When Farangs Go Native

[thaibeachlovers]

On ‎2‎/‎1‎/‎2018 at 7:15 PM, MrPatrickThai said:

I agree. The older people here are retired and have all day to learn. Often it's the wife or girlfriend that doesn't want them to know what's really going on. 

Hey, if you think I have all day to learn something I'll never, use think again. I'm busy enough as it is. I'm not one of those that just watches day time tv or sits in a roadside bar watching the traffic. In fact, I probably spend way to much on TVF as it stops me doing more important things.

 

Also, I never had a desire to know what the village gossips were saying about me behind my back.

Edited February 3, 2018 by thaibeachlovers

[wildewillie89]

I think the return of investment vs time needed is a fair point by thaibeachlovers. 

It would take years of structured and formal learning to reach a level that would result in interesting conversations for many (that covers all variables)...and that is providing a person has the genes/brain structure that favours learning a second language to begin with. When people say they are 'fluent', we should remember that there are different levels of fluency. I would be inclined to think many are more proficient. If fluent to the point where an in depth and high level conversation can be had, then great, but that would be a tiny minority of even Thai people and would not be all that easy for many farang to achieve. For me, to even attempt to reach that level would require giving up the time I spend with my kids. I compare it to back home. I used to work in construction whilst at university and the differences in conversation were startling. Great bunch of guys, but just didn't have the x factor you sometimes need. We just need to look at the Thai education system to see that most conversations will not be all that interesting. One thing my baby doctor warned me about was the fact critical thinking is not taught in many Thai schools, only memory, so I should be on my toes about that at home.

Or just look at the comparisons of the comprehension scores of the country to other countries (same test in native language). Look at that a criticism of the last referendum was a fair chunk of the population weren't able to even comprehend the questions. Or that on the most part Bachelor to Doctorate educated students fair better on English language government tests than the actual Thai language tests. Thai people educated enough to have a hard hitting conversation with have more than likely been surrounded by English at a very young age anyway (went to good institutions). Everyday living most people can get by just fine with the limited language they have picked up, and other things in their lives are probably considered more important to spend that time on.

Many 'fluent' speakers (nearly always self-proclaimed) will drag along the old line of this is just an excuse, but usually that is for the simple reason they like to big note themselves, rather than basing it on any logic. Which is why language is always brought up in completely unrelated threads and this exact conversation is had hundreds of times. I think fantastic for those who can speak an everyday level of language, or even a high level, but it doesn't mean just because you can that others can or even need to. 

As for the argument that foreigners learn English back home, well why is that? Back home, my friend's partners were provided free English lessons (incredibly basic). Those who were trying to get their own visas (not marriage), more often than not had no chance of scoring the passing grade needed unless they had been learning English from a young age. Not to mention the Thai/Cambodian/Vietnamese based communities where even shop keepers spoke less English than you will see at the markets in Bangkok. Did people complain? No, as on the most part everyone can get through life just fine, the same with farang here. 

[mikiea]

On 2/1/2018 at 8:36 PM, MrPatrickThai said:

What are you on about. What has 25 baht noodles got to do with anything?

haha haha haha ....you are to easy   haha aha gaa 

[YetAnother]

my desire to go native can be barely measured in micro-give-a-shits

[Chippy151]

3 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Hmmmm.

I learned all the Thai I need 20 years ago.

I live in an area where the locals that I interact with speak English.

I lived in a village for a few months and never felt any desire to participate in conversations with them. I did go to help a few Thai kids that wanted to learn English, but on the whole, no Thais I've met have exhibited any demonstrable desire to have conversations with me, and even the English teacher that couldn't speak English properly didn't want to come and practice with me.

 

Even when I lived in an English speaking country, few people were interested in the same things as I and those were my friends.

If someone wants to learn Thai so he can ask about what they had to eat last night go ahead. I don't think there are many conversations about philosophy or world politics in the village.

In the end, down to the individual as to what is important to them to spend time on.

To many of us the return on the investment isn't worth the time needed.

I like the last sentence. Just how I feel.

