dippytart

In Bangkok, 80% of the time I say, Ma Dtae Saai, which means 'where do you come from' in their local dialect and get a smile or laugh.

ma dtae saii - มาแต่สาย (you only come late) - you sure that's not you complaining to your girlfriend? (bet she doesn't find it funny...)

Are we assuming in this discussion that all farangs are white? Or are we assuming that black Americans and black Europeans don't count? Or that they prefer Thai girls with dark skin, too?

?

The majority of the students are Japanese people that are sent there by their companies to learn Thai because they will either be working in Thailand once they finish the course, or they will be dealing with Thai via their business in Japan and need to speak Thai. A full-time intensive course obviously isn't designed for someone currently working in Thailand... but there are plenty of other courses u can take part-time in Bangkok, including a private tutor.

Hi Rionoir, there are indeed plenty of schools and courses around, but do you (or anyone else!) know of any specific schools that teach a similar academic program to the one at chula?

The OP started this thread in March, hasn't logged on to TV since July...either he was trolling or the GFs have seen to him as predicted!!

I have become fluent in Thai much faster than most folks because I understand the linguistic and developmental underpinnings of language acquisition to a high degree.

Wow!!

Care to share?

That would be far more germane to this discussion than Sofwaters obsession (sorry, honey!) with Lanta et al.

55555... I tend to agree... It is easy to lecture endlessly on this topic, but I will try to keep my experiences, comments and tips short and succinct.

First, sorry to be slow in my response to this topic -- I subscribed to updates via email to this topic but that function apparently is not working at present... I am responding to your post 9 days after you posted...

IMMERSION... IMMERSION... IMMERSION...

Second, as SW guessed, I am a specialist in my field where there are no Thai personnel equivalents to my skills, education and experience... So Chula U. got a very "very good deal" in hiring me. I also got a "good deal" in that I was further immersed in Thai language and culture to a very high level -- a very unusual experience for a Farang -- I am the only Farang that I know of who has had a similar experience... If you can arrange a similar experience for yourself, I highly recommend it ~ but at the same time such a position is not easy to secure or to maintain... There are vast differences between expectations of Thai and Western university level academic positions... One of the things that I liked about Thai "academia" was the high level of social interaction ~ at the same time, this high level of social interaction can also be very "stifling" if one likes to have their own space and follow their own "drummer." There is a huge expectation for social reciprocity (including excessive work hours including socializing with work peers beyond normal hours even including vacation time, etc.). Frankly, I like to have my vacation time and personal time to myself as much as possible ~ but Thai academic peers have an expectation that "we are all family" so why not want to be together all the time??? To be honest, I don't enjoy being with my own family of origin all the time (one of the reasons that Farang folks individuate more than Thai folks from their families of origin). Personal space is very important to me (especially vacation time) and this concept is yet to truly emerge in Thai society... This interaction is a double-edged sword ~ now that I am out of that intensive Thai academic environment, I do miss it ~ to a certain extent....

Third, back to the question by "dippytart." "I understand the linguistic and developmental underpinnings of language acquisition to a high degree." Care to share? ...Big question and big topic for sure...

A) Much depends on your own understanding of your own skills in "learning how to learn" for yourself... That is, are you aware of your own learning "style"? Do you know how you learn fastest/ easiest in most subjects? Are you a visual or auditory or kinesthetic learner, or what kind or combination thereof? What is your own level of fluency in your mother tongue? Have you studied other languages and how has your success been for those other languages? What emotional connections have you made in your language studies? All of these factors interact within an individual level -- so individualized language learning programs will TRY to consider these different factors -- but as an adult, it is up to you to monitor and guide your own learning... You KNOW when you "get it" and you should also know when "you don't get it." If you are not sure, that is a tip that you need to review that same material again -- maybe in a different way... Seek out help frequently, but remember you are your own master as you move towards language mastery... No one "program" is going to do it for you... In answer to SW, I have NOT been in the AUA program NOR any other formal Thai language learning program in Thailand. I am sure that they all offer good techniques, activities and exercises, but I have created my own environments for learning and that has worked best for me... Yes, quite natural for me...

