ElZorro

On 9/21/2021 at 12:51 PM, Pib said:

Yeap...you are right....a person go later in the day to get a bank letter and/or passbook update...no need to apply when immigration first opens.  But that also means applying at immigration later in the morning/day....possibly also getting caught up with CW immigration lunch break when they shut donw....turning the application day into a longer affairs. 

 

Additionally, with Krungsri Bank you can't get your bank letter "quickly" as the letter requires HQ Krungsri coordination before the local branch can printout the letter which means it typically takes around 45 minutes or longer to get a letter with Krungsri.  Now at Bangkok Bank they can do a letter in around 15 minutes as they don't require their HQ coordination to generate the letter.   Best to get that bank letter a few days before application date.....just have to deal with getting the passbook update on application day. 

 

Unfortunately, the Krungsri branch at CW will no longer do a copy of your updated passbook for you (they use to be no longer)....even have such signs on their copying machines... they tell you to go to the nearby copy shop.  Guess they got tired of doing free copies since I expect the bank branches in the immigration building get a lot of bank letter and passbook update requests. 

 

Yes, if a person wanted to take it slower on application date by getting the bank letter and passbook update in the morning and then going to immigration later on they sure could, but that's going to turn it into a longer day.   I'll just continue in getting the passbook update early as possible on application day, the bank letter a few days earlier, and applying at immigration at opening time.

 

 

I just transfer any amount in or out of the account when I arrive in CW using the krungsri app or the website, then update the passbook on the ATM. No need to wait for the branch to open.

On 5/7/2021 at 10:06 AM, dinsdale said:

not waiting for people to present at hospital when it's too late.

And asking those people (thais and foreigners) to pay for the test themselves

ปากกา Parker (any sort of pen)

I never associated ปากกา with Parker; I always thought this word came from ปาก and กา (as in a teapot's spout). ปากกา can also be spelled ปากไก่ and a quill pen is called ปากกาขนนก. Maybe you are right, but I imagine that there were pens in Thailand hundreds of years before the Parker company was formed and that Thais had already a name for the device. If it was indeed a case of a brand name adopted, I guess they would call it ปาร์เกอร์ rather than ปากกา.

โรเนียว Roneo (stencil document copier)

Last night I was browsing the magazines section of one 7eleven when I noticed there were many magazines dedicated entirely to one particular soap opera. They cost between 20 an 50 baht and they go through the storyline of each episode. The language is not as complicated as a novel and there are lots of dialogues. For someone who's following the lakorn and already knows the plot, this could be a way to start reading.

I've just checked the Thai Immigration Bureau website and it says this:

You could apply an extention stay or a re-entry permit at every checkpoint.

— For a re-entry permit,if you are in Bangkok area and you have an Internet access, you could fill in a TM. 8 form and send it to [email protected]

— You should e-mail the completed form 1 day in advance.

— You have to submit a 2" photo and pay a permit fee at counter 7, the Immigration Bureau (soi suanplu office.)

Fee for re-entry permit:

1,000 Bahts for single

3,800 Bahts for multiple

The Thai language version of the website has the same information and adds this "... at counter 7 or at the service point "Stop & Stamp" on the side of buiding 1, where the whole procedure can be done in five minutes, between 8:30 and 12:00 every working day"

"At every checkpoint" must surely mean that you can get it also at the airport. Then again, the URL has "/nov2004/" in it, so it might be a bit outdated. The re-entry information page on Thaivisa.com has the same info and it's dated from April 2009. A colleague told me that you can still get your re-entry permit at Suanplu, but only on Saturdays. Has anyone tried to get a re-entry permit from Suanplu recently?

Rikker mentioned in the chang kui podcast that there are no ebooks in Thai; I have recently discovered a daily program on witayu sueksa that consists of readings from a novel by a voice actor/actress split in 30 minute chunks. Last month they were reading from Bung ya pa yai by Thepsiri Suksopha and since Jan 12th it's a translation of "Sans Famille" by Hector Mallot. It's on every day from 19:30 to 20:00 on FM 92 MHz and AM 1161 kHz, the online stream is mms://www.moeradiothai.net/fm92 and you can also listen to past programs from the station website.

Bobby is probably the most used dog name in Dutch.

Probably because of the ตินติน cartoons of Herge, which also have been translated to Thai.

Tintin dog's name was Milu, I think.

I didn't write the Manee reader myself, nor did I build the website. That credit should go to the Paknam Web Thailand group, Richard Barrow and some Thai teachers from the Sriwittayapaknam School who did the reading. There is another version of the Manee reader online, prepared by the Center for Southeast Asian Studies of the Northern Illinois University.

I am surprised that there are some people interested in learning Thai who didn't know about the Manee reader. Maybe some of you don't know about the excellent blog Women Learning Thai, where Catherine has been compiling resources and tips for learning Thai on and off-line.

Have a look here for encyclopaedic knowledge about the expression (it might not enlighten you much), and here for photographic techniques.

I've just finished adding English subtitles to a Thai TV program about a village in Nakhon Pathom where there is a flourishing Gecko trade. Some of the subtitles might be wrong, because I didn't understand everything they say, but I think they are more or less faithful to the original. I hope some of you might find it useful for some listening practice. You can turn the captions off if you want. Feel free to criticize or correct my translations and enjoy it.

Learn to read first. It's not that difficult, really. All those who keep repeating that reading Thai is almost impossible, that the Thai alphabet has so many consonants and vowels, etc. are just justifying themselves for not doing anything about their illiteracy problem. Learning to read Thai is not more difficult than learning to read any other language. Start with the Manee reader and keep at it. Learning a language is so much easier when you can read it.

