StChris

I'm back in England now and , without the oppressive restrictions of the Great Firewall, have managed to find the website to the school I recommended:

http://www.ocanihao.com/home.html

While I'm at it, I'll also highly recommend the school I've been studying at in China too:

http://www.bincai.org/english/

While Harbin isn't nearly as nice as Bangkok, the city is famous for speaking some of the most standard Mandarin in China. If you pay for 6 months tuition in one go, then the classes work out around 120 baht per hour, which is one of the cheapest I've found. The class sizes are small too, so you have plenty of quality time with the teacher (my advanced classes have only averaged 3-5 students, the beginner ones tend to be bigger at around 8-10).

http://www.prolangua...ese-in-bangkok/ - this definitely isn't the one I was talking about. I've never been to that one, so can't give an opinion.

The two teachers I who taught me had already been living in Thailand for over 10 years, with a Thai wife and kids, so it's not so surpising that their Thai was pretty good. Also, having studied both Thai and Chinese now, I would say that Thai is easier for a Chinese person to learn than English (given the same level of motivation etc).

I'll do another search myself if I can find a VPN.

I've got a part-time job teaching English in China (helps pay the bills while I'm studying Chinese). Since I've got lots of students (and a poor memory) I've starting keeping a little file for each person, recording personal details and study history etc. For the sake of secrecy and to practice my Thai I write these in Thai (if for example I noted that their reading is good, but their spoken English is terrible, they might take offence if they happened to see it written in Chinese or English). It wasn't until I read this post that I decided to look at my notes a little more carefully. When I did I noticed that I often used มัน when referring to my students! Most of them are younger than me, and the only time I used เขา was for a student in her 40's. This was all subconscious and I certainly don't mean any disrespect to my younger students. I've been away from Thailand for a couple of years now, so all my Thai listening comes watching Thai films and TV. I was in Bangkok for most of my time in Thailand, and the people I associated with all seemd to be pretty nice and polite people. I must have picked it up from them.

Lots of Thai textbooks and teachers go a bit too hard on words like กู and มึง in my opinion. Yes, they should definitely warn beginners against using these words, but sometimes they go a bit too far. I remember being a little taken aback the first time a friend referred to me as มึง (this was a one-to-one conversation), but it's a sign of intimacy.

I wouldn't take much offence if I were you, but if you really don't like it, then next time call them out on it immediately. Tell them you feel referring to you as มัน is ผิดมารยาท, and that you'd prefer เขา in the future.

Next time this happens

Thanks for the blog tips Klons, that's the kind of thing I'm looking for.

Hey HeavyDrinker, if you've had time to sober up, I'd appreciate your help on this.

Regarding the poetry, if you took Byron for example, I'm looking more for works such as She Walks in Beauty, rather than Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, as I don't have time to go through anything too long. The wikipage on this is quite interesting (should have been my first port of call in retrospect) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thai_poetry

They have a few short poems here to illustrate the different trpes of poetry. This one's from the 15th-16th century, and it's surpisingly easy to understand (I don't know if the language has been altered for a modern audience):

เสียงฦๅเสียงเล่าอ้าง อันใด พี่เอย เสียงย่อมยอยศใคร ทั่วหล้า สองเขือพี่หลับใหล ลืมตื่น ฤๅพี่ สองพี่คิดเองอ้า อย่าได้ถามเผือ

It's closer to the automotive junk yards/garages. I noticed that they were constructing some kind of buidling for the uni there (big project, accommodation I imagine). The school definitely has a website, but I can't seem to find it anymore, despite searching in Thai as well. But I am in China, so the Great Firewall could be filtering it out for some reason. Maybe you guys in Thailand could have more luck using the Thai google site.

Hi

I have couple of random things I need some help with:

1. Thai Poetry

Does anyone know any good websites for learning Thai poetry? I'm currently in China studying Chinese and have already studied quiet a few Tang poems, and find it's a fun way of learning. It's nice to take a break from learning the more mundane day-to-day language every now and again. They are only around 10 lines each, so not difficult to memorise. I want to find a similar set of short peoms in THai - can anybody point me in the right direction?

2. BlogsI

Can anyone recommend any interesting Thai blogs about everyday life? I'm looking for a nice balance between too mundane (just listing what they've eaten that day) and too heavy (politics etc).

Thanks

Not sure if the OP is still around, but this info might be useful to others too.

