Why are expats so bad in Thai?

[scorecard]

Thanks, is iTranslate the same as Microsoft translator? 

[Gandtee]

A couple of times I recall when I made an idiot of myself regarding the Thai language. Once, showing off to my family on their departure from the airport, when I thought I had asked to check the bill in the restaurant. The waiter looked confused. My wife asked me what I'd said to him. She informed me I'd asked him to fill up my tank! The other time when I was trying to pull a bit of rank when trying to get my car unclamped in what must be the first case on Walking Street years ago. I told the cop at the cop shop desk that my brother in law was a police colonel. What I had told him was that he was a pineapple. The brother in law still tells his friends and has remained a pineapple ever since. For some reason, the fine went from Bt500 to Bt300 Most probably to get rid of me quickly.

[Small Joke]

8 hours ago, DoctorG said:

I am with the above posters who have mentioned the tones. I just couldn't get it and had similar problems when trying to learn Mandarin.

The good thing with English speakers is that they can usually figure out what it is you are trying to say even if you mangle some words. I found my attempts at Thai to be frustrating because in my mind I was saying things correctly (or near) and Thais would just stare with a blank face of incomprehension. I learned the basics and gave up on anything deeper.

Yes, what is it that they just can't figure out a wrong tone? Is not all simple language 99% context, be it immIgration, food, shopping, dating, etc?

If the language is so phonetically complex that THEY cant figure out that you mean "beautiful" when you acidentally said "bad luck" (Sooay) then what chance does a foriegner have? 

Also the written alphabet soup, and the fact that some written words all mesh together without a gap.

Plus I'm now hard of hearing.

But most of all, life is getting too short now to waste it learning a complicated language badly.

 

Edited November 5, 2018 by Small Joke

[BoganInParasite]

In my case because the Thai wife has actively discouraged it. She wanted to hone her English language skills which has certainly happened. I'm working on it a bit now though.

[GarryP]

It is not just the tones. Some of the consonants are pronounced differently to what I was used to when I was relatively new here. I remember getting strange looks and getting turfed out of a food shop many years ago, when I asked for a banana milk shake. Turns out my pronunciation was so bad that I was asking, in a very crude way, for a semen milkshake. 

 

I once ate fried rice every day for a week or so because it was the only dish I knew the name of. And that was only because I had associated it with cowpat. Not a nice picture to have in your head when you are ready for lunch. 

 

Luckily, I am pretty fluent now as a result of a total immersion approach. Not intentional at all, but 35 years ago there were not that many locals in my neighborhood who spoke English.   

[Lacessit]

I think learning to speak Thai is an excellent antidote for Ahlzheimer's. I converse in Thai with my GF most of the time, and try to pick up a new word every day.

I'll never be fluent. My main problem is when I am talking to a Thai they assume I am fluent, and then I have to wing it.

I don't understand falangs who refuse to learn any Thai at all, because IMHO that puts them at a serious disadvantage.

Thai is a language of vowels and tones. Thais have equal difficulty with the combined consonants of English, which sometimes leads to hilarious mispronunciations by my GF. Ask a Thai to pronounce the word refrigerator, and you'll see what I mean.

[Shackleton123]

The problem is simple. Learning Thai (especially for an expat not married to a Thai) is a huge investment of time. Add to that the uncertainty of being able to stay here any length of time. Anyone with recent Immigration experience knows what I mean by that. Thai is useless anywhere else except Thailand. English is what everyone else wants to learn - and to their immense credit Thai people are learning it by the thousands. English is spoken in most countries (why else are the road signs in Thai and English - not Thai and German, or French or Italian? So for expats it's simply not a pressing issue.

 

[marcusarelus]

44 minutes ago, watcharacters said:

 

Are your Thai language skills available for hire?  Just for your friends on TVF of course.

 

Sorry no work permit and I wouldn't do it for free.  I can recommend someone.  1000 baht an hour 10 hour minimum. 

[marcusarelus]

8 minutes ago, Shackleton123 said:

The problem is simple. Learning Thai (especially for an expat not married to a Thai) is a huge investment of time. Add to that the uncertainty of being able to stay here any length of time. Anyone with recent Immigration experience knows what I mean by that. Thai is useless anywhere else except Thailand. English is what everyone else wants to learn - and to their immense credit Thai people are learning it by the thousands. English is spoken in most countries (why else are the road signs in Thai and English - not Thai and German, or French or Italian? So for expats it's simply not a pressing issue.

