TheChiefJustice

The grant of PR is entirely discretionary. The minimum requirements that you are talking about are those that will permit you to SUBMIT an application to the Immigration Department. Just because you meet those minimum requirements and have submitted an application does not automatically guarantee you PR. The Immigration Department is not obliged to inform unsuccessful applications of the reasons why their applications were unsuccessful. I know several people who met the minimum requirements, submitted an application, and were rejected.

If you are a woman married to a Thai man then I don't believe that there is any income requirement, they will look at your husband's financials but I don't believe there is any minimum requirement.

If you are a foreign woman married to a Thai man you do not need to apply for PR. You can simply apply for Thai citizenship on the basis of your marriage.

Thanks, Meadish. I am not at all familiar with transliterations, hence my misunderstanding. ปนเปื้อน is correct when speaking of contamination by bacteria etc. For example, คนจะรับเชื้อนี้จากการรับประทานอาหารหรือน้ำดื่มที่ปนเปื้อนเชื้อโรค คนที่เป็นโรคจะขับถ่ายเชื้ออกทางอุจาระ เชื้อนี้อาจจะปนเปื้อนในน้ำตามธรรมชาติ หรืออาจจะปนเปื้อนอาหาร explains how one contracts typhoid fever. However, on second thought, perhaps your formulation would be easier for most people to understand.

Meadish - what is the "dtit phak" you use here? Is it ติดปาก? I am not familiar with the use of ติดปาก in the context of contamination. Or perhaps it is something else. For contamination, I would use the word ปนเปื้อน.

Utter rubbish. If you can't hear it, you can't hear it. There is no such thing as subliminal sound. Visuals, perhaps. Sounds, rubbish!

Perhaps you might contact this photographer who lives and works in Thailand and ask him how he does it. It appears that he is accredited as an "official press photographer" by the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Perhaps that sort of accreditation may be helpful.

I take my vitamins before bed. I like them to be working away as I sleep.

From the same book, "2,000 Metaphors"....

David, I would be most interested in the details of this book. Did you purchase it in Thailand? If so, where might one find a copy? It sounds absolutely fascinating.

And yes; the yellow tabien bahn is the only one a foreigner can get but normally only if own a condo. As to getting your name in the blue book you need to be officially married.

Please see my previous posts on the distinction between a blue and yellow tabian baan. I do not believe marriage alone would allow a foreign male named in a blue tabian baan. As I understand it, only a foreign male with PR is able to have his name in a blue tabian baan. This is the law, but that does not mean that officials have not from time to time permitted a foreign male without PR to have his name in the blue tabian baan. I would be interested to hear of any examples of this.

As to the OP, you should pop down to your local district office with your wife and ask to have your name put on the yellow tabian baan. A letter from the embassy is not required. Ask your wife to bring her blue tabian baan with her when you go and explain that you want to have your name put on the yellow tabian baan. It can be done. If this fails, let me know and I will see what else we might be able to do to help things along.

Well done, Skippy! Welcome to the PR Club. Now when you enter and leave Thailand you can use the Thai passport line. I was told that as a Thai PR you are actually supposed to use the Thai line, but I often use the foreign line if the Thai line is busy. Nice to have the choice. Also, when you leave you must always have your re-entry in your PR book (which you need to take with you when you travel).

Absolutely, Samran. This happens to me a great deal and I often wish that I could control it better. With my Thai teacher, I speak at a very fluent level. With people I do not know who do not speak English, I also speak well, but not as well as I speak with my teacher. With people I do not know who speak English very well and with poo yai, things start to go down hill somewhat. With my wife, I speak like someone who has been learning Thai for only a short while. When we met I could not speak a word, so our relationship has always based on English, and the switch to Thai has been rather difficult. I remember once a Thai client called me while we were in the car and I had a conversation with him about work related matters. My wife was completely shocked at my level of Thai - again showing the the level I speak with her was far lower than that used with my client.

This is all psychological, of course. One often builds barriers to fluency with fear and apprehension. Breaking down these barriers will hopefully allow one to speak Thai at the same level with all people. Easier said than done. Perhaps hypnosis might help!

Don't know if you are already in Thailand now, but just wanted to know why the heck you decided to move to Thailand? It seems like it'll be pretty difficult, one, because you don't speak Thai...two, it being a third world country and probably does not have many things Britain does.

What a load of rubbish.

To the OP - follow Samran's advice and I am confident you will be able to obtain your Thai passport.

YOu should tell them you do not need any such stamp in your passport.