I have studied Chinese at two places in Bangkok. The first was at Thammasat Uni (Sanam Luang campus by the river). My teacher their was Thai, but she was Chinese-Thai and her Chinese seemed pretty fluent. I'd say the language spoken in the classroom was evenly split between Thai and Chinese, as the teacher uses Thai to explain the Chinese. I didn't mind this, as I was learning both languages, so it was 2 for the price of one as far as I was concerned. It was cheap and normally took part on the weekend. There were only 5 levels though, so the it's not much use once your Chinese reaches an intermediate level.

At the second place both teachers I had were native Chinese, so the spoken Thai-Chinese ratio was only around 20-80. They have peolple preparing for the HSK there, so you have lots of different classes, from beginner up to advanced. The price is comparable to Thammasat (cheap!), and there were between 10-15 students in my class. The problem with this one is I've forgotten the name and address! Here are some rough directions, you should be able to find it:

From the Chula Uni sports centre (ศูนย์กีฬาจุฬา http://www.cusc.chula.ac.th/newweb/index.htm). If you take a right as you leave the main entrance of the centre (where the swimming pool and gym are located) you'll come to a modern-looking food market just outside the uni gates, which is connected to the university by a footbridge. From there, if you carry on walkig in the same direction as when you left the sports centre for about 5-10 minutes, then take a right and walk another 5 minutes or so and you should make it. Sorry, I know these are terrible directions. It's basically located in the streets just off Sukumvit near National Stadium (Chula side). The best way to find it would probably to go to that market nice-looking market next to Chula Sports Centre that I mentioned earlier and tell the motorcycle taxi driver to take you to the โรงเรียนที่สอนภาษาจีน (school that teaches Chinese). It's only a 5 min ride away, they must know it. It's called something like "Oriental Academy", and don't be fooled be it's appearence - as well as teaching Chinese to adults, it's also a regular high-school, so that's what it looks like. Good luck!

Has anyone else seen the "No Hippies!" sign at the border when entering Thailand via Malaysia by train? It looks pretty old and lists identifying characteristics of hippies, which may get you denied entry to the kingdom (long hair, beard, sandles etc). So there must have been a lot of hippies arriving at some point, although there were a few hippyish-looking backpackers that day and I never noticed any of them getting turned away.

Great reminiscenes by the way, keep them coming.

Some more interesting info on the Thai economy (from this wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Thailand):

- As of the third quarter of the year 2012 (Q3/ 2012), its unemployment rate is 0.58 percent (!!!) making Thailand the country of third lowest unemployment rate in the world – only after Monaco and Qatar.

- Thailand is the second largest economy in Southeast Asia, after Indonesia.

- However, its per capita GDP in 2011 remains very low at THB155,926 (USD5,394) – slightly lower than China's per capita GDP in 2011.

- As of 4 January 2013, Thailand holds USD180.9 billion reserve money and international reserves which ranks 2nd in Southeast Asia, after Singapore.

- With regard to the volume of the external trade, Thailand also ranks 2nd in Southeast Asia, after Singapore.

Seems pretty impressive! Most striking is the low unemployment rate. Any explanations? (maybe due to lack of a comprehensive welfare system?) I did a quick check on neighbouring countires and they seem to have a rate of around 3% - still low, but not as low as Thailand. Surely this must be exerting a massive upward pressure on wages. I'd like to hear from any business owners here on whether they have any difficulty reaining Thai staff.

There's been a lot of talk recently of the rise of China, as it's economy (in GDP terms at least) has surpassed each country one by one, first the major European economies, then Japan, and now hot on the heels of the US (which it is due to overtake by 2018 according to this http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2010/12/save_date). Of course, the rise of China is part of a broader trend of developing countries finally catching up (and even surpasing) those in the West. All this got me thinking: when will Thailand's GDP overtake Britain's (and by extention, similarly sized European economies such as FRance, Italy, Germany etc)? I used Britain simply because the population figures are fairly similar, and because I'm British myself I suppose :-)

I admit that the date given in the attention grabbing topic header was calculated far too simply. I merely took the most recent GDP growth rate for Thailand (5.5%) and kept adding this to the current Thai GDP (USD345.649 billion) until it equalled the UK's current GDP ($2.480 trillion), therefore assuming zero growth for Britain's economy (Japan's economy has stagnated for the past 20 or so years, and the UK's is still below it's pre-2008 crashfigure, so this isn't as improbable as it might seem at first glance).

