how many don't know "Sao baht" is 20 baht in Laos.

Who would regret learning a new language?? I found Thai much more difficult than I thought. I am still virtually illiterate, I can read road signs numberplates headlines and a few public notices etc.... but after working mainly with Thais for the last 15 years or so, I found my conversational Thai gradually improved until after 10 years, I realised it had become my first language for day to day communication. I was in training and education, so was painfully aware of the shortcomings of asking the Thai person next to me for a quick linguistic explanation. You need a qualified person to give you that. Aldo I have found that expats who rely on their Issan brides for any explanation of Thai language or culture are full of some of the most bizarre ideas. It has been shown that most people grossly overrate their abilities with a foreign language. They aren't able to assess this objectively. I know a lot of people who, when asked if they speak Thai reply, "not really but I know what they are saying" what a load of rubbish that is...who are they trying to kid? I also know some people who have undergone formal university courses in Thai and still have difficulty ordering in a restaurant. Some of this is down to self-confidence. They will claim a high language ability yet still can't communicate. Another thing I found useful was that I worked in Laos for some time and picked up a lot of useful Laos dialect. At almost any market in Thailand I found using a smattering of Laos hoped to break the ice and hoped me get better prices. (BTW ... can you count to 10 on one hand???) It also helped learning a few Sourhern Thai words and phrases. After 27 years, I began recognising regional accents and found it really helped both in work and social life......it also helps in dealing with police.......I haven't had a road traffic fine for years. Apart from learning Thai and Laos, I've picked up the odd word in Chinese, Japanese as well which has proved quite useful....no Khmer, Korean or Burmese though

So it seems the government has àraft of measures. Reducing duties on ALL EVs and subsidies for buyers to start with. They ibtend to give I centres for all manufacturers to builders in Thailnd both for home market and abroad within 3 years. PS - It should be noted that batteries that used to cost 200k are now priced at 70k to 80k

That's Laos.

There are dual standards here. Often, the very people who don't learn Thai are the ones who insist that immigrants to their own home country learn their home language.

I was told that there is no public access to the National Park on kph Chang itself....except for the waterfalls where you pay the NP fee. This would explain why people aren't charged to enter the island unlike Koh Samed. This is of concern as there is continual encroachment into the park by hikers. Google as I might, I still can't find a map of the land area covered by the national park.

Looks like PBS have taken down the article.

Icant see they can close the whole island but you can't have a resort ina national park. So what does the quote from the papers mean?. I can't contact anyone on the island....can anyone else?

I must say it isn't clear what is and what isn't National Park on Samui.

Some people are claiming the island not to be closed at all...just the National Park parts...... so why would the tourist facilities be told.....I think some of the hoteliers might get their <deleted> together and make an announcement

The OP states there are 4 kinds of electric cars....there's no stopping them now. Not sure 4 kinds is satisfactory.... but industry certainly seems to have put its weight behind the whole thing. So who thinks they should, will or can be stopped?

I get the feeling you don't know what "subsidy" means.

That would explain a lot!

Totally agree, people are completely unaware of the decades of subsidies the motor industry and private vehicles have had. Like the tobacco industry, there are vested interests who are spending fotunes promulgating pseudoscience denying MmCc and promoting fossil fuels. And it's not hard to spit those gullible enough to swallow their nonsense.

What on earth are you on about? A mix of the obvious and pure nonsense with a touch of generalisation for good measure. You have to laugh at people who think it is relevant to roll out cliches like "green people" where have they been for the last 30 years? Marooned on an oil rig by the sound of it.

Elsewhere the industry seems to allow Chinese in at 0%, Japan up to certain numbers at 20%, they then jump to 80%. Korea is 40% abd EU 80%. As you say their are FTAs involved here, and an EU one may come in to play later. There are also some government subsidies available for buyers. I think the big issue will be Thailands in motor industry. This is about 10th in the world and has been mega-protected fir decades. I imagine they will want to be producing whole vehicles shortly. They already have fledgling components. To this end they will probably encourage existing manufacturers to swith over. This would help Japan by-pass any duties. I would also think that the EU will continue TKDs but with EVs instead. As the home market for ICES will end by mid century, one would expect the alternatives to be up and running by then. Toyota are the big unknown as they are not so keen on EVs and backing hydrogen power. This is produced from coal in Japan, but one wonders about the rest of the world

Whereas the import duties taxes and fees on an ICE into Thailand amount to 300%. As far as I can make out, the amount on an electric import comes to 80%.

He actually doesn't seem to be able to articulate what, if anything, he believes. He has not drawn a si gle co clusion. All he dies is imply he "doesn't like" EVs. After that he just gsinsays. He doesn't even understand his in references. I don't think he reads further than the titles.

You really don't follow the argument.

You really don't follow the argument. A huge amount of pollution in cities comes from vehicle emissions....if you remove that away from the cities it reduces the pollution in the cities. How you deal with central power generation is a different matter that you clearly haven't considered either You quote statistics as if they are static, but as shown in your previous posts you really don't get what is happening. You raise points that people have thought about and worked out solutions for years ago and then don't seem to understand the "bleedin' obvious" to use a John Cleese quote. You still given us no idea what you are suggesting is going to happen. All you are doing is naively gainsaying.... to what purpose you don't seem to know. Why don't you take time off and cone up with a concise argument against EVs. At the moment you are behaving like a toddler who doesn't what her oatmeal.

EVs will make a major contribution to the reduction of urban air pollution in cities like BKk.

So now you are reduced to sealioning? Sp tell us, what do you think will gapped? The collapse of private transport?

Except you won't need to "dp it yourself' as they are far more reliable that ICES.

2 things seem to arise out of your posts. Firstly you simply don't like EVs and secondly you don't know anything about them