[Neeranam]

7 hours ago, MaeJoMTB said:

Makes me ashamed to admit mine is a dirt poor, dark skinned, Laos speaking unemployed rice farmer, who left school aged 12.

I think conversely, you are rather proud of the fact, if you wouldn't mention it so much. 

[Neeranam]

6 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

I lived in a village for a few months and never felt any desire to participate in conversations with them

If love to spend some time in a village talking with the locals.

There so much I could learn from them.

[Neeranam]

5 hours ago, wildewillie89 said:

I think the return of investment vs time needed is a fair point by thaibeachlovers

The return of investment is total freedom. I couldn't imagine having to take my wife or kids to the local mechanic to translate, sharing to my neighbors, etc. In fact, speaking Thai has got me out of some very dangerous situations, possibly even saving my life.

The time needed was fun for me, hanging out in Bangkok bars with friends, mostly female, where no English was spoken.

 

[wildewillie89]

6 hours ago, Neeranam said:

The return of investment is total freedom. I couldn't imagine having to take my wife or kids to the local mechanic to translate, sharing to my neighbors, etc. In fact, speaking Thai has got me out of some very dangerous situations, possibly even saving my life.

The time needed was fun for me, hanging out in Bangkok bars with friends, mostly female, where no English was spoken.

 

If they are the best/first thought about reasons, then that is a return of investment that probably many do not require. On the most part, people go to a mechanic once a year, or so irregular that the time spent would not justify it. Most probably sit there for an hour or two waiting for the car, or take two cars and go out for a snack, so having someone with you would actually be a good/needed thing. 

Conversations with a neighbour would more than likely fall into the above category mentioned, that is about everyday things such as food - very boring for many. Plus depends on circumstances, everyone in my villages knows not only my name, but even my two dog's names and scream out hello every time they ride past our house or I walk past. A peaceful walk with my dogs would turn into being stopped every 2 minutes to have exactly the same boring conversation as 2 minutes before, rather than just a smile and hello. 

 

I had my fun back in Melbourne. There is a big Thai/Asian community (mostly international university students), so we just went to bars/had parties in apartments and spoke English. I came to Thai to settle down, as I assume many other people do who live here long enough to even consider the need to try and learn Thai. Again, also probably comes down to what people consider interesting conversation.

The danger aspect is usually more due to people's stupidity rather than random events where language may actually save you. I have been in the real Red Zones of the Deep South (what I would more consider actual danger), no Thai language would have helped me as the dangerous people generally communicate in a different language anyway (one time I was discussed by a group of men at another table and mid meal was told to stand up by my friends and they made a ring around me and rushed me to the car). It highlights the point that if going into known dangerous situations then being surrounded by the right people is more important than language. Random dangerous situations are, again, so irregular that the return of investment wouldn't justify the time spent. 

Like I said, great to people who can speak an everyday level of Thai (most 'fluent' speakers) if it suits their lifestyle, but they shouldn't try and force or talk down to people (as they nearly always do) who cannot as it really isn't needed or even that physically possible for many. Not to mention, it definitely doesn't give them any sort of credibility/end word when talking things Thailand (like they seem to believe). That comes from the credibility of the Thai people the person is actually speaking to, not language. For example, I don't speak Thai but my Mrs is a high ranking government official (for her age), so has the needed contacts/ability to research, and scored the second highest Thai language score in the country - so the information I receive is more credible than someone who speaks Thai to a Thai person with maybe lesser credentials. 

[MaeJoMTB]

7 hours ago, Neeranam said:

The return of investment is total freedom. I couldn't imagine having to take my wife or kids to the local mechanic to translate,

You point at the broken part and say 'tao rai? or 'mai dee''

No need for any more Thai language, if he can't see what's wrong, he ain't the right guy to fix it.

 

Just took my pickup for some repairs, wife broke it, then had it repaired by a Thai idiot .... speaking Thai didn't help her. So I took it to another guy, point at the perished rubber parts I want repaired, point at the rear brakes. Easy.

 

@WildWilly

My wife is not useful in that way. Unemployed farm girl who left school age 12.

I didn't hire her for her language skills or mental acuity. 