I realise how notoriously difficult making predictions are in economics, even among economists (how many of them predicted the crash in 2008 after all?), and don't intend the figure in the topic as an accurate prediction, more like a vague estimate to spark debate. You'll find various predictions on when China will overtake the US; not so much on Thailand and the UK (unsurpising given the relative unimportance of the latter when compared to the former).

So, when do you think Thailand will catch up to the West ecomically, and what will this mean for Westerners in Thailand?

Thanks Johnny

Thanks everyone.

Is transfering to an account of the country you're visiting always better than withdrawing from your home account via an ATM? I thought I was doing ok withdrawing from my UK Nationwide account while I was in Thailand, but it turns out that I was getting hit by a fee from them, as well as the 150 baht fee from the Thai ATM! Next time I go to Thailand I assume it'd be better to transfer money from my Australian or UK account straight into my Kasikorn accunt, is that right?

As for my friend, I might just tell her to transfer money to my mother's account (she'll be staying with my family in London).As for the Thai accounts, she seems to have accounts with about five different banks for some reason, so Bank of Ayudaya and Bangkok Bank are likely to be among them. I'm not sure if she'll be able to open an account in the UK, as she only has a Student Visitor Visa.

My Thai friend is about to go to study in England for a few months. What's the best way for her to access the money in her Thai bank account? She's already transfered 25k baht to an old friend of her mother who lives in England. He will then give her the equivilant in GBP when they meet in England (or so she hopes!). Is there any particular Thai bank account which has low fees and a good rate of exchange when withdrawing from abroad? I seem to be having trouble accessing money with my Kasikorn ATM card here in Australia, so it seems that some Thai cards don't work at all abroad.

Please answer ASAP so I can stop her from transferring any more cash to any other dubious "friends"!

Thanks. We already have the letter from the school and will apply soon.

Thanks everyone. Wow, why can't all things in life be this simple?

I have a very basic Nokia (about 800 baht), and would like to take it with me when I move to Australia. I've been told be the guys at two different mobile phone kiosks that I only have to replace the Thai SIM card with an Australian one and then it's good to go. Is it really that simple? No unblocking necessary?

Oh, I forgot to ask one thing. The letter from her parents will be in Thai. Does it need to be translated into English? If so, can I do this myself, or does it have to be done through an approved translation agency? Does the letter from her emlpoyer, which is in English, need to be translated into Thai?

My friend has already applied for the student visa online and I just want to check that we have all the appropriate documentation ready before we make an appointment with the visa processing centre.

This is what we have:

1. A letter from an English language school stating that she has already paid all of the studying fees in full.

2. A letter from her employer stating how long she has worked there, her salary, and the fact that he has given her permission to take extended leave, and that he expects her to return to work for him again upon her return.

3. A letter from my parents stating that she is a friend of the family and will be staying at their home, free of charge.

4. A letter from her parents stating that they will be supporting her financially during her time abroad. We also have 6 months bank statements showing her parents' salary being recieved every month, a copy of their IDs, plus a recent bank statement showing a balance of around 200,000 baht (this is the money set aside for her day-to-day living expenses).

5. Proof of her bachelors and masters degrees.

6. Proof of her ownership of a house in Bangkok (no outstanding mortgage, her parents bought the house, but the property is in her name only. Worth about 900k THB).

7. Her passport, birth certificate, ID card, and an official document proving that she changed her name last year (don't ask me why, but one of her friends has also just officially changed his name, so it seems quite a trend among Thais!)

8. A copy of the online application form.

9. Passport photo.

Ok, that's it. Her parents are both fairly high-up teachers (her father is retired now), so hopefully this "respectable" background will work in her favour. We hope that the letter from her boss, and the fact that she has property here, will be enough to convince the authorities that she intends to come back to Thailand. We haven't included any bank statments from her, as her work is seasonal (tourist guide), and she pretty much spends whatever money she gets pretty quickly.Her employer did state her monthly salary in his letter though. She has already said in the application form that her parents will be providing the financial support her anyway (hence the detailed information and proof of her parents' income), so I assume that the state of her parents' finances is more important than the state of hers.

The 200,000 baht is the money available after air tickets, study fees etc have already been paid. Since she will not have to pay any accommodation costs, her only major cost will be travel expenses in London (30,000 baht for 3 months). That leaves 170,000 baht for fun and shopping, so hopefully the 200,000 will be enough ( I think her parents will be pretty cheesed off if she spends all of this!).

