What Language Do You Speak?

[TheDon]

Well my wife speaks perfect english and i can only say hi, thank you, no and some foods in Thai, so we speak english.

She is trying to teach me Thai and its been painful.

Does anyone know any good DVD's or anything that are good to learn Thai off?

[BlackArtemis]

My wife is Thai, but she has been studying English for the past 19 years, BA in English at CMU and took her masters in the international program at Payap. We returned home to the US for a visit last month and it was her first visit. She had no problems at all. At home I would say it's 50/50 sometimes she speaks English and I respond in Thai etc.

My spoken Thai is pretty decent, my writing and is crap, but I have a goal of the 6th grade fluency required for Thai citizenship just so that I can say I can do it. When we have kids I don't want to hear "Mommy, why does daddy not understand us / talk really funny, when we speak Thai?

[Arkady]

I assume the 39.39% that say their primary language of communication is "Thaiglish" cannot hold a proper conversation in Thai which means their primary language of communication is English, albeit with a few Thai words and phrases thrown in. Thus the primary language of 72% of respondents is in fact English, as one might expect.

[BlackArtemis]

I assume the 39.39% that say their primary language of communication is "Thaiglish" cannot hold a proper conversation in Thai which means their primary language of communication is English, albeit with a few Thai words and phrases thrown in. Thus the primary language of 72% of respondents is in fact English, as one might expect.

Or that we assumed this option meant a mix of both here and there. Sometimes you talk in Thai and then sometimes you talk in English. Other times you create such a convoluted mess that only spouses understand.

[lazeeboy]

I assume the 39.39% that say their primary language of communication is "Thaiglish" cannot hold a proper conversation in Thai which means their primary language of communication is English, albeit with a few Thai words and phrases thrown in. Thus the primary language of 72% of respondents is in fact English, as one might expect.

Or that we assumed this option meant a mix of both here and there. Sometimes you talk in Thai and then sometimes you talk in English. Other times you create such a convoluted mess that only spouses understand.

thats exactly what i do ,we speak english only with my daughter as she speaks enough thai at school ,she a great help to me as if i dont understand something in thai she tells me in english .......

[luangpohbill]

30% English, 30% Thai and 40% crap.

I am trying to get to the point of not speaking at all, that would be best IMHO.

my sentiments exactly.

[hiromj]

My wife is Japanese. Although I can speak conversational Japanese, we only speak English at home as it seems to be the only English my son get exposed to.

As it seems that all Thais have nick names, when speaking with your Thai significant other (GF/Wife), which name do you use? I know with my TGF, if I use her birth name I get a bit of a sideways look so I usually call her by her nick name. Just curious.

So what language do you speak to your Thai girlfriend?

Japanese, of course

[MikeRay]

My daughter is now in an international Kindergarten but the main language will be German. I think she´ll get the language, perhaps my parents panik too much and they make me worry about our daughter´s ability to speak. I was raised bilingual and it works perfect for me. I spke again with my wife about our Thaiglish and she also said we should speak only German to each other to improve her German. She starts getting fed up staying in a country without the ability to speak, read and write properly. (Mainly she´s fed up that she can´t read the bills and doesn´t know where our money goes )

[jetjock]

When we spent more time in Thailand I used to speak a little Thai mixed in with my English but now that we spend most of our time in the US and my wife is as fluent in English as I am, sadly I am forgetting the limited Thai I knew. Since we both think it is important to be able to speak the predominant language of the place where you live and we now spend much of our time at our home in California, we are both trying to learn to speak Spanish !!

[mrbojangles]

Since we both think it is important to be able to speak the predominant language of the place where you live and we now spend much of our time at our home in California, we are both trying to learn to speak Spanish !!

[TonyLeung]

farangs speaking thai to their gfs is one of the more painful experiences one can witness in this world.

[qwertz]

My first wife was British: we misunderstood each other perfectly in English.

[Arkady]

We live in the north of Thailand so naturally we speak issarn - the wife is Lao, the cook is Issarn

Surprised you don't speak Northern Thai up there.

[jayjayjayjay]

Normally it's Thai, but it's English when I get really really pissed off... for some unknown reason the brain doesn't function in Thai when the heads spinning.

TonyLeung, interesting observation, but consider this, my girlfriend is from the 85% of Thai's that spoke zero English. Finding a partner from this 85% already puts me in safer territory from all the dangers that feature in a majority of TV forums. She's doing a degree in English at a top university in Chiangmai now, her grammer is excellent, her sentence structure is at times better then my Ausstraliaannnn English, and her accent is turning out somewhere from mid Atlantic with a touch of Oxford and New York. I don't dare mess with where this is going by talking to her in English

Edited November 22, 2007 by jayjayjayjay

[Arkady]

farangs speaking thai to their gfs is one of the more painful experiences one can witness in this world.