The answers you provide for yourself to part A) will help to guide you in your language studies... For myself, I have had high success in English (my mother tongue), and I have also studied, Spanish, Latin, German and Swedish to and beyond the university level. I am a polyglot and I have applied my successes in my other languages to my studies of Thai... I KNOW that I am an auditory and musical learner, who enjoys learning practically and passionately. Like learning how to play guitar or sing Jazz -- I enjoy learning how to express myself but also how to listen and repeat what I hear others (e.g., language speakers or musicians) are "saying." I have a very good "ear" -- that my be genetic -- but that is also a skill that I have practiced and developed...

C) When I advise Thai speakers on how to improve their English listening and repeating skills, I say: "Faang leh puut muen nok" = "Listen and speak like a bird." (do not "think too much" but repeat like a "bird"...) This is very important from my perspective... It is very important to listen carefully and repeat identically... In the beginning, it is very hard to accurately repeat the Thai phonemes (sounds) the same as a Thai speaker... You need a good teacher who has lots of patience and you must have lots of patience, too! And, repeated listening and repeating speaking along with Thai language tapes / CDs/ TV/ radio/ music is ESSENTIAL... There are no "shortcuts" -- this takes THOUSANDS of HOURS of listening and repeating... It is not particularly hard, but discipline, diligence and accuracy are needed... A few years ago, I spent many hundreds of hours listening and repeating the tape series for "Thai for Lovers" and "Thai for Beginners/ Intermediate Learners/ Advance Learners" (see Benjawan Poomsan Becker (now Terlecky) et al). It is a good audio tape series for the Thai portion... I listened to those tapes for more than a year while I commuted to and from work... I viewed it almost as a musical exercise in repeating for precision, tone, accuracy for the whole phrase and for individual consonants and vowels...

D) By the way, years ago I took two graduate courses in Linguistics and this gave me the tools via an IPA phonetic alphabet to break down Thai sounds so that they could be "parsed" and intelligible for me -- I have a rather accurate IPA writing system that I use for myself when I write down a new Thai word that I have not heard before... All of these studies I basically did on my own without direct supervision of a Thai teacher... If I was not sure of my accuracy, I would repeat the tape over and over until I mastered that tape... Then I felt I could move on to the "next level."

[The process that I describe above is basically what toddlers & preschoolers of all languages do "naturally" while they begin to master the sound system of their native language and learn the "accent" of their native language... Listen and repeat like a bird -- there is no replacement for that -- until you are confident of your mastery in that language -- you will know when you are reaching mastery because people will understand what you are saying... It is also OK if you speak "wrong" as long as you are open to being taught by your friends and acquaintances in Thai (or whatever new language you are practicing).] And as long as you encourage Thai speakers to correct you whenever needed... Do NOT worry about making mistakes -- that IS how we truly learn!!!

AND MORE IMMERSION:

The first year that I lived and worked in Thailand (8/2004 - 8/2005), I intentionally placed myself in an immersed language setting. I moved into a 100% Thai neighborhood (I avoided Farang friends during this time -- to avoid relying on English for communication...) Yes, give up on your Farang friends for a while if you can... ;-). I shopped at the local Thai market and local Thai businesses. I made many Thai friends. I ASKED QUESTIONS ALL THE TIME: "What is this? What is that? etc." I only listened to Thai TV and radio... I turned on Thai TV first thing in the morning and listened to the news, etc., and then went to work... When I returned home in the evening, I turned on the TV and listened to that until I fell asleep a few hours later... With this approach, I amassed about 4-5 hours a day of listening to Thai mass media X 365 = ~ 1,865 hours per year of semi-active listening for the gist of the story... At first this was very frustrating but I was patient with the fact I could not expect myself to understand every word -- but my progress was cumulative with time... During lunch, I sought out my Thai coworkers and listened to their stories and talked and ate with them...