Edited February 4, 2018 by MaeJoMTB

[thaibeachlovers]

8 hours ago, Neeranam said:

I think conversely, you are rather proud of the fact, if you wouldn't mention it so much. 

IMO not so much proud of his wife because she is dark skinned as mocking those that think having a hiso Chinese Thai white skinned wife makes them superior to those with lo so dark skinned wives.

BTW, my wife was a dark skinned lo so that didn't have a uni education, so can put me in the mocking group as well.

[thaibeachlovers]

8 hours ago, Neeranam said:

If love to spend some time in a village talking with the locals.

There so much I could learn from them.

 

The village I lived in was populated by ordinary people with all the desires and foibles of ordinary people anywhere, but they had never been anywhere other than the village, apart from himself next door that had been in the army. The only thing they did was grow rice and corn, and run shops selling junk food, or building supplies.

I'm not saying I'm the most travelled or experienced person in the world, but I've lived in 9 countries and visited 9 more, had 4 careers, have many additional professional skills and qualifications and lived in places where I was the only English speaking/ white person. Just what am I able to learn from the villagers that it's worth spending hundreds ( ?thousands ) of hours of my life learning enough Thai to converse with them?

[MaeJoMTB]

5 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

 

The village I lived in was populated by ordinary people with all the desires and foibles of ordinary people anywhere, but they had never been anywhere other than the village, apart from himself next door that had been in the army. The only thing they did was grow rice and corn, and run shops selling junk food, or building supplies.

I'm not saying I'm the most travelled or experienced person in the world, but I've lived in 9 countries and visited 9 more, had 4 careers, have many additional professional skills and qualifications and lived in places where I was the only English speaking/ white person. Just what am I able to learn from the villagers that it's worth spending hundreds ( ?thousands ) of hours of my life learning enough Thai to converse with them?

#MeToo

I guess some guys like to talk about planting rice.

[thaibeachlovers]

8 hours ago, Neeranam said:

The return of investment is total freedom. I couldn't imagine having to take my wife or kids to the local mechanic to translate, sharing to my neighbors, etc. In fact, speaking Thai has got me out of some very dangerous situations, possibly even saving my life.

The time needed was fun for me, hanging out in Bangkok bars with friends, mostly female, where no English was spoken.

 

I don't know what dangerous situations you have been in, but IMO the best defence against danger is avoiding it in the first place, and that's a non verbal "skill". Perhaps I've just been lucky, but managed to avoid such so far.

Far as hanging out in bars with females goes, my interests don't extend to conversation.

[sanemax]

8 hours ago, Neeranam said:

If love to spend some time in a village talking with the locals.

There so much I could learn from them.

What would you expect to learn from the villagers ?

You could learn from them that if you move the aerial on  the TV, the TV picture becomes clearer or that rice is planted in March and harvested in May and the field gets set alight in June .

Or, you could ask them about their village and they will tell you that their Family is very nice and honest and everyone else in the village is are drunken thieves and not to be trusted or that they got their big house from the daughter who worked in Pattaya for 25 years and she"bad person"

[overherebc]

9 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

I don't know what dangerous situations you have been in, but IMO the best defence against danger is avoiding it in the first place, and that's a non verbal "skill". Perhaps I've just been lucky, but managed to avoid such so far.

Far as hanging out in bars with females goes, my interests don't extend to conversation.

One of my mates learned Thai that way ( in the bars ) and would speak quite happily in Thai.

It was pointed out to him one day that some of the Thai he'd learned although understandable to all was, his Thai bosses words, not the kind of Thai to use in meetings etc, it would be ok with the workers but not with the Clients.

[wildewillie89]

I decided to live in a village and the Mrs decided to bring up her kids in her home village rather than the big cities she used to work for the qualities Thai is supposed to be famous for. Generosity, helping people, being happy etc. So if you have a flat battery, a complete stranger will go out of their way to help you, or if you are sick, village people will make food for you. 

 

By no means would we send our kids to the village school - a school which many Thai villagers think is sufficient for learning. You are not learning anything from villagers through conversation, you are learning human qualities through action. 

