farangnahrak

Yes, the Trade Office will insist on a ticket out of Thailand. If you plan to stay for 90 days based on your TR, you should just indicate 60 days, and likewise, your departing flight from Thailand should be within the 60-day period. If you're not on budget airlines, you can change your flight without incurring additional costs.

If your electronic air ticket is printed out from the airline website, make sure you include proof of payment. If issued by your agent, make sure you bring your invoice/receipt along. They're very strict on the authenticity of your outbound ticket.

Sigh . . . not the answer I wanted to hear . . .

What do they accept as proof of payment for a flight, if not the full air ticket printed out from the website?

US Embassy in Bangkok. The website says it takes only two weeks after applying in person. Appointments made online, very easy.

I'll try applying for the Visa in Taiwan without a flight ticket out of Thailand. If anyone wants to know how it went, ask me again in late November.

Worst case, I have one more reason/excuse to visit some ladies in Singapore in January.

Oops, yea, meant my Passport expires in 7 months. But nevermind about that part, I'm just going to get it renewed tomorrow instead.

I need to be in Taiwan at about the same time my current Thai Tourist Visa expires.

So I (US citizen) will apply for a new Thai Tourist Visa while I'm in Taiwan. Anyone with experience they could share? Every Thai Consulate (in this case 'trade office') I've been to seems to follow a different set of rules . . .

The two Visa requirements that worry me are:

1) proof of paid flight out of Thailand

2) Visa expiration of no less than 6 months

My Visa would expire in 7 months. Would they hassle me?

the best info I can find on it:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/user/4298-travelguy/

I'm trying to make sense of the strange grammar in this sentence:

จุดจบของโลกอยู่ที่ ๖๐๐๐ ล้านปี

Does that mean the world will end in 6 billion years from today? Or the world will exist 6 billion years before it ends?

It doesn't quite sound like the police are winning in that example . . . but maybe that is what the author meant . . .

Can someone tell me why in monkey's name is พรหม pronounced prhom, with only one syllable?

(should I just add it to the list of the other 100+ words that 'violate' the pronunciation rules?)

My best theory is พรห is a three-consonant consonant cluster . . . if such a thing even exists . . .

I guess I finally have everyone stumped

What does กินหมู mean in the below sentences? Does it mean to retreat? Or to suffer from tear gas?

ปรากฏว่า รถบรรทุก ทะลุไปถึงหลังแนวได้ พร้อมผู้ชุมนุมนิดหน่อย

ตำรวจจึงกินหมูไปตามระเบียบ พร้อมกับถูกรถชนด้วย

ตำรวจกินหมูในคอนเรียบร้อยแล้ว

FYI, just like Thai has multiple dialects, Lao does as well.

I'm fairly fluent in Thai. For my last trip to Laos, I learned how to read Lao, and learned a bunch of Lao words and phrases (not difficult if you speak/read Thai already). The Lao written language is definitely simpler than the Thai written language, in my opinion.

I tried really hard to speak only Lao while I was there. And the locals all loved me, complimenting me on how well I spoke . . . Thai. *

The problem is that although many Thai words are the same as in Lao, the tones are all different. I just can't keep them all straight in my tiny head . . .

Anyway, I personally think central Thai is the most useful to learn, as most will understand you. But even though you speak central Thai, the locals are only going to reply back to you in their local dialect/language. Back in the day, I would ask them to speak to me in only central dialect so I could understand . . . that didn't go very well at all lol . . . they just gave me funny looks and continued with their local dialects.

So, for the OP, my recommendation is to learn both.

Thanks AyG, that link explains many of my questions.

However, I'm reading through the lists, and I'm a bit confused for จร. That list says จร should be pronounced as just จ, such as in จริง. Makes sense.

But that rule falls apart for words like จริต, จรัส, เจริญ, and many others.

And again for สร. It claims to use it as ส. However, these two words seem to be contradictory . . .

สรตะ = สะ + ระ + ตะ

สรณะ = สอน + ณะ

Perhaps, maybe, all these words fall into additional rules that the above link just didn't account for?

ps - what is อาหารสเริม, as opposed to อาหารเสริม?

pps - I'm still getting 1,830,000,000 results for สเริม

https://www.google.com/search?q=%E0%B8%AD%E0%B8%B2%E0%B8%AB%E0%B8%B2%E0%B8%A3%E0%B8%AA%E0%B9%80%E0%B8%A3%E0%B8%B4%E0%B8%A1&sugexp=chrome,mod=9&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#hl=en&safe=off&sa=X&ei=XTNNUJ7gB6Pj0QHKtoGoCQ&ved=0CBoQvgUoAA&q=%E0%B8%AA%E0%B9%80%E0%B8%A3%E0%B8%B4%E0%B8%A1&nfpr=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&fp=bf525e541b623bda&biw=1745&bih=986

But now looking past the first few pages of results, it's obvious that google is just counting any page that has the letter ส and the combination เริม, not necessarily together.

Adding quotes to make it "สเริม" gives me 1.14 million returns, similar to yours. But even then, it appears google doesn't care if เริม and เริ่ม are entirely different . . .

เสริม was a bad example . . .

Anyway, the question is still valid for เฉลิม . . . and hundreds of other words.