At the same time during that year, I had two Thai girlfriends in succession... The first GF spoke some English, but soon we switched over to nearly 100% Thai ~ this frustrated her because she wanted to improve her English ~ but I more or less insisted that we speak Thai... (Yes, I am quite stubborn when I have a goal...) And, of course, I carried a dictionary with me at all times!!! REALLY!!! This is also essential as you begin to internalize your new language skills... That relationship ended after about 5 months... And then, I met another nice Thai lady who spoke NO ENGLISH at ALL! With the basic Thai I had learned already, my new GF and I spoke ONLY Thai together... This method allowed me to gain even more time practicing Thai every day ~ 4 hours per day talking with GF X 365 = 1460 hours per year...

As you can see, the thousands of hours really start to add up 1865 + 1460 = ~ 3,325 hours of Thai practice in that year alone... To add "excitement" (passion) to my language learning process, I also bought and drove an old car -- which required frequent repairs by local mechanics... This gave me deep experience in the "auto world" in Thailand for repairs but also for making trips and negotiating with locals for directions and also dealing with Thai police -- all of which was also invaluable for improving my Thai fluency...

For that year, it turned out that my second Thai GF was a "hilltribe" Thai who did not have proper Thai ID (mai mee baht bra-cha-chon Thai) and I hoped that we could fix this problem by working with the local bureaucrats at her amphur... (LONG story on that...) That experience (which elapsed over about 2 years) taught me greatly about Thai bureaucracy, Thai government, Thai lawyers and Thai "rigidness" about who are "true Thais" and not "true Thais." Sadly, I had to abandon that relationship because with inadequate Thai identification papers, that lady would never be able to travel outside of Thailand... Yes, there many hundreds of thousands of Thai people who do not have adequate documentation -- so they are not "true Thais" in the eyes of the Thai government... That is a truly sad story for many "Thai people" in Thailand... See that in other posts... Thai citizenry, Tabien baan, etc...

In Spring 2006, I met some new Thai friends who worked with Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok. At that point, I was ready to learn a more "professional" level of Thai language skills... For almost 3 years, I dated a Chula U. ajarn who helped me to become even more proficient in my Thai language skills, politeness and cultural awareness... Much of this learning came out of the natural friendship and fun that comes with new friends and a new girlfriend... As this relationship and process unfolded, my Thai became more fluent all the time...

From end of 2007 to the end of 2008, I worked as an active lecturer in my field at Chula U... As I began teaching my courses, I quickly found out that my students preferred my teaching in Thai over my teaching in English (hey, most young Thais study English in school but English is not a language that they use every day to converse and study...), so it was MUCH easier to teach and hold discussions in Thai as the language of instruction (Yes, I did give my Chula nisit / students readings in English but the discussion was always in Thai).

As you might guess, my Thai improved greatly during my year of teaching at Chula... EVERY Thai person speaks with their own accent and many young Thai university students speak in very quiet (low volume) respectful Thai that varies in accent based on where they grew up and their experience with middle Thai (Bangkok Thai AKA "passa glaang")... Listening and talking with hundreds of different Thais speakers on a WIDE VARIETY of TOPICS greatly improved my daily language skills...

During the same time, I was involved with several research committees and in developing a new international center for Chula U. These discussions with my Chula U. colleagues were ALWAYS in Thai... I also advised a number of students about their masters' levels theses -- again, in Thai... Of course, I also maintained my friendships with my GF and other Thai friends at the same time... All of these activities reinforced and extended my Thai language and cultural skills...

You can start to imagine how intense this level of IMMERSION has really been for me if you think about it... Just for the 2007 to 2008 year, I probably accrued 16 X 365 = ~ 5,840 hours of Thai practice and study just for that year... Of course, the level of intensity varies from activity to activity... But I highly recommend teaching the subject matter of your field in Thai ~ not many better ways to improve your own Thai ~ chai mai krab??? Oh, by the way, I almost forgot that I _often_ fell asleep in my room with my TV on ~ yet again adding hundreds more hours of passive study of Thai language...