Farangs speaking English to their Thai gfs can also be quite painful if they try to oversimplify things by using bad grammar the way as Thais do and silly Thaiglish phrases like "same same". The girls have no hope of ever improving their English by listening to this nonsense. They do them more of a favour by speaking English properly but clearly.

[Jeddah Jo]

farangs speaking thai to their gfs is one of the more painful experiences one can witness in this world.

Way too harsh imo.

Any farang that makes a sincere effort to learn Thai and communicate in Thai should not be mocked or patronised.

Thai is not an easy language for most farangs to learn because of its inherently different construction.

Note, I am not talking about. "You big ting tong kee niaow butterfly man" bar Thai, but a genuine attempt to communicate.

[intumult]

As the new g/f has only been learning English since Tuesday we speak a load of gobbledegook most of the time. Holding a hand or giving a smile can make up for the lack of speaking vocally.

Ahh the joys of first contact

[flying]

We speak mailnly English as we are in the US now. I try everyday to learn more Thai but it is hard. She spoke English pretty good when we met but after living here 7 months her English is great now. I hope my Thai gets better before we go back for a 2 month visit in Oct.

Also that seems to be the problem no matter how much I learn suddenly I hear her or her sister speak & it is so fast I still barely understand.

Well my wife speaks perfect english and i can only say hi, thank you, no and some foods in Thai, so we speak english.

She is trying to teach me Thai and its been painful.

Does anyone know any good DVD's or anything that are good to learn Thai off?

I am using the Pimsleur Thai 30 lessons I have on my computer. I do not know if it is good as I have not tried others.....but it seems ok for me. I burn 2 lessons onto disk then listen when I am driving or working if I put them on a Ipod. My wife points out some errors they have like saying would you like to go eat some water LOL or calling 7pm as part of Dorn Yen instead of Nung Toom <sp?>

Edited July 26, 2008 by flying

[MKAsok]

My wife points out some errors they have like saying would you like to go eat some water LOL

She's not Thai then, your wife?

[flying]

My wife points out some errors they have like saying would you like to go eat some water LOL

She's not Thai then, your wife?

No she is born & raised 100% Thai

But in the lessons they say Giin Nam & She tells me Giin is for food & Duem is for drinkingOn the lessons they say ..." Koon Yak Giin Nam Mai Klup?"

She said should be...." Koon Yak Duem Nam Mai Klup?"

Forgive my english spelling of Thai words as it is probably wrong

[MKAsok]

My wife points out some errors they have like saying would you like to go eat some water LOL

She's not Thai then, your wife?

No she is born & raised 100% Thai

But in the lessons they say Giin Nam & She tells me Giin is for food & Duem is for drinkingOn the lessons they say ..." Koon Yak Giin Nam Mai Klup?"

She said should be...." Koon Yak Duem Nam Mai Klup?"

Forgive my english spelling of Thai words as it is probably wrong

flying - I wouldn't want to correct your wife, as she's Thai, but I don't think there's any problem with 'gin naam' or using 'gin' to mean to drink anything. You're right, of course, 'deum' is drink, but it's kind of formal. I don't know many Thais that use it during informal conversation. Maybe she doesn't want to confuse you or something...

[flying]

flying - I wouldn't want to correct your wife, as she's Thai, but I don't think there's any problem with 'gin naam' or using 'gin' to mean to drink anything. You're right, of course, 'deum' is drink, but it's kind of formal. I don't know many Thais that use it during informal conversation. Maybe she doesn't want to confuse you or something...

Hi

No problem yes she has said as you do that Gin Naam would be understood but...... She said if your learning you may as well learn the right way.

Funny how many times I have argued things like what you say. I always say yes but if I say xxxxx they will understand me yes? Sometimes she responds yes but if she is mad she will say None will know what the heck your saying

My favorite is Song Sip that makes her so mad

[MKAsok]

Fair enough. As an aside and for the benefit of the Don, by the way, I'm in full agreement with you about Pimsleur. It's excellent for beginners, albiet frustratingly basic in hindsight once you finish and realise quite how effective and powerful the teaching method was. It's a real shame they didn't make any more... I still have fond memories of the part that goes something like: 'imagine you are an American man shopping with a Thai woman, how do you tell her, "that's too expensive?"' It's almost like Dr Pimsleur could actually see into the future... Anyway, good luck with the Thai. Stick with it, it's well worth the effort.

mk

[typhoon]

Only thai and issan at home, but when going to Bangkok she says only thai. &lt;deleted&gt; thats all about?????

[Arkady]

My wife points out some errors they have like saying would you like to go eat some water LOL

She's not Thai then, your wife?