[MaeJoMTB]

36 minutes ago, overherebc said:

One of my mates learned Thai that way ( in the bars ) and would speak quite happily in Thai.

It was pointed out to him one day that some of the Thai he'd learned although understandable to all was, his Thai bosses words, not the kind of Thai to use in meetings etc, it would be ok with the workers but not with the Clients.

46% of the country is ethnic Siam, 45% of the country is ethnic Lao.

The Siam ethnic group ruthlessly suppress the Lao ethnic group, in language, culture and politics.

In Bangkok, in business, best not to speak Lao.

Edited February 4, 2018 by MaeJoMTB

[overherebc]

19 minutes ago, MaeJoMTB said:

46% of the country is ethnic Siam, 45% of the country is ethnic Lao.

The Siam ethnic group ruthlessly suppress the Lao ethnic group, in language, culture and politics.

In Bangkok, in business, best not to speak Lao.

Is there a similar table for todays figures?

[Zooheekock]

^^ A 1911 census? Really? And in any case, the problem with learning Thai from prostitutes is not so much that you might learn a non-standard dialect but that you are very likely to learn to speak in a register which is unacceptably low. Nobody is going to be too upset if your พูด accidentally gets replaced by an อู้ but if it's all กู and มึง, that's a different matter.
 

Quote

IMO not so much proud of his wife

because she is dark skinned as mocking those that think having a hiso Chinese Thai white skinned wife makes them superior to those with lo so dark skinned wives.

 

One reason for learning Thai is to avoid the kind of crushing, all-consuming stupidity and ignorance which is packed up inside sentences like this. These forums (though Thaivisa more than any of the others) trade in a handful of ridiculously crude stereotypes (e.g. 'hiso Chinese Thai white skinned wife' vs 'lo so dark skinned') which have close to no relationship at all with the complexities of Thai society and culture. Whilst it's true that, for the terminally dim, ignorance is indeed often bliss and the comfort afforded by swapping nuggets of this ludicrous nonsense with other, equally dim, forum members is most welcome and makes an extremely attractive replacement for the hard work of actually dealing with reality, not everyone finds adult fairy tales an appealing substitute for the real world. If you live in the country and you want to understand it, you need to learn the language. There's no way around that and being ignorant of the language just means being ignorant of your environment. If that's an acceptable state of affairs, then I guess people are welcome to be ignorant but I can't imagine putting myself in that situation.
 

Quote

What would you expect to learn from the villagers ?

Don't know but not everyone spends their days dealing with thieving, drunk in-laws in some God-awful backwater, married to a peasant farmer with a primary-school education. Some people are in situations where the conversational possibilities are not limited to rice farming and what to eat for supper. You want to go to a bookshop and listen to a discussion about the SEA Write awards? It's in Thai. You want to talk about the new constitution? You're going to do it in Thai. You want to read about Thai history? The books are in Thai.

 

Edited February 4, 2018 by Zooheekock

[MaeJoMTB]

1 hour ago, Zooheekock said:

^^ A 1911 census? Really?

.....You want to talk about the new constitution? You're going to do it in Thai. 

 ......... You want to read about Thai history? The books are in Thai.

 

Yes, the racial distribution is still the same, but governments after 1914 removed Lao from the census forms as it was considered 'divisive'.

Most of the Thais I encounter are speaking some form of Lao language, which is essentially different to Central Thai.

Not sure there is an accurate Thai history book written in Thai, as the government usually bans most of them.

 

But there certainly are many Thai history books which appear (more) truthful, and strangely written in English.

One such recently (10 years back) written by Paul M Handley, which I won't name, and a hefty prison sentence if caught reading it in Thailand.

 

Why would I want to read about the new constitution?

"We're a load of rich people with guns and tanks, and you serfs will do what we want or else"

I think I've summed it up rather concisely.

Are we allowed to discuss the constitution now? I wouldn't risk it.

Not with Thais anyway, not my country, what would be the point?

Have they removed the prohibition of more than 4 Thais gathering? Arrested in a bookshop, no thanks!