Do you have a Thai work permit, Rob? If so, that would be very helpful, as would being employed. Are you still living in the hut in Southern Thailand? What do you do here to support yourself, if I may ask, and what kind of visa are you on?

There will not be anything stamped in your passport. All you will receive is a work permit of 12 months duration. Any stamps go in the work permit, not in your passport.

As mentioned on another thread, it would be very interesting to see the various Thai writing styles employed by the members of this forum. This exercise would be fun and would serve to show how each of us has very different styles of writing the Thai language.

In order to make accurate comparisons, I suggest that we each write the same thing. I have chosen an excerpt from one of MR Kukrit Pramoj's speaches about politics. I hope it is not too long, but I believe that we need to write more than a single sentence before we can obtain a true sense of a person's writing style. Here is the sentence I propose we write:

หน้าที่ของรัฐบาลและข้าราชการ ตลอดจนคนทั่วประเทศ ในขณะนี้ ถ้าหากเราทุกฝ่ายต้องการจะเห็นบ้านเมืองเรา ปกครองกันด้วยระบอบ ประชาธิปไตย ก็คือ จะต้องร่วมมือกันทุกวิถีทาง ที่จะทำให้ประชาชนส่วนใหญ่ ของประเทศ ที่ยังอยู่ห่างไกลความเจริญ และยังขาดการศึกษานั้น ได้มีความเจริญทางการศึกษา

I have also attached my (rather feeble) attempt. As I say, this is how I usually write. It is not handwriting, more like printing. I really would like to be able to write more cursively like my Thai colleagues. Practice, practice, practice. Nothing more to be done than practice.

scan.pdf

This is kind of off topic, but I wish I could improve my Thai handwriting. I've seen a few farangs with awesome Thai handwriting.

I also wish that I had better handwriting. Actually, my writing is more like printing than handwriting. There is a real skill in perfecting Thai handwriting. Perhaps we should post examples of our handwriting for others to view. Might be interesting to see the varying styles.

...because I will ask ANYONE how to write/spell something, and they always enjoy looking over my shoulder at what I'm writing and what I've written.

You are a brave man! Always be sure to double check the spelling given to you. I have often found that many Thai people do not spell so well. Where does one obtain the Moleskine notebook of which you speak?

I believe we are, indeed, talking about the very same word, หรือ. The word has become bastardized to such an extent that it is sometimes almost incomprehensible. I recommend obtaining the DVD/VCD box-set of MR Kukrit Pramoj's (ม.ร.ว. คึกฤทธิ์ ปราโมช) critically acclaimed historical novel สี่แผ่นดิน. It is a wonderful way to practice one's listening skills and increase one's Thai vocabulary. The added bonus, of course, is that it will afford you an opportunity of hearing หรือ being spoken with the melodic roll of ร, as intended.

Don't forget, หรือ has an "r" sound, not an "l" sound. That having been said, however, I do fear for the old ร. Some think that one day it may be replaced with "ล" - but I don't believe it!

Can one use "ไร้" "rai" meaning poor or lacking to say

" ไร้ศึกษา..." meaning poorly educated?

Yes, however ไร้ denotes the absence of something. It does not mean "poor" in the context of an attribute such as education, ability etc. The correct construction, if one were to use ไร้, would be ไร้การศึกษา rather than simply ไร้ศึกษา.

I feel ว่าไงครับ or เป็นไงครับ would do.

It shows you are more at ease with using Thai than at the redimentary level.

Adding Krub at the end also makes it polite and should work in a general situation.

This is indeed a rather interesting discussion. Both of these expressions are frightfully informal and, in my opinion, should not be used to greet people with whom you are not very familiar. I would generally never use these expressions, even if I were familiar with the person to whom I was speaking.

In any event, under no circumstances should one use these expressions at a business meeting or in any situation where you were greeting a ผู้ใหญ่. Even the addition of the ครับ would do little to lessen the impression in the eyes of some Thai listeners that you were perhaps educated in the Thai language while sitting on a bar stool.

I quite like some of those suggestions, Rikker, particularly "Democracy Is Not Just A One Night Stand"

Can anyone tell me what the going rate is for a one-on-one language tutor?

I scouted around a few days ago. Found everthing from THB 400 - 5,000 per hour (!!!).

Also, does anyone have a good tutor to introduce?

THB5,000 per hour. Surely, that must be a typo!

I would loosely translate ประชาธิปไตยไม่ใช่แค่กิ๊ก as perhaps something like "Enduring Democracy", given that the word กิ๊ก connotes something that is perhaps fleeting or lacking in duration.