No she is born & raised 100% Thai

But in the lessons they say Giin Nam & She tells me Giin is for food & Duem is for drinkingOn the lessons they say ..." Koon Yak Giin Nam Mai Klup?"

She said should be...." Koon Yak Duem Nam Mai Klup?"

Forgive my english spelling of Thai words as it is probably wrong

flying - I wouldn't want to correct your wife, as she's Thai, but I don't think there's any problem with 'gin naam' or using 'gin' to mean to drink anything. You're right, of course, 'deum' is drink, but it's kind of formal. I don't know many Thais that use it during informal conversation. Maybe she doesn't want to confuse you or something...

Definitely 'gin' means both drink and eat in everyday informal spoken Thai - 'gin naam' and 'gin ahaan' used amongst friends, family, colleagues etc of all social classes in all dialects. 'Gin' is not used at all in more formal central Thai. 'Deum' is used for drink and 'thaan' is used for eat but these are not over formal and are also frequently used amongst friends, e.g. 'thaan khao rue yang?' 'deum naam mai?'. There is a more formal still word for eat 'raprathaan', the full form of 'thaan', but that is not normally used in conversation. Pimsleur's " Khun Yaak Gin Naam Mai Khrap?" is perfectly good informal everyday Thai. Examples where 'gin' would be wrong would be a waitress using it to talk a customer in a nice restaurant or, if you are offering a drink to a VIP visitor. Thai is very socially stratified and you are supposed to know which language forms and wais to use with people of superior status.

Some Thai teachers feel that they have to teach foreigners only to use the more formal vocabulary and I guess this was the thinking behind the criticism of Pimsleur's vocabulary. There is some merit in teaching foreigners like this as Thais listening to them know immediately they have learned from a teacher, not from a bar girl (or bar boy) which is an instant turn off to most Thais, even if they get an incomplete picture of the language. They will soon pick up the colloquialisms by themselves, if they live in Thailand. On the other hand some of the text books I was given used such archaic formal expressions that Thais fell about laughing when I tried them out.

Television has caused the language to change rapidly in the last few decades (and now the Internet) and the trend is towards less formality and more words borrowed from English, usually pronounced very differently from the original and often with a quite different meaning e.g. 'fit' means not a good fit, as one might think, but very tight fitting or in fact too small, as in the case of those college girls' white blouses with buttons about to pop off. New words are invented to suit changing social mores e.g. 'gik' meaning a casual friend of the opposite gender that you can have sleep with but who is not your serious boyfriend/girlfriend. Finally, not all Thais are experts on complexities of their language and those who did not do well at Thai in school usually cannot spell or use advanced vocabularly properly, particularly if they grew up speaking a Thai dialect, Chinese, Khmer or Malay, as many Thais do. How many native English speakers have you met with poor grammar, spelling and syntax?

Edited July 27, 2008 by Arkady

[dhind1]

Thai, my Thai is good enugh for every day conversations, but definitely lacking in vocabulary for more in depth discussions.

My daughter also speaks Thai, but she is supposed to be learning English at school, but is not doing well in that department. I am away most of the time working and she gets very little practice speaking English. I try to speak English with her and she prefers to speak Thai. Self defeating I know.

My wife cannot be bothered to learn English and does not speak it with me or our daughter. I have tried to motivate her to learn more English, but have ot found the right carrot / stick combination.

[flying]

I still have fond memories of the part that goes something like: 'imagine you are an American man shopping with a Thai woman, how do you tell her, "that's too expensive?"' It's almost like Dr Pimsleur could actually see into the future... Anyway, good luck with the Thai. Stick with it, it's well worth the effort.

mk

Thanks mk

Yes I like the lessons & plan to continue. I really want to be fluent someday & speak well with my inlaws.

You know hearing your " Imagine your" was spot on Pimsleur

My favorite was "Tell her you do not speak Thai"

Then they go on in Thai to say...... I dont speak Thai

Definitely 'gin' means both drink and eat in everyday informal spoken Thai -

<snipped to save space>

Thank You Arkady that was a lot of interesting information you gave in your post!

Thanks !

[ilyushin]

My dedicated family language is Thai and we use combo Thai-Issan ( Lao) at our second home in Roi-et. English is used for "loan words" (top sap) or when outside the home or with non Thai speaking visitors.

Edited July 29, 2008 by ilyushin

[hlfourie]

I would'nt go so far as to say we speak English, but we do speak a language that nearly sounds like English.

[MonkeyHouse]

I think most of you lot are speaking crap, Its very rare you come across farang who can speak thai fluently. I guess to the guys who say they only speak thai to there wifes then the conversations must be very limited. Why dont you guys start telling the truth, showing or lieing gets you know where.