Edited February 4, 2018 by MaeJoMTB

[MaeJoMTB]

1 hour ago, overherebc said:

Is there a similar table for todays figures?

No, they removed Lao as a census choice in 1914 as far as I know.

But there is a language table from 2015 that suggests 33% of Thai nationals speak Lao as a first language and only 33% of Thais speak Central Thai as a first language. Which sort of suggests, the original Thai population (mainly Siam/Lao) has been diluted by other ethnic groups in the last 100 years (a bit like the rest of the world).

 

https://isaanrecord.com/2015/09/02/guest-editorial-thai-has-the-highest-percentage-of-second-language-speakers-among-major-languages/

 

One of the questions I always ask when foreigners state, 'you should learn to speak Thai' is which language? I'm in the Lanna north, they all speak Lao dialects, why would I learn Central Thai?

Edited February 4, 2018 by MaeJoMTB

[wildewillie89]

9 minutes ago, MaeJoMTB said:

But there certainly are many Thai history books which appear (more) truthful, and strangely written in English.

One such recently (10 years back) written by Paul M Handley, which I won't name, and a hefty prison sentence if caught reading it in Thailand.

I used to have a friend  back home who was an academic at Mahidol University and decided to move to Australia to further her studies for this very reason. She was always of the impression that many farang knew more about her country than the local people due to the above reasons. 

Regardless of that, such critical understanding and debate would still need years of formal structured learning of the language. Not 6 months like 'fluent' speakers seem to think. 

[overherebc]

10 minutes ago, MaeJoMTB said:

No, they removed Lao as a census choice in 1914 as far as I know.

But there is a language table from 2015 that suggests 33% of Thai nationals speak Lao as a first language.

I can remeber seeing a series of maps/diagrams that followed the changes in the borders expanding and contracting through history.

[MaeJoMTB]

1 minute ago, Zooheekock said:

Since you can't read Thai you obviously couldn't possibly make that judgement.

When did I ever say I can't read Central Thai?

[MaeJoMTB]

4 minutes ago, Zooheekock said:

You're talking about a cultural and a linguistic distinction, not a racial one.

Not my words ......

"Siam/Thailand stands out within Southeast Asia. Avoiding direct colonialization allowed the traditional elite to retain their power unhindered. The ability of the Bangkok elite to adapt the European concepts of race and the mechanism of the census has masked non-Thai ethnicities to create the impression that the vast majority of the population was safely and clearly of one race."

by Karl Victor

Edited February 4, 2018 by MaeJoMTB

[Zooheekock]

" European concepts of race and the mechanism of the census has masked non-Thai ethnicities to create the impression that the vast majority of the population was safely and clearly of one race "

What do you think the implication of the modifier 'European' is in that sentence?

I'm starting to feel that perhaps your wife married down a little too far.

[sanemax]

2 hours ago, MaeJoMTB said:

46% of the country is ethnic Siam, 45% of the country is ethnic Lao.

The Siam ethnic group ruthlessly suppress the Lao ethnic group, in language, culture and politics.

In Bangkok, in business, best not to speak Lao.

Although that census was for Siam , not for Thailand .

When that census was taken, Laos was part of Siam , so, those figures include the area which is now called Laos .

   Thailand was formed in 1948 and didnt include Laos .

So, your figures are misleading

[metisdead]

Inflammatory posts and replies have been removed. 

[thaibeachlovers]

38 minutes ago, sanemax said:

Although that census was for Siam , not for Thailand .

When that census was taken, Laos was part of Siam , so, those figures include the area which is now called Laos .

   Thailand was formed in 1948 and didnt include Laos .

So, your figures are misleading

LOL. The French would be surprised at that, given it was part of French Indochina from 1893 till autonomy in 1949 and independence in 1953.

 

Only the name of Siam was changed in 1948

Wikipedia.

The signature of King Mongkut (r. 1851–1868) reads SPPM (Somdet Phra Poramenthra Maha) Mongkut King of the Siamese, giving the name "Siam" official status until 24 June 1939 when it was changed to Thailand. Thailand was renamed to Siam from 1946 to 1948, after which it again reverted to Thailand.