Johpa

JR Texas, can you please post your verified prediction accuracy rate for the last 30 years? I know you wont. So I am looking for my handy elephant sized grain of salt after reading your predictions.

I see you are from Texas, land of tall tales.

Did you advise Bush on his wonderful Iraq war predictions too?

What a dumb comment.

You do realize that Texas has over 20 million people, many of which are not inbred rednecks, but intelligent professionals, artists, and industrialists?

I believe the more correct formulation of the sentence above should be:

You do realize that Texas has over 20 million people, a few of which are not inbred rednecks, but intelligent professionals, artists, and industrialists?

I think you are better off learning the Thai writing system right from the get go rather than wasting time learning some phonetic or romanization system. Why learn a language only to be an illiterate?

My old school Thai professor at my university thought it was better to start with a phonetic transliteration system in order to more easily understand the phonetic aspects that were different than in English, e.g. long vs short vowels and glottal stops. That being said, he transitioned us to Thai script before the beginning of the third trimester and we used the rather precise AUA transliteration system.

1) not formerly a man

Nor currently in possession of an attached penis given the attractiveness of some Ladyboys and given how many TG are indeed TG.

I recently booked two rooms at the Queens Garden for a group of five, including the wife and two teenage kids. It was easy to book the rooms online via e-mail, they were very polite, and no deposit required. My family described a fairly basic Thai style hotel that was was clean and comfortable. My wife's only complaint was that there was no breakfast included in the price, which was about 1,500 for a triple room. A bit high, but not bad for the convenience for those like myself who find the price of the Novotel to be far above value for mere convenience. One will have to borrow someone's cell phone at the airport to call for the pick-up if one does not have a phone upon arrival.

On the other hand:

:D ......

To make a long story short, no matter how logical it was to me that he had broken the book and should pay for it, he insisted that I was cheating him and he kept repeating it like a mantra. I ended up paying him 80 baht and he left, completely disgusted.

and as a fellow retailer with decades of experience, my mantra is " the masses are asses."

Of course, the dollar is dropping a bit recently, that's the good news. The bad news is that the assets of Americans, including myself, is appreciating so fast that they have far more dollars to convert; and they do. This puts pressure on prices in Thailand and elsewhere as 'Merkins go out with their wad of cash to buy.

The percentage of Americans whose assets are appreciating significantly is rather small, just as the number of Thais who are benefiting directly from a strong baat are similarly small. But in the end it is all one big pyramid scheme that slowly unfolds over decades with very few big winners and lots of very sore losers. In Thailand the winners tend to live in gated compounds. In the US they tend to migrate to gated communities where they will be able to share in the future security costs.

Uh, guys, does anyone really think there will be an authentic, franchised Hooters on Soi 9 off Moon Muang?

I would imagine that it would be as authentic as the Hard Rock Cafes found in the Kingdom.

Backpackers eh.. you can take em out of the trailerpark but....

Odd then that for all intents and purposes Chiang Mai, as a destination for foreigners, was built upon backpacker dreams. The entire trekking industry was built up upon the backs of backpackers so to speak and trekking is what put Chiang Mai on the map. Why if old man Daret hadn't started catering to backpackers in his old noodle shop location on Moon Muang then there might not have been a proliferation of guesthouses. And if there had not been a proliferation of guesthouses then the nicer hotels might not have been built. And then the major tourist attractions might have remained the Asian version of natural beauty such as the long forgotten Erawan resort. And without the tourist attractions and the upscale hotels then all those foreign food restaurants that all you neo-sahibs depend upon for your sustenance might not exist.

So you can slither up your pedestals all you want, but to mock the people who forged the ammenities in Chiang Mai that you depend upon is a bit ironic, if not narrow minded.

No way BKK hospital could rip them off as they know the prices already.

I am sure they know the prices charged to ex-pats, but I really doubt they know the prices charged to locals. I am not saying that the Thai hospitals would try to rip off the US insurance companies and I am certain that the cost would still be a fraction of the cost for the same procedure performed in the US. But even a doubling of the gross fee would triple my out of pocket expenses after the deductible.

A dietician would tell you that adding insects to your diet is smarter than you might think.

They're high protein, virtually fat free and cost free.

Ask any aardvaark or pangolin.

Perhaps that is why Pangolin is such a tasty delicacy up north.

In a less than perfect world, I would agree that using roi is a far better transliteration than raawy, which is, IMHO, a really, really bad transliteration.