If anyone can see any weak points in the application, or if you think I've forgotton something important, then please let me know. I hear that there are sometimes probems applying for a tourist visa, but I'm hoping that a student one is more straightfoward (seeing as it has a more specific purpose than just "visiting").

Thank you both. I thought I had already checked through all the possibilities from the drop-down menus, but it seems that I didn't.

My friend is applying for a UK Student Visitor visa, which I know must be completed online via the visa4uk system. However, there doesn't seem to be an option to apply for an actual Student Visitor visa. One of the very first pages "Your Visa Requirements", after asking for the nationality of the applicant, then asks for the type of visa required. When you select "Study" it only gives you two options for the next field ("Purpose of Application"): "PBS Tier 4 Student" or "Study (non-points based system)". The first option, as I understand it, is the type of visa for longer courses, where you are allowed to work part-time also, which is different from the Student Visitor visa. The second option, if chosen, then asks whether you're a Student Dependant, Prospective Student Dependant or Student of the Isle of Man, none of which seems right to me.

I knew that helping my firend apply for this visa could get a little complicated, but I never thought I would stumble at the first (embarrassingly easy) hurdle like this! So which option do I need to choose if I want to apply for a 6 month Student Visitor visa?

After forcing myself through 2 series of Thai soaps on YouTube, I've come to the conclusion that watching Thai films on DVD is a much better way to improve your listening practice.

First of all the quality of the movies are better than TV, both technically (the often poor quality "echo"-like sound of soaps has already been mentioned), and also in terms of quality of content (with more thought, money, talent and ambition used).

Secondly, and I think especially important if you feel your reading is ok but you're still having problems catching what people say, most DVDs have Thai subtitles (look out for คำบรรยายไทย on the back). You can find soaps with English subtitles on YouTube, but while it obviously helps you understand what's being said, it doesn't help too much picking out the words people are actually saying.

What you do is this: watch the film through one time without pausing. Don't stress too much, just sit back and try to understand as much as you can. After that, go through a second time with the Thai subtitles switched on. This time pause after the end of each scene. If there are any bits you didn't really understand (probably most of it!), then re-wind and pause at the difficult parts and read the subtitles. If there are any words you don't understand, then look them up in a dictionary. Sometimes you'll know know every word in a sentence, but still not understand the meaning, espicially with quite colloquial language. In this case copy the sentence out and ask a friend to explain it to you. Go the the whole scene like this, noting down each new word you don't understand, and then watch the scene again. Do this for each scene until you've finished the film. If by the end you find that you've had to write down lots of new words in the process, then you know that you probably didn't understand because your vocab was insufficient. If you didn't really need to look up any new words, understood almost everything when reading the subtitles and yet still didn't understand most of the movie, then you know that it's a listening comprehension problem. In that case, watch the hard sections over and over again while reading the subtitles, until you begin to comprehend, of just can't take anymore! You can easily record parts of the film using a program like VLC, so you can only focus on the tricky parts, and even record those as MP3 audio files to listen on random/shuffle mode on your ipod/MP3 player.

As a bonus, some DVDs have special extras, like interviews with the cast and director's commentary. After analyzing the film so thoroughly, these shouldn't be too difficult to understand. Most DVDs are only 80-90 baht, so this is a good, cheap way to improve your Thai.

If you're looking for a good TV show, there's one on TV Mon-Fri at 9am (sorry, can't remember the channel, but it's also on the radio 106.0 MHz). It features four Thai women talking a little about the latest news, but mostly stuff about diets, relationships etc. Not normally my thing, but I found that it was the first TV show that I could understand more than 50% of, so it might be good practice for those not quite ready to take on the lakorns.

For someone who has just begun to read after learning the alphabet, Aesop's Fables are a good choice. They are short, use pretty simple language and normally have both Thai and English.

There's also a series of books at SE-ED bookshops called Nanmeebooks (I think). They are tiny, easily fit into any pocket so you can always take one with you and get in a little reading practice while waiting for the train etc. There's a few hundred of these, each on a different subject: maths, history geography etc. One of my favorites was one with a series of crime/murder mysteries that you had to solve. The language is pretty simple, but you still should pick up lots of new vocab, which comes up with high frequency in each book, making it easier to really lodge them in your memory. For example, the crime mysteries one had the Thai words for "crime", "suspect", "evidence", "motive" etc coming up on almost every page. They are normally in their own little section of the shop (usually a cardboard-type bookshelf), so should be easy to find, plus there cheap at 9 baht each.