 

I found going to school much easier without a GF.  My first in CM didn't want me to speak Thai and interfered with my studies at every opportunity. 

[Lacessit]

7 minutes ago, marcusarelus said:

Sorry no work permit and I wouldn't do it for free.  I can recommend someone.  1000 baht an hour 10 hour minimum. 

At that rate and requirements, I would be expecting a guarantee of fluency.

[bunta71]

My excuse is a combination of laziness, the difficulty of the thai script and the fact that my daughter grew up here and reads, writes and speaks fluently. She translated everything I needed for free

 

[marcusarelus]

3 minutes ago, Lacessit said:

At that rate and requirements, I would be expecting a guarantee of fluency.

You pays your money you takes your chances.  I don't need the work. 

[Lacessit]

1 minute ago, bunta71 said:

My excuse is a combination of laziness, the difficulty of the thai script and the fact that my daughter grew up here and reads, writes and speaks fluently. She translated everything I needed for free

 

My Thai is not fluent, but it's adequate. It's debatable whether one needs to learn Thai script for spoken Thai.

[Lacessit]

3 minutes ago, marcusarelus said:

You pays your money you takes your chances.  I don't need the work. 

It was a hypothetical statement. I don't need your language skills, whatever they may be.

[atyclb]

5 hours ago, Peterw42 said:

6 hours ago, NCC1701A said:

I very first things I learned to say before I came to Thailand were "You are beautiful" "What is your name?" "I love you".

*Laughing*

I think the "you are beautiful" is most guys introduction to the subtle tonal differences. Suay is one of the first words I learnt (with the intention of possibly seeing girls naked). I quickly learned that suay means beautiful or with an imperceptible tonal difference means "a curse on your buffalo" or something similar. (Certainly didn't lead to seeing girls naked)

 

For me, any Thai language skills went down hill from there, lol

 

 

stop bitching, you got to see lots of naked cursed buffalos 

[meinphuket]

Who on earth are you to judge what others may not want to learn ?

[Tchooptip]

 

  7 hours ago, sirineou said:

Absolutely right, in addition Thai is not related to the european languages   and if you simply learned the words and then try to structure a sentence the same way you would in English, you would make litle sense. For instance in english you would say the red car. same in Greek "to cokino autokinito or in italian " La machina  rossa . different words but same structure   But in Thai you would not say "the red car" but rather "the car red"  (rot si dang)  I know the words but I have trouble with the sequence.   Next year when I retire and have more time in Thailand I plan to  take lessons and hopefully crack the code.

7 hours ago, animalmagic said:

Not sure I understand your reference here.  La machina rossa is exactly the same construction as rot si dang; both are the car red!

"Not sure I understand your reference here.  La machina rossa is exactly the same construction as rot si dang; both are the car red!
 

Not so easy the classifier for vehicles a car  (rotyon) is Kan. 

If "Rot see dang" is OK, to be perfect it should be, rotyon kan nee see dang

 

For instance, two (song) red cars would be "rot song kan see dang" and not song rot see dang.

The classifier of every object has to be known... and used of course 

 Two dogs: "Sunak or maa song dtua"  (dtua being the classifier for digits, number, bodies, shirts, pants, suits, animals, fish, germ, chairs, tables, desks and software   LOL 

Two=song. Man=puchai.

But "Two man" is  not "song puchai" but puchai song kon. By the way, it seems Google translate did not learn that yet

[DavisH]

13 hours ago, poanoi said:

i have a friend that honestly wanted to learn,

but he just cant pick up on the tones at all,

he dont even hear them, its actually worse than that,

he does not hear them when i say exactly where it is and when i

pronounce it particularly.

he also cant pronounce the sounds here

Tone is especially important the further away you are from Bangkok...many educated Thais can work out what you are trying to say, and perhaps use some English as well. But locals in the boonies seem to have no idea unless you speak Thai like a native (or perhaps switch off and not try to understand). 

[rumak]

2 hours ago, balo said:

But most retired people are not 4 year olds. I would guess most of the members here are over 50 , and remember something you learned a week earlier can be a lot more challenging. 