So, in summary, if I include all extraneous studies and conversations, etc., I have probably accrued about 15,000 HOURS of Thai study and conversation to date since I first visited Thailand in 2002... Most Farang have not yet accrued 10% of that same amount of study time using true immersion methods... I am not criticizing most Farang, the reality is that most Farang do not have the time or the interest to study Thai so deeply... A SMALL percentage of Farang DO invest this LARGE amount of time and those Farang DO reap the benefits and rewards of learning Thai language, Thai culture and Thai people at a very deep level...

Please feel free to PM me if you have specific questions. This may be my last post on this particular string because it seems that other folks have already exhaustively discussed other methods...

As you can see, gaining fluency with Thai language, Thai people and Thailand is very much an individual journey... Thanks for reading and listening...

And, keep in mind that you will be creating your OWN version of Thai language for YOURSELF... Like playing a musical instrument with fluency and dexterity, you will learn to improvise best by playing with other people... It is very much like JAZZ!!!

Good luck to everyone for all of your Thai studies... AND YES, I AM _STILL_ LEARNING! ;-)

Chok dee na krab!

Succinct?

(I've no idea what this means; I'm just using it for effect...)

p.s Softwater - I'm sorry if you felt I was saying that adopting these methods was the ONLY way to learn Thai – I don't think I made that claim anywhere? I'm sure there are other ways... It certainly isn't my intention to "dismiss" other methods.

If you read your own posts, you'll find that you said people who learn from vocab lists are condemned to always translating...i'd say that counts as 'dismissing other methods'...

I would have thought the 'plug' I gave suggesting people check out your website for themselves would have been enough, but you seem determined to keep promoting your school under a thinly disguised attempt at offering us free advice. I think the forum has got it - both your view and mine. Shall we leave it here?

Could it be that the p.s remark was a bait? I rather admire Mr or Mrs Lanta, quite a skilled marketing pro...

LOL! This happened to me today. I was trying to get the tone right between เมือง and เหมือง(ทอง) - [see the cartoon thread] - and a Thai friend I asked did exactly this with their fingers and the tones (after boring the poor fella silly, I still couldn't clearly enunciate the difference between these two to the satisfaction of a Thai ear)

I have become fluent in Thai much faster than most folks because I understand the linguistic and developmental underpinnings of language acquisition to a high degree.

Wow!!

Care to share?

That would be far more germane to this discussion than Sofwaters obsession (sorry, honey!) with Lanta et al.

We understand your point about independent research, which is one of the reasons we tested our techniques before launching. We continuously assess our students performance, and monitor the effectiveness of our courses. Even though we are experiencing such a good success rate, we still review which areas of our courses are working most effectively, so we have a sound grasp of what actually works for our students.

That's a sales pitch equivalent to "'we tested our baby powder and can assure you its safe". Sorry, it doesn't amount to independent research.

Thanks for the info yoot and david.

I came back to add something further: the party who ออกข่าว could be reporters or Thaksin, I think. So, we could read it as "First they (the reporters) say that..." or "First he (Thaksin) says in the news that...". Given the 'ice factory' reference, I suppose we should go for the latter interpretation.

แก: he (Thaksin)

พี่แก: he, where พี่ is the title and แก is the third person pronoun

Trying to think of a good English equivalent for the โรงน้ำแข็ง reference that doesn't involve faeces. How about "He's going to open a factory producing smoke machines and mirrors" or "He's going into the hot air balloon inflation business"? No, those both suck.

aanon

Wow! How many great idioms and useful language points in just such a short pieces.

Many thanks to the OP. Would be great if we could keep this thread going with new cartoons, similar to the news stories thread, but the cartoons are a little less labour intensive! This one has been really informative.

Hi guys,

Anyone know of a online chat room.

I thought that might be a good way of practicing my Thai skills.

Can you post the URL?