Trying to communicate over the phone between two non-medical types, and my knowledge of English medical terms is almost as bad as my knowledge of Thai medical terms, especially for health issues that are always discusssed in rather oblique terms to men, anyone know the Thai words for fibroids, a uterine condition?

Paying for the procedure in baat is no problem. Our insurance is with one of the "Big Blues" in the US, and the hospital she will be at in Thailand is an approved hospital. But she was quoted the "locals" price in baat and I fear if we ask our insurance company to get involved they will be quoted a Farang price which will be at least twice as much. Between the deductible and the co-pays, I would end up paying more out of pocket if they were to increase the price too much.

Farma is right about the proper term.

As for popular, I've heard [ซี้ด], and googling around I've seen the spellings of ซีส is most common, but ซีสต์ is used a lot, too. I think ซีสต์ is probably the more "correct" of the two. Doesn't affect pronunciation, of course.

Based on Google, it appears ซีสต์รังไข่ ซีสต์ที่รังไข่ and ซีสต์ในรังไข่ are all possible phrasings.

Likewise, ถุงน้ำรังไข่ ถุงน้ำที่รังไข่ and ถุงน้ำในรังไข่ are varyingly used.

My wife was using the term ซีส over the phone and I thought she was maybe using the English word seed. I was a bit slow there.

My wife recently returned to Thailand to visit the family and it appears she will need some surgery. Our US based health insurance will cover what little they would cover if it occured in the US, but I fear that if we involve the US health insurance company directly into billing matters that the cost will go up as the Thai hospital will then charge, well you know the old Thai two-tier pricing policy. Anyone have experience in these matters? I am leaning towards paying up front and then hoping the US insurance company will at least apply the payments towards my deductible for the year. Any thoughts?

Looking for both popular and/or proper Thai term for ovarian cyst.

I don't know about the legality, but Classic Army, a manufacturer of some higher end Airsoft electric rifles (AEGs) has a distributor listed in Bangkok. You can't hunt small game with these but they are good for small varmint behavior modification purposes.

My Thai wife mailed her sister a purse and some cosmetics in a gift package. Filled out the usual declarations clearly showing the contents were a gift but the U.S. Post Office quoted her a price for air mail with insurance. U.S. Post office is doing that now to up-sell the customer and wife went for it although she could have rejected the insurance and sent it surface mail as she has in the past.....

As of a few weeks ago, sending packages via surface mail from the US is no longer an option. All packages sent international, including to Canada, must go by air.

......There also does not seem to be any "automatic" resentment against fellow Thais who are rich (no class-struggle).

IRONICALLY, it is only in ThaiVisa where I see so many farang whingers who like to be the ones to "blame it on the elite", or "blame it on the hi-so", or "blame it on the Thai chinese", etc., when the local Thais don't seem to brand their fellow Thais of chinese descent as being "different".

To them, the Thai chinese are simply "Thai", and even elect them to government......

.....So, may I ask, why the bitterness among the Farangs about this when the native Thais don't seem to give a dam_n?

Is it because a certain group of farangs are upset that this particular group of Thais, the hi-so or the Thai-Chinese, don't "worship" the Farangs as "white gods" the same way the lower-classed Thais do?

I am just a middle aged curmudgeon whose Thai friends are also 50 years of age or more, mostly ethnic Thais or non-Chinese minorities, and born in the rural areas, and perhaps things have changed amongst the younger generations. But my acquaintances all refer to certain people as being Chinese and talk about the Thai-Chinese as being a bit different. They also tend to fear the power of the Thai-Chinese and treat them with a certain amount of deference, actually quite a bit of deference and a tinge of fear. So in my experience, and your mileage may vary, your claim that the larger ethnic Tai community perceives the Sino-Thai as being "simply" Thai does not hold water.

As to why there is no, or little political consciousness of a class struggle in Thailand is an excellent question with no simple answers. There certainly have been attempts over the decades such as the Thai Farners Federation that is documented in Chai-Anan and Morrell's book, a movement that was met with brutal State repression as was the CPT.

I do not believe in shooting a messenger nor do I believe that reasoned criticism arises from bitterness. And after a nearly 30 year connection to Thailand the closest I have been to a "white god" is the rare times I had a beard and somoene would call me Hanuman, although cleanshaven sometimes I was seen as just a laughable white monkey, I shall try to dismiss your last preposterous claim without predjudice.

It would be interesting to know which other Southeast Asian country you were living in to compare the history of the overseas Chinese in that country to those in Thailand.

