What percent of Thai vocab do you know?

[tifino]

On 10/4/2020 at 2:36 PM, Rookiescot said:

Can you show your working for how you arrived at such an accurate guess please?

learning such translated words as infinitesemal, would be worth a few thai scrabble points!

[DrTuner]

Used to be around 3000-4000 words or thereabouts. After I learned enough to understand what was spoken around me, I wanted to forget it all. Ignorance is bliss.

[tgeezer]

17 hours ago, BananaBandit said:

It seems logical to me. 

 

But I feel compelled to relate that my somtam lady insists คิดไหน is not okay.   She says it is actually คิดไง    which is  ภาษาวัยรุ่น  so people might think it's a bit funny for adult farang to use that
expression.  This, of course, means i will use it at the first possible opportunity. 

  "ภาษาวัยรุ่น  so people might think it's a bit funny for adult farang to use that
expression.  This, of course, means i will use it at the first possible opportunity."
I would expect nothing less of you!  

 I suggested คิดไหน for the sake of discussion and appreciate the feedback. I have tried it with a caddy who had not dared to say that it was wrong and with a university educated Thai who has "dared". 
RID says:  ไหน ว. อะไร , ที่ไร , สิ่งไร and for ไร ว. ไหน , ใด , อะไร 

Only  ใด is explained eg. ว. คำใช้ประกอบคำอื่น แสดงความไม่เจาะจงหรือเป็นคำถาม เช่น คนใด, เมื่อใด,   ...ใด...หนึ่ง  To me this means that when these 'special words' are applied they simply say that you need to know and in others that you don't need to know.  I think that ไร is more common, and modern dictionaries probably reflect that.
The last example, inserting a noun, สิ่งใดสิ่งหนึ่ง = a thing in my opinion.  
 

I think that คิดไร simply makes ไร a question word. The full phrase being อย่างไร which maybe means that you could "decommission" ยังไง . Decommission is a great way of putting it. 
 

"But I feel compelled" I hope that you always feel that because I am testing my reasoning on you and others because I have not read the interpretations in English. Those who have and are able to come down to my level are welcome to join in. 

[JWRC]

10 hours ago, LawrenceN said:

This is said by people who underestimate the importance of  speaking with correct tones. Thai people simply don't recognize the words you're saying. Tones are an integral part of every syllable, as important as the consonants and vowels. I would bet dollars to donuts you're one of those people who decided you're not going to bother with learning the correct tone for each word, or learn to read Thai script, which solves the problem. If you haven't trained your brain to hear and think and speak tonally, you're not speaking Thai. 

You would have lost the bet.

[Damrongsak]

13 hours ago, LawrenceN said:

You must have forgotten a lot. When we were in Peace Corps together, I thought you did fine. In fact, I thought you were one of the better Thai speakers among us. No? 

Thanks for the compliment. Maybe I'm not all that bad.  I can speak better than I can understand others.  My reading is not so good. 

 

When the in-laws here get together, it all degenerates into Isaan dialect anyway.  ????

 

On a vacation trip to Mexico I tried out my rusty Spanish.  Whenever I was at a loss for a word, a Thai word just popped in there. I got some strange looks.

Edited October 9, 2020 by Damrongsak

[BananaBandit]

10 hours ago, elgenon said:

Please explain how one can know this. Interesting question but...

 

What percent of the English vocabulary do you know?

I honestly haven't a clue. 

 

Don't know how many Thai words I know either. 

 

Someone said there are 20,000 Thai words. I certainly know fewer than half. I probably know fewer than 25 percent. And perhaps much less than that. 

 

I suppose I wanted to get a remote sense of how much people (especially those of a more advanced level) know, and if they decided certain parts of the lexicon were not worthwhile for them.

[kokesaat]

In my early years of learning the language, I tried to focus on vocab but found I hardly used many of the words I studied.......and thus forgot them.  Once I got comfortable with basic daily conversations, I'd tune up for a visit to the electric company, or the bank, or when I got ready to buy a new truck.  I'd think about what sort of conversation I'd need to have there, might look up a few words beforehand, and carry on.  One problem with doing that is the person at the other end of the conversation might get the idea I knew more Thai than I did and rattle off more than I could chew.  I'd gently remind the person that my Thai wasn't so good, ask them to speak slowly, or ask them questions specific to my problem.  

It doesn't always work out, but I've dealt with government offices on road repairs, wills, electrical problems, banking issues, etc and generally walk away happy.

For me, being able to speak clearly gets me further than having a boatload of vocab that I might rarely use.  In my opinion, the only way to get clear speaking down is to have a teacher that will whack your hand when you mispronounce the word or mistake the tone.  I don't buy the argument that one is too old or hearing isn't attuned to tones.  It's all about practice, practice, practice.  I learned the rules early on, but as time went by, I didn't have to think about pronunciation or tones and probably couldn't recite the rules today.  In a pinch, when I don't understand a word someone is saying, I'll ask them to write it in Thai.....that helps me know exactly how to pronounce it or look it up properly in a dictionary.

[ChakaKhan]

All I say is Mai mee baht..no hab and thais leave me alone ????

[BananaBandit]

14 hours ago, Damrongsak said:

On a vacation trip to Mexico I tried out my rusty Spanish.  Whenever I was at a loss for a word, a Thai word just popped in there. I got some strange looks.

Yes, this language has decimated my meager Spanish skills.

[teacherclaire]

Could you repeat the question, please?