 

not sure if the "old" argument holds.   for instance just say something bad about them and see if they

forget the next week !   selective memory (kinda like thai ladies, come to think of it)

[CharlieH]

5 minutes ago, DavisH said:

Tone is especially important the further away you are from Bangkok...many educated Thais can work out what you are trying to say, and perhaps use some English as well. But locals in the boonies seem to have no idea unless you speak Thai like a native (or perhaps switch off and not try to understand). 

Yes agreed, but something I cant quite understand is this, if I say a word or phrase and it isnt correct, I am told its wrong, and "not sound correct,not understand what you talk".

BUT if a 3 yr old who cant form words 100% says it they understand in an instant ? how is that ?

 

In English if the words are near enough you can easily work out what they are trying to say, but it seems in Thai, if its not spot on they havnt got a clue ! as though its a different language altogether. 

[Peterw42]

5 minutes ago, Tchooptip said:

it seems Google translate did not learn that yet

You appear to be knowledgeable in Thai language and google translate, can you explain why the word "cuddle" often pops up in thai/english goggle translate or facebook translate. I have tried to work it out in the context of the translation etc but it just appears to be completely random.

[rumak]

2 hours ago, ningnong said:

Maybe an incentive to learn Thai are the studies that suggest learning another language can delay the onset of Alzheimers.

really ?   i have been thinking of learning another language.    Can't remember which one it was though..

[TPI]

13 hours ago, poanoi said:

i have a friend that honestly wanted to learn,

but he just cant pick up on the tones at all,

he dont even hear them, its actually worse than that,

he does not hear them when i say exactly where it is and when i

pronounce it particularly.

he also cant pronounce the sounds here

Agreed, as we get older our hearing goes by the board and our memory has trouble remembering most things...if we could have come here in our 30's or 40's then it wouldn't have been quite the same problem. Now, when we have enough money to live here we can't communicate. I suppose it's one of the main reasons we tie up with Thai ladies in the first place?

Edited November 5, 2018 by TPI
grammar

[Pdavies99]

In my personal opinion, its more about why Thai's in general have terrible foreign language skills, I will go as far as to say they don't even understand each other in a lot of cases, many are illiterate as well.

 

As for myself, yes, I am not good at speaking the Thai language, for me the problem is that living in Pattaya everything is in the English language...I feel that if I lived in a Thai village I would learn easily.

 

I can speak and write German, speak Greek and French and of course English to a good standard.

 

For me the issue is that I simply cannot manage so many different languages in my head...ie 4 or 5 different language words for a subject.

[Tchooptip]

12 minutes ago, Peterw42 said:

You appear to be knowledgeable in Thai language and google translate, can you explain why the word "cuddle" often pops up in thai/english goggle translate or facebook translate. I have tried to work it out in the context of the translation etc but it just appears to be completely random.

3

I am sorry but it never ever happened to me in years, never, Is it because I am on Mac? So I cannot enlighten you at all 

[Peterw42]

Just now, Tchooptip said:

I am sorry but it never ever happened to me in years, never, Is it because I am on Mac? So I cannot enlighten you at all 

In hindsight its mostly on facebook, a post in thai and facebook dishes up a translation. The original post in thai is something like "on my way to Bangkok" and the translation will be something like "the trip to Bangkok cuddle"

 

Thanks for help, I will try and screen-shot it and post on language forum.

[CharlieH]

Off topic removed

[Tchooptip]

8 minutes ago, Peterw42 said:

In hindsight its mostly on facebook, a post in thai and facebook dishes up a translation. The original post in thai is something like "on my way to Bangkok" and the translation will be something like "the trip to Bangkok cuddle"

 

Thanks for help, I will try and screen-shot it and post on language forum.

I do not know if Facebook translates with Google translate? It could also be the Microsoft translating system, by the way, clever than Google translate.

[sanemax]

2 minutes ago, Tchooptip said:

I do not know if Facebook translates with Google translate? It could also be the Microsoft translating system, by the way, clever than Google translate.

Where is that located ?

Do you have a link ?

[Tchooptip]

13 minutes ago, sanemax said:

Where is that located ?

Do you have a link ?

https://translator.microsoft.com/

Never used it myself, but I have iTranslate downloaded on Appstore and also on my Macbook I know they use Microsoft and not Google translate, many times the translation is better than with Google, but anyway for the Thai language none of them is very good