I found the Thai version of "Le Petite Prince" to be a good read. If you're looking for a fairly easy Thai childrens book then ความสุขของกะทิ is a good choice. The original won the SEA Write Award, so the Thai literati obviously think the writing is of a pretty high standard, plus there's an English translation and film as well. The chapters are all short (only 2 to 5 pages long), and there are two sequels if you liked the first one.

Sorry, I had the Thai and English neatly spaced apart when I composed the post, but it seems to have been automatically squashed together.

Now that the new football/soccer season has started, I thought it might be a good and relatively painless opportunity to improve our Thai.

Listening:

If your going to watch the game anyway, you might as well use the Thai commentary rather than the English. Let's face it, the English commentary is often obvious and cliche-ridden anyway, and while I doubt the Thai is any better, at least it provides challanging listening practice. Thais tend to be qute focal when watching, so provide their own, less polite, commentary as well!

Reading:

Can anybody recommend any Thai websites that publish match reports? I think it'd be good reading practice as you'd already have a good idea of the content before even starting reading, making it more accessable than most native-Thai websites (if you didn't see the game you can see short reports at the BBC Football website).

Speaking:

Anyone who's spent even a little time here will know how popular football, so there should never be a shortage of interested people to strike up a conversation with.

Writing:

If anyone knows of a good Thai football forum, please let me know. It'd be good reading practice as well.

To elp everyone out I thought it might be a good idea to gather a collection of common and high-frequency words and phrases. Although football related, most can be used in other contexts too, so will be useful in other situations.

Ok, I'll get the ball rolling with my rather pathetic collection of vocab. Please add your own. Hopefully we can keep adding new words and phrases as the season progresses. I think the best way of learning (and retaining) new language is to be using it as part of your everyday life, in contexts that are personally interesting or essential for you.

Note regarding transilteration:

Please write in Thai with English translations. Wether you want to add transliterations or not is up to you. Every person I've met who's learning Thai, and doesn't know the Thai alphabet, seems to have their own different way of writing Thai in Latin letters. I think the best way for those who can't read Thai is to get someone read the Thai out loud for you and then write you own transilteration. Even better would be to learn the Thai alphabet. It's very tricky, but then some things are worth doing precisely because they are difficult. Think of it as code cracking or something. Ok, lecture over.

I'll write the Thai in a bigger font as it can be a bit difficult to see otherwise.

Vocabulary

ยิง to shoot (at goal)

ชนะ to win, to beat

แพ้ to lose

เรียบร้อย used to mean nice, beautiful (usually used in response to a clean hit shot, or nice passing move)

เจอ to meet, to play

กรรมการ referee

Example sentences:

Spurs won Spursชนะ

Spurs beat Arsenal SpursชนะArsenal

Who are Spurs playing today? วันนี้Spursเจอใคร (today -วันนี้ , who - ใคร)

Spurs are playing Arsenal today วันนี้SpursเจอArsenal

Arsenal lost 5-1 Arsenalแพ้5-1

Arsenal lost Arsenalแพ้

Arsenal lost to Spurs Asrenalแพ้Spurs

the referee's blind กรรมการตาบอด (blind - ตาบอด)

Feel free to correct these if wrong. As I said, it's a rather pathetic collection at the moment, but by the end of the season, if we work together, who knows.

The class aspect has been discussed, but how about gender? I imagine alot of people learn from their girlfriend or boyfriend, which might lead them speaking in a inappropriately girly or manly way. I know this can be a problem with men learning Chinese with their gilfriend/wife, there was even a special lesson on it on the website where I learn Chinese: http://chinesepod.com/lessons/girly-talk

Is there any particularly girly phrases or verbal mannerisms that a man should avoid (apart from the obvious ka/krap of course)?

I did visit a nursery once where the teacher pointed out, in a very relaxed and matter of fact way, a boy that she said he was a ladyboy. I was a bit sceptical at first since he could only have been 4 or 5, until I realised that he kept using ka and instead of krap! I don't know if it was a concious decision on the child's part, but the teacher (and maybe therefore the parents) didn't seem to have a problem with it or think it needed to be corrected.