Does it annoy you when a Thai person doesn't understand your spoken Thai?

[GammaGlobulin]

37 minutes ago, Hummin said:

Interesting question! Ever had a conversation with another foreigner speaking Thai? And how was that experience?

 

IMPOSSIBLE.

 

The affront to the ear is intolerable.

 

No matter how terribly a Thai person might speak English, listening to someone struggle with English is far preferable to listening to any Farang speak passa Thai.

 

 

 

[Keeps]

24 minutes ago, vangrop said:

The problem I encountered communicating with Thais is a total lack of logic thinking skills. When you are in a conversation with a Thai talking about some understood topic and you have to fill in a word in Thai language mostly they won't understand you. If you don't pronounce the word exactly how they would say it, they are lost. They are unable to transpose themselves in the context of the topic so that even if you don't pronounce it perfectly they would get the meaning by logic deduction.

I think you have hit the nail on the head with their lack of logic thinking skills comment (or they 'choose' not to understand).

 

It seems that most people (non Thai) with a degree of comprehension of English (even if it is not their first language) can mostly understand often wildly mangled pronunciation of English by a Thai and get the general idea what they are trying to put across. Why is the opposite not the case? I go back to my comment that perhaps they 'choose' not to understand. 

[FritsSikkink]

12 hours ago, simon43 said:

What is also clear is that you do not understand my very dry, very British SoH!

Nah, just a poor attempt to insult people.

[FritsSikkink]

9 hours ago, BritManToo said:

If only I could understand your English!

You might if you were EnglishManToo.

[Hummin]

49 minutes ago, vangrop said:

The problem I encountered communicating with Thais is a total lack of logic thinking skills. When you are in a conversation with a Thai talking about some understood topic and you have to fill in a word in Thai language mostly they won't understand you. If you don't pronounce the word exactly how they would say it, they are lost. They are unable to transpose themselves in the context of the topic so that even if you don't pronounce it perfectly they would get the meaning by logic deduction.

Okay, so it is a Thai problem and not a foreigner problem. You understand how this sounds, right?

[watthong]

1 hour ago, Utalk2mutt said:

Have lived here for just over 7 years and I speak reasonable Thai. I could live here another 20 years and genuinely don’t think I would ever class myself as being fluent. I’m happy so long as I can make myself understood some of the time. I have found there are Thais who just don’t want to engage or maybe it’s my mispronounciation which causes the issue. Whatever it is I don’t get mad about it. 

 

It's the vocal delivery and word enunciation. Fluency has nothing to do with it. If you started learning a foreign language when you have reached mid teen it's already too late. Your vocal box (mouth, tongue and throat) has been too well "tuned" into your own mother tongue by then.

[captainjackS]

39 minutes ago, GammaGlobulin said:

 

IMPOSSIBLE.

 

The affront to the ear is intolerable.

 

No matter how terribly a Thai person might speak English, listening to someone struggle with English is far preferable to listening to any Farang speak passa Thai.

 

 

 

I have an interesting experience about this.  There is a Japanese lady who used to live in my neighborhood and we occasionally crossed paths at a local bar. Her skill in Thai language was better than her English. My skill in Japanese is zero, and i'm conversationally comfortable in Thai.  So we spoke Thai together at the bar along with all of the native speakers. Good fun.

[captainjackS]

.. back to the OP. I have had similar experience in touristy areas in the south.  I spend most of my time in Chiang Mai non-tourist areas where native speakers understand my spoken Thai.  I don't know how good or bad it sounds to them, but I get by.   Last time i went to Krabi and Samui tourist area hotels, i just spoke English. it was easier.   I think the trick like others have mentioned is to sneak a phrase in that makes the listener "click" and catch on that they should interpret your words as Thai instead of English. 

 

I have been on the other side too.  After international travel opened following a few years of COVID, I flew into Chicago airport after being mostly in Thailand for 5 years.  I sat there eating a disappointing burger watching people of all ethnicities walking past and speaking so many languages, including various dialects of English.  It was quite a mental readjustment to hear all those voices and try to tune my brain to listen for a specific language.

[radiochaser]

11 hours ago, simon43 said:

Right, I was out and about this morning and I went into a hardware store.

 

Speaking only Thai, I asked "Do you have 100 metres of single-strand copper wire, 1.5mm diameter, with black plastic insulation?"

 

The Thai man looked at me blankly and asked in English "What do you want?"

 

So I repeated my phase in Thai, at the same pace as I just spoke (ie normal speaking pace).