For example, เปล่า . . . I know it's ป + เล่า as I've memorized it that way . . . but why not เป + ล่า?

And then เปต้า is เป + ต้า, and not ป + เต้า. The reverse!

Now, I know the correct way to say all of these words through memorization, but I'm trying to codify these rules . . .

What is the pronunciation rule that says เสริม should be pronounced as สะ เริม and not as เส ริม?

I mean, why isn't it written as สเริม?

There are many other words like this, for example everyone's favorite politician Mr เฉลิม.

(hehe)

fyi, Google claims to have found 1,830,000,000 results for สเริม, although I can't seem to find it in a dictionary . . .

bytebuster, your rule doesn't work for words like ทรง, ทรวง, บรรดา, บร, มรณะ, and many others.

Either there are many exceptions, or the rule is missing something . . .

(ps - I know ทร makes an 's' sound, and รร makes an อัน sound)

I'm trying to figure out the rule that puts the 'maaw' sound into มรดก.

Breaking it up, it is pronounced as:

มอ + ระ + โดะ + ก

But why is it มอ instead of โมะ or มะ?

Then there is มีขาย and มีนัด .. Both obviously aren't objects but verbs. Just go to any search engine to type, its being typed my thais ..

I'm pretty sure มีขาย is just a lazy way of saying มีของขาย, and as tgeezer said, นัด is being used as a noun ie. appointment.

Farangnarak can you share a link? My friends and family in Thailand are all Muslim and I've never heard them say "death to infidels." I think I'd need to see your example in context.

Sorry for the confusion; emphasis on the word 'extremist' . . . as in the tiny 0.000001% of muslims that think beheadings is a good idea . . . and by infidel I mean those who don't worship [you know who] as a god.

One of the quotes was "cut the heads off the นิติราษฎร์ members and put them on pikes in front of Tammasat University" . . . there are literally 20,000 violent/hateful comments like that in just one shared posting I found . . .

Well no, that's more like a pimp . . . and is a bit too offensive . . .

Ok let me rephrase . . . what's the tapsap spelling?

If you want to learn offensive hate-filled kill-the-infidels Thai vocabulary that puts extremist Muslims to shame, look up the anti-นิติราษฎร์ commentary.

I typed every possible combination of letters I could think of into google, but I couldn't find any official spelling of 'mama-san'.

My best guess, which google couldn't find, is มามาสั่น.

Here is my report on the bus . . .

There was no wifi - they lied. There were video game controllers on the seats, but the video games didn't work. All the movies were either Thai or dubbed in Thai - nothing was in English (not even subtitles). I speak Thai so I watched/enjoyed several Thai movies, but I hate Thai dubbing. The left speaker in my seat was broken, but I brought my own headphones so no problem. The bus was very nice, with extremely large clean comfortable seats. But if the seat in front of me reclined too much my legs would get a bit cramped. The seats reclined to be almost horizontal! Still, best seats I've ever had for Thailand. The bathroom is your typical dirty Thai bus type, but I'm a guy so I don't have to touch anything. There was an electric massager in the back rest which felt *really* good, but it auto-turned off every 3 minutes which got annoying after awhile. It also didn't massage the legs where I really needed it the most. The bus had about 10,000 mosquitoes in it, with half surviving the entire trip (not an exaggeration).

The trip took less than 8 hours, but sometimes I felt the driver was faster than the other buses we passed by.

As for the trip back to Bangkok, I had a choice between waiting 3 hours for a VIP bus or just taking a mid-quality air-con back, so I opted for the latter. It was only a semi-pleasant experience, taking 12 hours because of all the stops and breaks the driver took. It arrived in BKK about the same time the VIP bus would have, but cost me only 350 baht. I would have taken a bus to Udonthani to get a VIP bus, but they lied to me that there wasn't any going there for 3 more hours. I only found out after I paid and got on the bus that they lied - I saw the Udonthani bus leaving at the same time. Blah, welcome to Thailand lol.

In summary, I will definitely do the VIP bus option again. But probably a different bus company.

hmmmm the attraction of the trains to me was the ability to lay down, sleep, walk around, etc. Others didn't describe it as you did, but that sounds pretty horrible.

I almost bought the ticket, but it was inconvenient to do it in person. The online ticket site is NOT secure, everything (at least on the first page) is transmitted in plain non-encrypted text. So I refuse to buy online.

I ended up buying a VIP bus ticket instead at Morchit. They told me they got wifi, TV's for every seat with 50 movies, video games, gps, electric message thingies in the seats, etc.

600 baht, 9 hour trip. I'll soon find out if it's as good as they claim.

@mole

Yea, I know. But I'm debating if it was an intentional mis-spelling to modify emphasis . . . kinda like when Thais say มั๊กมาก . . .

hmmmm I guess I should post the full phrase and the context . . . A girl said this to a guy (not me haha).

รักก็รักเล่นๆแต่ทำมั้ย!...เจ็บจริงๆหว่า?

I'm almost thinking that ทำมั้ย is really ทำไม, and that the speaker said something like "you play around with love but why!. . . does it f'ing hurt?"

I understand this phrase word for word, but can't quite seem to figure out the meaning as a whole . . . ideas?

รักก็รักเล่นๆแต่ทำมั้ย!