Video: Thai Scrabble students display their English knowledge - how many words do you know?

[webfact]

Video: Thai Scrabble students display their English knowledge - how many words do you know?

 

 

A video from a Scrabble event in Sri Racha at the weekend showed two Thai high school students competing on a giant board in the Pacific Park shopping center in front of intrigued shoppers.

 

But was this English or some weird language from another planet?

 

In the early stages of the game the vocabulary on show featured such words as OORIE, ZA, YAWP, WHUPS, APOD, JERID and MIG.

 

In fact most native speakers might be struggling to give a meaning to much more than OX, BEACONS, FAN and FUG!

 

 

The match was the culmination of the 18th Eastern Seaboard Championships that featured student divisions as well as a section for professional adult players. The professional division was won by a young Thai man despite the presence of an English born competitor.

 

Scrabble - called Crossword Game in Thailand due to contractual matters - is very popular in Thailand with competitions throughout the country.

 

Next week a Thai contingent will head to Malaysia to compete in the World Seniors Championships (over 55s) and the Malaysian Open in Kuala Lumpur.

 

World Number one Scrabble player Nigel Richards from New Zealand will be playing in the Malaysian Open.

 

You may like to know the meaning of some of the words: OORIE (shivering with cold), ZA (pizza), YAWP (to yawn audibly), WHUP (to beat decisively), APOD (animal without feet), JERID (a wooden javelin used in Muslim countries) and MIG (a marble).

 

All words are in both the US Scrabble lexicon and the international Collins word list for the game.

 

Be careful if a Thai student ever challenges you to a game!

 

Footage came from the organizers of the game in Thailand the Thai Crossword Game Association.

 

-- © Copyright Thai Visa News 2018-06-20

 

 

 

[Darcula]

16 minutes ago, webfact said:

Scrabble - called Crossword Game in Thailand due to contractual matters

 

They should've called it Scabbun. Contractual problem solved.

 

 

[George Bowman]

10 minutes ago, webfact said:

Thai Scrabble students display their English knowledge

 According to the Scrabble Gods, there is no rule that states that a player must know the meaning or pronunciation of a word.

 

I found out that this was not a good thing. In the first few months of my teaching career many of my students got 100% on their weekly spelling quiz. Week after week until I realized that we were just spinning our wheels.

 

The Friday spelling quiz was changed. Not only did they have to know how to spell the word correctly, they also had to be able to tell me what the word meant.

 

Memorization is not necessarily knowledge. Sorry Scrabble fans…

[mok199]

1 hour ago, Darcula said:

 

They should've called it Scabbun. Contractual problem solved.

 

 

that's Lidicurous

[bluesofa]

2 hours ago, Darcula said:

2 hours ago, webfact said:

Scrabble - called Crossword Game in Thailand due to contractual matters

 

They should've called it Scabbun. Contractual problem solved.

Is that because they they won't pay to licesun it?

 

[Borzandy]

3 hours ago, webfact said:

Thai Scrabble students

I didn't know Thai students can also learn scrabble. I thought they never learn anything.

[gjoo888]

Scrabble uses the SOWPODS dictionary to verify words that are used playing the game. I've never heard of about half the "words" listed in that dictionary, and I majored in English in college (which doesn't necessarily mean much of anything). 

[tubby johnson]

2 hours ago, mok199 said:

that's Lidicurous

And vely lacist.

[Kasset Tak]

I don't play scrabbles using the official rules. When I play with my friends and students, then we ONLY accept proper words, no acronyms, no proper nouns... and only words from the language we play in! Generally we say that the word should be in either Oxford or Collins dictionary, that leaves you with about 250,000 words to use.
And just for the idiots that play according to SOWPODS: ZA is an abbreviation of South Africa, to use the SOWPODS meaning of za (abbreviation of pizza) it should really be 'za so therefor its really not usable as there is no ' tile in scrabbles...
 

And 'za is not listed in either Oxford or Collins dictionaries so we would not accept it anyway when we are playing!

[Jane Dough]

22 minutes ago, Kasset Tak said:

I don't play scrabbles using the official rules. When I play with my friends and students, then we ONLY accept proper words, no acronyms, no proper nouns... and only words from the language we play in! Generally we say that the word should be in either Oxford or Collins dictionary, that leaves you with about 250,000 words to use.
And just for the idiots that play according to SOWPODS: ZA is an abbreviation of South Africa, to use the SOWPODS meaning of za (abbreviation of pizza) it should really be 'za so therefor its really not usable as there is no ' tile in scrabbles...
 

And 'za is not listed in either Oxford or Collins dictionaries so we would not accept it anyway when we are playing!

The dictionary for Scrabble is not known as SOWPODS any more. The international lexicon for Scrabble - now used in open division games in Thailand - is Collins 2015. ZA is in that dictionary.

Thai students still use TWL 06, an American dictionary. ZA is in that too.

BTW...playing Scrabble according to official rules and dictionaries is much more fun - children who learn in this way will be able to enter and hold their own in tournaments in Thailand. Try it!

[dinsdale]

9 hours ago, webfact said:

Thai Scrabble students display their English knowledge

Display their memorising of obscure English words. Wonder how many of them could tell you what obscure means.

[Tongue Thaid]

Bloody gambling,that’s what it is.Arrest them and throw them into jail with the Pattaya bridge club and dart players

[Rhys]

Actually some of the play .. accept not words but letters..and the Thai kids know all the high scoring conventions...

[freebyrd]

Knowledge of big words doesn't necessarily make you intelligent. I lived in PI for 5 years and at first made the mistake of thinking that because many spoke good English that they were of a reasonable level of education and, dare I say it in these oh so PC days, a similar level of intellectual sophistication, how wrong I was.

 

Just because someone has a more extensive vocabulary, that doesn't make them any smarter than your or I.

[Somchai Logic]

Future World Champions...

Oh, Wait!!!

What???

The last guy was a fraud??? 

But he was a "Thainess" Champion