 

You could almost see the light-bulb light up in the guy's brain 🙂 He smiled and showed me his choice and wire, asked more questions about what I planned to do with it and - as you can see - I walked out of the shop having had a successful conversation!!

 

And now, I am curious about what you are going to do with 100 meters of 1.5 mm wire.

 

Oh!  Antenna!   I am guessing a loop antenna of some sort.   For AM radio??

 

[bunnydrops]

I remember once I was in a coffee shop in the US. There was a Thai man there, not sure from which part. I let him listen to some of the Thai lessons I  had. He said he had never heard Thai spoken like that. Most of us know that Thai people change the R sound to L and where I live they drop the sound altogether. I am not surprised when they don't understand me as I speak mostly formal book-learned Thai with an accent.

[Tim K]

Yes it annoys me that I'm still not good enough but I'm just disappointed at myself.

The key is tonal system, 5 tones, so when you try to say one word but mispronounce they hear other word.
Now try saying 8 words in a row all mispronounced and you will get a stare!

Driving license
bai + khab + kee - they can hear: bag + drive  + to p oop.
or one sheet + drive + ride

Depends on how many words that you've said in a wrong tone  they have to guess.

Can't learn Thai just with a book and transliteration to English, it is not correct.
Only by sound with a native speaker nearby.

[JeffersLos]

2 minutes ago, Tim K said:

Now try saying 8 words in a row all mispronounced

 

Dunt yooo dell mee wut choo doo, Dim. 

[GammaGlobulin]

50 minutes ago, captainjackS said:

I have an interesting experience about this.  There is a Japanese lady who used to live in my neighborhood and we occasionally crossed paths at a local bar. Her skill in Thai language was better than her English. My skill in Japanese is zero, and i'm conversationally comfortable in Thai.  So we spoke Thai together at the bar along with all of the native speakers. Good fun.

 

I once flew from Taipei to Luxembourg aboard a Cargolux freighter.  On the upper deck, in the seat next to mine, I met a German girl (from Germany) who spoke very little English.

Fortunately, she spoke Chinese.

We, too, had good fun speaking Chinese together on the flight, which turned out to be many hours, due to a long stop in Saudi Arabia, for offloading cargo. We were unable to disembark during the offloading.

 

I have never spoken so much Chinese to a German person, during a 24-hour period, in all my life.

 

[GammaGlobulin]

15 minutes ago, bunnydrops said:

I remember once I was in a coffee shop in the US. There was a Thai man there, not sure from which part. I let him listen to some of the Thai lessons I  had. He said he had never heard Thai spoken like that. Most of us know that Thai people change the R sound to L and where I live they drop the sound altogether. I am not surprised when they don't understand me as I speak mostly formal book-learned Thai with an accent.

 

You were probably using the US Foreign Service language tapes which were used to teach foreign service officers passa Thai.

There were recorded a VERY LONG time ago.

I once let some university student at CMU listen to a sampling of those recordings.

She was shocked.

 

Nobody talks like that anymore!

 

 

[123Stodg]

7 minutes ago, GammaGlobulin said:

I have never spoken so much Chinese to a German person, during a 24-hour period, in all my life.

Now only if you could actually speak Chinese.  🙄

[GammaGlobulin]

3 minutes ago, 123Stodg said:

Now only if you could actually speak Chinese.  🙄

 

I was fairly fluent in Chinese at the time.

But she did not speak or understand a word of Mandarin.

She learned her Chinese in Hong Kong, apparently.

And I did not speak Cantonese.

 

[bunnydrops]

11 minutes ago, GammaGlobulin said:

 

You were probably using the US Foreign Service language tapes which were used to teach foreign service officers passa Thai.

There were recorded a VERY LONG time ago.

I once let some university student at CMU listen to a sampling of those recordings.

She was shocked.

 

Nobody talks like that anymore!

 

 

Although I had seen those lessons, I never used them. It was more likely Pimsleur or Rosetta Stone.

[123Stodg]

1 hour ago, GammaGlobulin said:

 

I was fairly fluent in Chinese at the time.

But she did not speak or understand a word of Mandarin.

She learned her Chinese in Hong Kong, apparently.

And I did not speak Cantonese.

 

Now you are getting caught up in your own silly lies. Here your saying that you spoke different variations of Chinese and couldn't understand or communicate with each other. And previously you said the said the following, which means it never happened: 

 

Fortunately, she spoke Chinese.

We, too, had good fun speaking Chinese together on the flight, 

[geisha]

Most Thais try to understand me, and sometimes smile when I get it wrong. But sometimes asking a shop girl in the Mall for a size bigger/ smaller, the mouth falls open and she goes back to her telephone !  Some try, some don’t.