Thanks

You could try http://www.sanook.com

If you want to practice with a thai who also wants to practice english, I recommend the language learning exchange site

http://www.italki.com

You can find a lot of uni-level thai students on here who will be amazed that you can read/write thai, and will chat with you in thai, help you to improve, and most of all be patient to wait while you slog through the keyboard. In return, chat with them in English (tho' i notice that more often than not once they realise they can chat with you in thai, they'll stick to thai ! great for us, not so good for them!). There used to be a video function too, but i think its gone now, but many members of the site use skype and msn too.

PS - it is an education site, NOT a dating site.

I have the ending for this story and i am happy to say its a happy ending

I got her back !

Shame on Jason's mother - who lets a child like this travel without a guardian?

Sounds more plausible that Mr Georgesen is scamming his local press - I don't buy this story at all.

I have to agree with SoftWater here. I've been taking the Skytrain regularly since it was built and have always found the securtity guards to be polite, professional and helpful, nothing like the local police. I have no proof that Mr. Georgesen is stretching the truth but it certainly seems out of character from what I have seen of these security guards in the past.

you're both full of it.

I'm already in the hills, ha ha. I been here over 10 years and will probably get bio-degraded in some crevice here (northernmost Thailand) when my time comes. I fully believe such scams can and are happening on a daily basis - been hearing about them for years, and I wouldn't put anything as being too low for a Thai authority to do to get extra baht. Most farang are easy targets because they get so readily spooked by authorities hauling them off to a room (unlawful detainment), along with stern threats of jail and such.

Oh ho ho, i'm going to have a hernia. I had a brother in law, lived in the north-east of England, Consett in Co.Durham, all his life, but still (thought he) knew everything that was going on in the big smog down south on account of what he read in the Telegraph. No end of amusement he was, with his Yokel local opinions, so out of touch!

I couldn't find 'endocrinology' in any of my reference books. I did find 'endocrine' as an adjective

1. secreting internally into the blood or lymph.

ซึ่งหล่ังสารเข้าสู่กระแสเลือดโดยตรง

Yawn...can I summarise? (I'm new here, is this allowed?)

1. There seems to be a lot of people pointing out that scams are commonplace in Thailand.

2. There's some quite reasonable arguments that claim a scam inside the skytrain is highly unlikely.

3. There's not a single other person presenting a tale of being scammed inside the skytrain. And of course, let's not forget

4. There's a few people in here working the crowd...

My verdict: the OP story is inaccurate at best, downright false at worst.

Is there anything more interesting to talk about?

I find it amusing that dipy tart can read thai, yet comes straight into thai visa and on one of her very first posts makes a comment about being on the wrong site because she thought thai visa was a site for people interested in Thailand.

Three cheers for you, neverdie, you got it. My post was intended to make a point by way of irony, which was that the forum seemed so full of negative remarks about thais and thailand its a mystery why some of you are here at all.

And there was I beginning to think no one had got it till neverdie saved the day.

Note to Mod: can we have an emoticon for "warning: irony approaching"...

I must be on the wrong site - I thought 'ThaiVisa' was for people interested in Thailand.

No Mate sorry to disappoint you.

Thai visa is a site where there are many 'experienced' expats that actually live in Thailand. Theres thousands of years in a collective total cruising the threads here telling their account of how things go down in the land of smiles.

If you want glossy brochures, slide down to the travel agent....now doubt they will be able to sell you something

Don't get me wrong, Thailand is a wonderful place with many wonderful people and its truely worth the visit, however when you pack to come on holiday make sure you don't forget your brain & all your common sense, which seems to be not that common these days. Goodluck and enjoy.

If you notice my second post you'd have seen that I can read thai, so not sure what makes you think i'm a tourist - maybe because i don't agree with the gang of expats who live in farang -ivory towers mansion and whose 'thousands of years' of collective experience involves little more than commuting from their farang oasis via taxis to red-light districts for years on end. There's a whole lot more to thailand than meets their eyes.

For all you peeps who are caught up in this 'thais are all scammers' stereotyping, just imagine if a foreinger lived in a red-light district in your own country and never saw much of the rest of it. What would they think about your country?

