meadish_sweetball

Remember that when อ acts as a consonant, the sound it represents is a glottal stop (a complete closing and opening of your glottis). In some transcription systems, this glottal stop is represented by a question mark without a full stop below. In my early years, I made the mistake of not pronouncing this glottal stop in combinations like 'saam-sip-et' (thirty-one) in Thai. If you do not have a glottal stop between 'saamsip' and 'et' many Thais will assume you are trying to say 'saam-sip paed' (38) because the glottal stop before 'et' is obligatory.

The most useful move that the education system could make would be to Romanise the Thai alphabet, this is the biggest obstacle to learning English, and conversely for foreigners learning Thai. Just look at how Turkey emerged from the Middle Ages when it converted from Arabic to Roman.

As to unqualified but native speakers, these can do an adequate job if the department also contains enough qualified and experienced teachers to provide guidance. At the moment it is often the one eyed leading the blind.

I'm not a fan of the romanization at all. Even though it occurred for several south-east asian languages (Vietnamese and Malay come to mind), I believe it permanently alters and distort the language. It also smells vaguely colonial...

At least, Thais are fortunate enough to have an alphabet, unlike Chinese.

I find "it's vaguely colonial" a rather weak argument, then again, to be fair, so is the notion that the language reform in Turkey was the particular catalyst that brought about rapid modernization - in fact the language reform was only one small part of a much broader policy attempting to modernize the country - correlation does not equal causation.

Could you be more specific about how Vietnamese and Malay have been permanently distorted and altered since adopting Roman letters, please? Language change is an ever-occurring phenomenon and the chief reason (apart from group identification) why there are different languages in the first place. The nature of change reflects the environment the language and people navigate in - hence Thai has a huge number of English loan words (many of which do not sound the same as in English, nor mean the same thing) that occur spontaneously, a large scientific vocabulary that is mostly Indic-based, mostly introduced by decree, and a language seen as more sophisticated which mostly consists of Khmer loan words.

The Thai alphabet is very beautiful and serves its purpose reasonably well, but there are a number of niggles. It uses a system that is unnecessarily involved for conveying one and the same tone. Having several letters to represent the same sound is also a hurdle to spelling (let's not get into the inconsistencies of spelling in European languages, especially English, here - I am aware of them, but there are many European languages that are not burdened with those problems - Italian, Spanish, Finnish, etc.).

Malay was written with Arabic letters before, and that writing system was not specifically designed for conveying Malay either... And if you want to go far enough back, the Thai writing system builds upon the Indic scripts, which were originally designed for non-tonal languages very different from the local language here. These things do change over time, it is natural and it makes life easier for people. Nostalgia and nationalism are also fairly natural, I suppose, but they tend to lose.

Thai texts require slightly more effort to read than a text written with Roman letters because of punctuation rules. Of course, for an educated native speaker, most words will be known beforehand, but for less educated Thais and for those learning it as a second language, a simple reform like introducing spaces between words would help a lot. I've learned to read Thai quite well, but this is a hurdle for advanced texts that really does not need to be there. Also, the tone formation rules needlessly complex, and could be made easier by reform.

Pinyin for writing Mandarin really is a great system and Thailand would not suffer at all from introducing a similar standard and actually implementing and following it.

I noticed that Richard W has worked on an annotated retyping of the Peace Corps dictionary, available on his website. I asked his permission to post the link here for reference. Since it is a work in progress, I believe corrections are welcome. Looks like a great resource! http://homepage.ntlworld.com/richard.wordingham/lanna/peace_corps_dictionary.pdf

If you know rudimentary driving you will not fail the driving test. That means, if you have managed to obtain a driving license in a reasonably developed country and have some driving experience you are fine. It will take just under one day to get it done.

This is not a new scam. It's only greed that will make anyone fall for it. They just change the way they approach the victim from time to time and from country to country.

This same setup is known as the 'Bangkok card game' and is still being used to con money out of tourists.

And to those still looking for a partner. Before you get involved for real, check first if she likes to gamble.

<br />I've asked two thai friends this now and they're not even sure...<br /><br />"chinese takeaway"<br /><br />it's almost like there isn't a word for it (not just the chinese part)<br />

"Chinese takeaway" is a concept that has spread from the US, so it is not strange that there is no specific word for it in Thai. Restaurants here generally offer both eat-in and take-out.

อาหารโหม - not something people tend to use in everyday conversations about food, at least not as far as I have been able to eavesdrop.

Some clarifications: หมู่ 31 does NOT mean soi 31. In the address หมู่ is the same word as 'moo' in 'moo baan' (village). In other words it usually designates an actual village or a gated community/housing estate. เวียงจันทร์ is correct as Wiang Chan according to RTGS which is the most commonly used standard used for transliteration of place names. The spelling 'Vientiane' is used about the Lao capital for historical reasons (the French spelling system being the main reason it is written like that). I think thaipo's suggestion and Chaam local's suggestion can be combined, to create something like this: Ban Don Wiang Chan Moo 31 House Number 55 T. Khanthararat A. Kantharawichai Maha Sarakham 44150

Not your usual type of retirement hobby.

<br />Enough burger joints already. What this town needs is a decent shwarma shop. The type where the garlic sauce runs all over your arms eating it.<br />

Woody's chicken kebab is not all that bad. Tried it?

Ah yes, burgers. My personal list: 1. UN Irish Pub 2. Miguel's Nong Hoi 3. Woody's 4. The Duke's 5. Gecko Garden 6. Burger King 7. Chiang Mai Saloon 8. Mike's 9. Mc Donald's

Influenced by the way farang movies are dubbed into Thai, perhaps?