[Patong2021]

As mentioned above, Accent and dialect are decisive. 

When english language speakers go to parts of the USA, they have a problem understanding many of the locals or some parts of the UK, Scotland and Ireland. Some of these people are unintelligible to people outside the region. French speakers have a hard time understanding the local accents of Acadiens and rural Quebecers.  Italian speakers from Canada and the USA often speak in a language that was spoken by  their relatives who left Italy 100+ years ago

 

[GammaGlobulin]

2 hours ago, 123Stodg said:

Now you are getting caught up in your own silly lies. Here your saying that you spoke different variations of Chinese and couldn't understand or communicate with each other. And previously you said the said the following, which means it never happened: 

 

Fortunately, she spoke Chinese.

We, too, had good fun speaking Chinese together on the flight, 

You see, someone had made a humerous remark implying that I did not speak Chinese with the German girl aboard the Cargolux freighter flight.... 

 

And it seemed, therefore, only fitting that I should follow along in good spirit with such good-natured humor. 

 

In fact, if you must know, I recall that the German girl was enrolled in the Mandarin program at ShiFan University. 

 

This is the same Mandarin program that Rudd of Australia attended when he was perfecting his language skills, initially, before going to Beijing to study with ZhouEnLai. 

 

As I recall, both the German girl and I mangled the Mandarin, at the time. Neither of us had been studying for more than about 2 years. 

 

Rudd's Chinese language skills are quite good, by the way. 

 

 

[Utalk2mutt]

6 hours ago, watthong said:

 

It's the vocal delivery and word enunciation. Fluency has nothing to do with it. If you started learning a foreign language when you have reached mid teen it's already too late. Your vocal box (mouth, tongue and throat) has been too well "tuned" into your own mother tongue by then.

Completely agree with what you are saying words that start with Ng are the killers for me. I have to seriously think about how to say them before I actually speak. It’s almost like getting the mouth, tongue and throat aligned before I deliver the word. I like snakes but struggle like hell with with the Thai word.

[Srikcir]

20 hours ago, BritManToo said:

These people probably don't speak central Thai as a first language, so find it hard to understand when accented.

 

I've become used to Lanna Thai speakers, and find it much harder to understand Bangkok Thai speakers.

According to a Thai friend who lives in Samae Dam area of Bangkok, she can barely understand my brother's Thai wife who lives in Chiang Mai but grew up in Chiang Rai. She says it's "Bangkok Thai" vs. "Chiang Rai Thai" accents. 

[BangkokReady]

8 hours ago, watthong said:

Judgemental seems to be the tool of your trade...Even in a topic as neutral as this. Something not quite right in your childhood?

 

How is people wanting to put others down neutral?

 

I think you're the one with the problem childhood.

[simon43]

6 hours ago, captainjackS said:

I have an interesting experience about this.  There is a Japanese lady who used to live in my neighborhood and we occasionally crossed paths at a local bar. Her skill in Thai language was better than her English. My skill in Japanese is zero, and i'm conversationally comfortable in Thai.  So we spoke Thai together at the bar along with all of the native speakers. Good fun.

Off-topic, but my late academic father once had an interesting conversation on a train in Romania with a local professor.  Both linguists, the only common language that they found to converse was Latin!!

[BangkokReady]

8 hours ago, watthong said:

 

As I have mentioned before. The native could hear foreign right away the moment the first (non-native) sound reaches their (native) ear. So being fluent per non-native  standard doesn't always guarantee a smooth transaction. And when that happens the annoyance that happened happens first to the listener, something along the line "wtf this guy is saying?" - which then produces the second annoyance on the part of the (non-native) speaker as the (native) listener reacted accordingly to his/her own annoyance. 

 

OP should ask who ought to be annoyed first, but it seems that what the native might be feeling was not in his consideration. Sad to say, a behavior quite prevalent among expats.

 

Riiight. The foreigner should always bear in mind how annoying he is being by expecting a Thai to have to listen to him talk. That's completely reasonable. 🙄

 

You sound a tad racist.

[simon43]

Just to note that the Thais that I've been speaking with in Koh Lanta are speaking Bangkok Thai, not southern Thai, and speaking the former between themselves as well. So there's no issue of them not understanding my Bangkok Thai 🙂 As mentioned, once they switch their brain into "Oh, he is a foreigner speaking Thai", then we can converse fluently in Thai.

[jippytum]

Perhaps your Thai is not as perfect as you think. p

[chuang]

Did she not understand Thai or did you spoke un-understandable thai...

[chuang]

Did she not understand Thai or did you spoke un-understandable thai...