To the guy who said 'here's another one that doesn't get it' and then moaned about how the police follow farangs till they drop a butt on the street, the easy answer is: DON"T DROP LITTER AND YOU WON'T GET FINED. Not hard if you just think about it a little.

As for the OP, who DIDN'T drop litter, I feel sorry for him, but like others have said here, i'm not sure all the details are accurate. Was this at MBK or the Skytrain? As anyone else had this experience INSIDE the BTS station? Haven't heard anyone back this up yet.

love

DippyTart (an expat with much less than a thousand years of experience, but still more - apparently - than a lot of others 'round here.)

Is the box a cash register location for traffic violators or tourist information bay.?

Neither. The writing on the top of the kiosk says "Place to Pay the Fine for Littering". Aside from the fact that the kiosk should have an English langauge sign so that tourists would get the idea, I don't see how this is a scam.

It's illegal in most Western counries to drop litter, including the UK. The post above is misleading. The street where all the rubbish is not the same as the street where the kiosk is. Did it occur that one benefit of this practice is to keep the area looking respectable for other tourists? Is there any litter in the photos where the tourists are being fined?

No. It looks like apretty nice place to spend your holiday.

So the policy works.

The photo of the trash in the street is Suk Soi 11, in the heart of the hotel district.

Go there any morning and it looks just like that. If fact the entire area is trashed every nite by the vendors...not tourists.

So the answer would be to fine anyone who drops litter - both the tourists and the vendors - equally.

I couldn't agree more. I still fail to see how fining anyone for litter dropping amounts to a "scam".

Anyone got an online dictionary round here?

Is the box a cash register location for traffic violators or tourist information bay.?

Neither. The writing on the top of the kiosk says "Place to Pay the Fine for Littering". Aside from the fact that the kiosk should have an English langauge sign so that tourists would get the idea, I don't see how this is a scam.

It's illegal in most Western counries to drop litter, including the UK. The post above is misleading. The street where all the rubbish is not the same as the street where the kiosk is. Did it occur that one benefit of this practice is to keep the area looking respectable for other tourists? Is there any litter in the photos where the tourists are being fined?

No. It looks like apretty nice place to spend your holiday.

So the policy works.

I must be on the wrong site - I thought 'ThaiVisa' was for people interested in Thailand.

I think the reason why my scores where higher than I expected are based on the fact that the questions where multiple choice. I am the kind of person that's not good a languages but I am good at mathematics and logical thinking. I found out that when doing multiple choice tests I managed to guess the correct answer although I didn't really understand the question. Probably the few words I understood were enough to guess the correct answer with a high probability.

This also showed up in my writing score, which was only 3, while my other abilities were 5. As for the speaking test, I exactly got the kind of questions I expected. I had prepared for this. So, my speaking ability is probably lower than my score.

I will not do the test again this year because almost nobody gets a 6, so I can't really see my improvement with this test. I still feel a bit disappointed with the test. I would like to get a score in percent, and not a grade based on the percentile I am in (as is done now).

The test is also rather expensive (for Thailand) and your diploma is simple printed thick paper which says it's only valid for 2 years.

thanks for sharing that kris, it's an interesting perspective. I can see now how the test results could actually be de-motivating.

I'm sorry to hear the questions are multiple choice - i know this makes it easier for the examiners to mark, but it really does make it easy for the student - you know ONE hast got to be right, and the choices can give you clues about the meaning of the question.

Anyway, i decide to give it a crack, does anyone know how you apply? have you got to do it through a school or is there a website?/ministry office to go to?

(i looked on NIETS websiter but can't find anything related to tests for foreigners)

Someone is getting clever - just think of the extra revenue they can earn now that anyone can take the test at any level - I'd expect most people would only take the old test once their school told them they were ready (i.e. the school would level test the students); now the gov't can do that for the school. Also, i bet most people will take the test more than once as they'll want a measure of their improvement; presumably once you'd passed p6 that was it.

Not that i'm knocking the new test, got to be better for everyone. i figure i might do it to see where i stand, then take the results to a school for extra help.