They don't have a clue. In a few countries, Thailand included, they block terms like "sex" from the searches, without an option to bypass the censorship.

Talking about Thai linguists / foreigners that have already mastered the Thai language: a few minutes ago, TVThai interviewed the British Ambassador to Thailand, Mr. Quinton Quayle.

BTW, does anyone have a recommendation for a good Thai-English and good Thai-Thai dictionary? (paper dictionary I mean, not online!)

I use the Thaiways 'Thai-English', but I'm looking for something more comprehensive, like the Oxford River one mentioned above, but in reverse. I'd also like to know what is the most 'usable' Thai-Thai dictionary - many of them are so poorly laid out or typographically unattractive I can't make head nor tail of them!

Have a look at "A NEW THAI-ENGLISH DICTIONARY" by Tianchai Woramate. 1200 pages, hard cover, plenty of examples and Thai definitions for some entries for 760 Baht. See a sample here. I found quite a few misspellings in the English part, but on the whole I think it is very good value for its price.

You can download it if you have QuickTimePro, but I have only the freebie QT player.

Have you tried right-clicking on the audio links and selecting "save as"? They link to mp3 files.

By the way, I'm going to ask this question on another thread where there's probably more people looking in, but does anyone have an mp3 audio for the Gethings reader? I've got the weblink, but I can only stream it not download as I don't have Quicktime Pro. Anyone got the whole lot on mp3? Much obliged in advance, and for all your advice above.

Can you post the link here?

I want to thank SoftWater for preparing this very useful text for us. I'm not interested in taking the Thai language test, but I would still like to see more posts like this on this site.

Reading about the Thai test, I found this website that has on-line learning material and tests designed for Thai elementary students from p.2 to p.6.

The polite non-offensive alternative is ชนบท (chonnabot : rural areas)

คนชนบท is used in the news and in parliament to refer to the people who live in rural areas.

The context is everything, talking came before writing. If we tried this stuff with a native speaker I suspect that they would think us mad.

I think you hit the nail on the head again here. I asked two university educated native speakers about this question and they seem to think that the difference between นี่ and นี้ is neither about meaning nor function, just emphasis. They would choose which one to use depending on which one sounds right in each situation. As an example, they said that one normally says มานี่, but มานี้ is also correct, same meaning but more emphatic. When I pressed them to say whether the entry on my dictionary is right or wrong, they said that it is not wrong, but unusual. (ไม่ผิดแต่ไม่นิยม). The distinction between pronoun and adjective, while beautifully simple and useful for us, didn't mean anything for them. หนังสือเล็มนี้ sounds right and is the way people speak (correct); หนังสือเล็มนี่ sounds weird and nobody speaks like this (incorrect).

You will have to look for the VCD or DVD versions because I don't think they are on TV anymore.

Apparently, Pong lang la on is still on Channel 7 Thursdays and Fridays at 18:00

If you are looking for Thai cartoons, these two look good:

Pong lang la ong:

Four Angies:

You will have to look for the VCD or DVD versions because I don't think they are on TV anymore.

This one is not Thai, but the Thai version is good to practice listening because it's not difficult to understand. It's on TVThai (ITV) Monday to Friday at around 20:15

I would agree that the soaps are actually a good way to learn spoken Thai. That is if you can put up with the constant screaming and wailing and that fact that the plot will almost certainly involve an evil long lost sister and someone getting pushed down the stairs....

There is a Japanese soap opera every Tuesday and Wednesday between 20:20 and 21:10 on TVThai (ITV), dubbed in Thai with Thai subtitles. The last two were quite sophisticated, clever and well-humoured, very different from the ones you describe. There is a new one starting this Tuesday.

Which dictionary is this from?

Dictionary In Action

English-Thai by Example Usage (3 in 1)

by สำราญ คำยิ่ง ป.ธ.6, พ.ม., C.P.E.

ISBN: 974-93028-6-9

ห้างหุ้นส่วนจำกัด วี.เจ.พริ้นติ้ง

ฉบับที่พิมพ์: 2550

I also have the P. Sethaputra English-Thai Dictionary of Contemporary Usage, that has three translations for "this": pron. นี่ adj. อันนี้ adv. เท่านี้

Lexitron 2.6 has this:

this

<-- Lexitron English-Thai -->

this [DET] (คน, สิ่ง) นี้

Syn. the, that

this [PRON] นี้ (ใช้แทนคำนามที่กล่าวถึงหรือทราบกันดีอยู่แล้ว)

Syn. the one, this one, that

this [ADV] ขนาดนี้

Yesterday it was all clear, but today I found this sample sentence in my dictionary: นี้คือเครื่องจักรซึ่งมีประโยชน์มากมายหลายอย่าง

Then I looked for "This" and this is the whole entry:

This (ธิส) adj. นี้ เช่น This boy is my younger brother เด็กคนนี้เป็นน้องชายของผม Is this book better than that one? หนังสือเล่มนี้ดีกว่าเล่มนั้นหรือ? pron. (1) นี้ เช่น Read this- you'll like it. จงอ่านนี้ซิแล้วคุณจะชอบ This is my friend, John Michael. นี้คือเพื่อนของผม คุณจอห์น ไมเกิล (2) like this เช่นนี้, แบบนี้, ลักษณะนี้ เช่น It would be quicker if you did it like this มันอาจจะเร็วขึ้นไปอีกหากคุณได้ทำเช่นนี้