From your description, this sounds like a clear case of family abduction, the most common form of child abduction anywhere.

In case you are unfamiliar with the term, the following may be of interest to you:

Defining Family Abduction

For the purposes of NISMART–2, family abduction was defined as the taking or keeping of a child by a family member in violation of a custody order, a decree, or other legitimate custodial rights, where the taking or keeping involved some element of concealment, flight, or intent to deprive a lawful custodian indefinitely of custodial privileges.

Gee, I don't recall the description of this case as involving any violation of a custody order, nor any element of concealment, nor any intent to deprive any priviledges indefinitely by the late father. It is a very complicated case and clearly the birthmother, if she were to suddenly appear, would be able to claim custody, and even the maternal grandparents, given that traditional Thai culture is matrilocal, might be able to claim custody. But abduction does not fit the bill here at all. So time to climb back up the simian ladder to a higher level of reasoning.

..... But getting back to the thrust of my initial post, such a mistake with a tone in Thai seems to only elicit a look of bewilderment. Any thoughts?

Further thoughts move along the line that it is an asymetric relationship: you are desperately hoping that some Thai person wants to understand you as much as you want them to understand what you are saying while the reality is that the Thai person, on the contrary, could care less whether they understand a word you have to say.

The best thing about Fox is the amazingly beautiful women they find to read the news, host shows etc.

It dispels the commonly held belief that lovely blondes are all 'Bimbos'.

They are quite brilliant!

BBC readers are mostly plain with bad hair........

Au contraire, I find most of the FOX women (and men) to be absolute bimbos, not to metion that they allow the cadaverous Ann Coulter to spew her contorted venom. But one of the FOX women is the sister of a close friend and ol' high school buddy of mine and every time I give her the benefit of the doubt I begin see how much she resembles her brother and any incipient thoughts of her being attractive are dashed into oblivion.

The "Thais don't speak Thai correctly" rally cry is incessant, and there's an article about it in one newspaper or another several times a year, it seems. It's hard for me to get on board with that, because it's just a matter of perspective. There is something called "Standard Thai," but it's a fantastic creature rarely--if ever--sighted in the wild.

Yes, it is difficult for many people to grasp that the dialect of English that became the "Queen's English" is merely a historical accident and has absolutely nothing to do with it being a better, more correct, more precise, or a more polished dialect. From a linguistic point of view, all dialects are absolutely equal. It is only from a sociological perspective that some dialects have more perceived prestige than others.

It is little wonder that the old polemics about incorrect language usage have seen a resurgence recently given the current post-Thaksin politics with some sides (Sonthi Limthongkul) attempting to belittle Thaksin's rural supporters.

OK. So it's 1-1 in the vote. I know it's tough to simplify to this degree, but my original 'Why' question has become an 'Is it the case that......' question. I'm hoping for more opinions - Without any context to help, and in isolation from other errors, is it the case that an error in pronunciation of tone can cause complete misunderstanding from a native Thai speaker?

But of course Mr. Luke, a mistaken tone can lead to a failure to communicate. The tone in Thai carries that same amount of information that a consonant carries in English.

Imagine that a non-native English speaker with a heavy accent and limited proficiency comes up to you and says: "Excuse me, you help me, I lost my jat."

This is something which has bugged me for a long time. Why, when I mispronounce a tone, is it so hard for a native speaker to guess/figure out what I'm saying? Taking context out of the equation, for example, if I say to a taxi driver "Pai _______", yet get the tone wrong, he has absolutely no idea where I want to go. In English, if a word is mispronounced, we can generally have a good shot at what it means, but this doesn't seem to be the case in Thai. I speak Thai quite well but have never been able to get my head round this. Can anyone help?

Tones are indeed, as another poster put it, "ingrained" as they are part of the phonological inventory no less than vowels and consonants. Using a wrong tone is little different to a Thai ear (actually more the brain) than an Indo-European speaker using the wrong consonant. The tone carries information that relates to meaning (phonemic) and a change of tone can change the meaning of the word just as a change of consonant can change the meaning in Indo-European languages. It is little wonder that most Thais get confused when you use the wrong tone. And when you combine the wrong tone with wrong consonants (especially the unaspirated stops and the lack of a final glottal stop) and a very heavy accent, well don't be surprized that Thais can't read between the lines. So you can have a large Thai vocabulary and be able to construct many proper sentence forms in Thai, but if you don't have minimal control of your tones and consonants then you may not yet speak Thai well yet.