Hi Chiang Dao people: since your water (if I've understood things correctly) goes through Mae Ngat and then ends up down here, what is your situation now? Raining, flash floods, river level? Are you flooded?

If any of you have the time to post updates now and then I think there are many of us who would appreciate it.

i'm sick of reading this, i'm a 1960 generation, now we have 2011.get over it.

Maybe you should read something that does not make you sick, instead?

To answer your actual question, no that certainly does not happen in BKK or Pattaya. Sure you buy the drink in lieu of her company and time of which she gets a cut from the bar, but have never heard of the bar charging an extra 40 baht for each drink. And 120 baht is about right in most places like that.

'in lieu' means 'instead of', I think you meant to say something like 'in exchange for'.

<br />As predicted. What do you think this will do for tourism? Could the administration at Sacred if Heart be any more pathetic? After failing to counsel the students against participating in this revolting display, they are now providing their student body with instruction regarding how to avoid responsibility for the administration's moronic decisions.<br />

Just give it a little time, the damage control machine had not been put into effect by yesterday. Now that the cat is out of the bag, there will no doubt be an apology issued.

I don't think it will affect tourism much at all.

Adding to that: It's good to be aware that the Thai language is not always as simple as add X + Y and it equals XY. รู้มาก is not necessarily a plain statement like 'knows a lot' (it CAN be, but not always). It can be a compound with any of these meanings 'to be shrewd, to be greedy, to be selfish, to take advantage of'. Just throwing it out there in the hopes that some will now know a little more than before.

It says: "What is "IคYวOาUย"? I am confused."

Hmm, 'I and you, stuck in the middle of a herd of buffaloes'?

In general I agree, this language forum is not the place to post anything that could be private. But having read the comment, this particular passage is not private. It means, roughly:

Facebook allows you to 'Comment' and to 'Like'  But... if you use Facebook and don't 'Like' something,  You should go back to using 'Hi 5' instead : P

~ป้ๅลัํลลา~ (Aunt Lala) ติดตๅมตอนต่อไป (Stay tuned for the next episode/part) “คู่กันน~^^~” (We are a couple) “ซๅลๅIปๅ..” (Salapao [Chinese white doe bun with filling] Sometimes cheeks or breasts that bear a resemblance are jokingly referred to as such) “อิ่หลาน..กบฎ” (Little devil grandchild/niece/nephew [literally 'rebellious grandchild' with the อิ่ prefix (deliberate misspelling of a rude or very familiar prefix put before the names of females)] “มู๋บ้าา...คิดดถึงว๊าา..^^” (Crazy Pig ... I miss you, you bastard) and เพราะเรา..^^..คู่กัน (because we are... a couple) “คู่กันน..^^” (a couple) “หรๅว่า..คู่กัด *0*” (not sure about this one) “อิหลๅน..กบฏ..~~..” (Little devil grandchild/niece/nephew) “คู่กัด~คู่กัน..ตลอดไป” (not sure about this one)

If it is Thai, it looks like โฉม ฝู ฉาย choom[R] fuu[R] chaay[R] It might be a Chinese name rendered in Thai script.

All major languages have accents. Why? Because people stick together in groups, have a desire to distinguish between 'us and them' and each group to some extent comes to favour and invent speech features of its own. It happens everywhere, in every culture. In no country does everyone sound exactly the same. This effect combined with geographical spreading and territorial ideas first give rise to accents and eventually give rise to what is classified as languages. The exact difference between a language and a dialect is basically political, because there are languages that are mutually intelligible, but accents that are not. (Simplified reasoning, but those are the basic mechanisms). Thailand is usually divided into four larger dialects - Northern Thai, Northeastern Thai, Central Thai, Southern Thai. Within each of these dialect groups, there are further differences. If you want to know the subject in depth, William Smalley's 'Linguistic Diversity and National Unity: Language Ecology in Thailand' is a fantastic read. mosque - มัสยิด (mat-sa-yid) muslims - มุสลิม (mu-sa-lim) or, as an explanation ผู้ถือศาสนาอิสลาม (poo thue sat-sa-naa it-sa-laam) Quran - กุรอาน (gu-raan) or อัลกุรอาน (an gu-raan) Buddhist sutra - พระสูตรพุทธศาสนา (pra-suut puta sat-sa-naa)

Website: http://www.sso.go.th/wpr/home.jsp

สำนักงานประกันสังคม - samnack ngaan pragann sangkomm

Mobile phone credits? (Easy to resell).

That's because a title like 'Killing floor' would sound ridiculous and/or convoluted in Thai. Titles often carry allusions, puns or associations that are simply not available in the target language, or give rise to unintended associations. It's not quite true that Thais never do direct translations of titles - there are examples of fairly exact translations, for example the title of Watership Down (by Richard Adams) is ทุ่งวอเตอร์ชิป in Thai. About misunderstandings, my Thai acharn once mentioned that he had seen the Ingmar Bergman movie 'The Seventh Seal' in a Thai newspaper article translated as 'แมวน้ำตัวที่เจ็ด maew naam tua thii jet'. I did a little googling and noticed that the Swedish title of 'Killing Floor' is 'Dollar' (which simply is the name of the currency in Swedish). The same thing often happens when translating into English too - take the Stieg Larson novels for example, the original Swedish titles: Män som hatar kvinnor (=Men Who Hate Women) - This one is a direct translation. Flickan som lekte med elden (=The Girl Who Played With Fire) - Eng: 'The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo' Luftslottet som sprängdes (=The Air Castle That Was Blown Up) - Eng: 'The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest') What sounds snappy/intriguing/exciting etc. in one language often simply does not work in another. To consider further the effects of truly literal translations between languages belong to fairly distant cultures, I recommend this video clip: