Getting Hitched Want To Say Something In Thai

[thehips]

I am not to sure if you can help me! Im am getting married in Thailand next month and i was looking to say a little bit in Thai. By all accounts my pronounciation is decent but i wouldnt be able to string more than the basics together!

Is there any protocall as to what the groom should say to the Thai family etc...

I was thinking of saying

I would like to thank Nid's family and friends for traveling all the way here. I am glad they can be here with us for the day. I hope they are not to shocked by Irish drinking! I hope you enjoy your night and i look forward to getting to know you more in the future.

And then to my wife to be-or my wife at that stage-still sounds mad!!!

Nid, i just wanted to say, in thai so my friends don't understand and make fun of me for sweet talking, that i love you very much.

For me it was love at first sight-until you got off the big high stool-but you made me fall in love again and stopped me from seeing Phi Phi! Now after so many years of holidays i am glad we can stay together for ever. I am happy to be the third love in your life behind noodles and dogs!

You look beautiful today and i know i am a very lucky man to have you. You are even luckier to have a rich, handsome and sexy man like me!

Seriously, i do love you very much and you made me the happiest man in the world today. Although we will be poor for two years i will do all i can to make and keep you happy and all i can do to keep our 20 kids happy too.

Thank you for loving me and for giving me someone special to love!

Any help would be great guys!!

[SoftWater]

Oh boy, I wouldn't attempt anything as complex as this! You need a Thai native speaker - the jokes will not come off if you directly translate them. (Having said that, everybody will smile and clap no matter how garbled it sounds, but of course, you want them to get the message too.)

I'd suggest two possibilities - if you are lucky enough to know a Thai who speaks decent English, get them to translate 'live' while you are speaking (of course, give them a prepared copy of what you'll say first). This is what I did. I started off saying hello and a few simple thank yous to the family, then apologised in thai that I would switch to English and my friend would translate. Everybody loved this, because it balanced the line between speaking Thai out of respect and not murdering the language and causing undue suffering on the ears of our guests!

If you're not lucky enough to have a friend who can translate for you, hopefully some of the native speakers that are around here on TV can do a decent script for you and you can give it to a member of your family or a senior guest to read out, while you speak English. Of course, if you don't get any volunteers here, just go to a tranlsation bureau and pay them to do it. Again, though, you might be best trying to cut out the jokes, they'll either get mistranslated or come out totally different from how you intended (i suspect the noodles and dogs one could go WELL wrong!!!! On the other hand, the '20 kids' line will most likely be met with a roar of approving laughter!).

Last tip: though its a normal thing for us to say on this kind of occasion, it might seem odd to your thai family and guests that you thank the family for coming - why wouldn't they come? She's their daughter!! It's more normal to say something like 'thank you for welcoming me into you family with an open heart' or something like that. I thanked as many people by name starting with the head and the family and working down the hierarchy for being so kind and welcoming to me, and everybody in the end for coming to give us their blessing. That seemed to hit the right button, tho' like I said, almost anything you say will receive a cheery welcome so long as you don't stray off into the taboo.

Ahh, good luck. Whatever ambitions you have for speaking Thai in your speech, unless you're used to getting up on a stage and trying to practice a foreign language in front of 200 people or more, bear in mind that nerves might radically scale them down on the night! (I thought I'd be fine; i'm a teacher, and used to speaking in front of an audience of Thais who don't understand what I'm saying (!), but it was a different story on the night! Having said that, it was a very happy and memorable occasion, and the guests will get you well drunk and get your humour first hand when you go round the tables afterwards! That's the time to show them who you really are - for the speech, everyone just wants to see that you know how to behave correctly and appropriately, then they'll think indeed, your wife has been very lucky!)

Edited August 26, 2009 by SoftWater