A Reading Exercise. ..

[Tod Daniels]

Here is a very small excerpt from a book by แอนดรูว์ บิ๊กส์ (Andrew Biggs) titled วิธีพูดภาษาอังกฤษเหมือนฝรั่ง (Methods To Speak English Like A Foreigner)

I am posting this as a reading exercise so other more learned posters can report back and tell me about what ‘level’ being able to read at this proficiency might equate to.

กฎข้อที่ ๒ Rule Number Two

PLEASE MAKE MISTAKES!

(ขอร้อง... พูดผิดเหอะ)

“หนูอยากพูดภาษาอังกฤษ แต่หนูไม่กล้า หนูหลัวจะพูดผิด”

ประโยคนี้ฟังแล้วคุ้นๆ ใช่ไหมครับ ทุกๆ วันผมจะได้รับจดหมายจากนักเรียนมากมาย และบัณฑิตซึ่งยังสนใจภาษาอังกฤษอยู่ แล้วคุณทราบไหมครับว่า ผู้ที่ส่งจดหมายถึงผมมักจะเขียนถึงประเด็นอะไรบ้าง มันคือประโยคแรกในหน้ามี่ไงครับ

เท่าที่ผมเดาได้ ประมาณ 80% ของผู้เขียนจดหมายถึงผม พูดประโยคนี้ไม่ว่าจะเป็นในรูปแบบใดก็ตาม เขามักเขียนทำนองนี้ครับ พออ่านแล้วช่วยกรุณาถามตัวเองด้วยว่าแย่ในกลุ่มประเภทนี้ดัวยหรือเปล่า

“หนูรู้ศัพท์ภาษาอังกฤษพอสมควร รู้เรื่องไวยากรณ์บ้าง แต่หนูไม่กล้าพูดภาษาอังกฤษ นั่นเป็นเพราะหนูกลัวจะพูดผิด กลัวสิ่งที่จะพูดออกเสียงไม่ถูก ใช้ tense ไม่ถูก หรือไม่ก็ผิดกาลเทศะ

คงสรุปย่อหน้านี้ได้อย่างนี้เลยครับ “หนูกลัวที่พูดผิด”

โอเคครับ ผมยอมรับว่าคุณรู้สึกอย่างนี้ และเข้าใจครับว่าภาษาอังกฤษไม่ใช่ภาษาแม่ของคุณ และดัวยความเคารพออย่างสูง ผมอยากจะถามคุณแค่ว่า

“ถ้าหากว่าคุณพูดผิด อะไรจะเกดขึ้นครับ”

ถามจริง ผมอยากให้คุณไปหาปากกา และกระดาษเปล่าๆ มาเดี๋ยวนี้ และจดคำตอบลงว่า ถ้าพูดผิดแล้วจะเกิดอะไรขึ้น ทำสิครับ เขียน อาจใช้เวลาคิดก่อนได้ สมมุติว่าคุณใช้กริยาช่องที่ 2 แทนช่องที่ 3 จะเกิดอะไรขึ้น สมมุติว่าใช้ Good แทน Happy หรือว่าออกเสียง Kitchen (ห้องครัว) ว่าเป็น Chicken (ไก่) อะไรจะเกิดขึ้น ขนนาดที่ย่ำแย่จนทำให้กล้าอ้าปากพูดภาษาอังกฤษครับ

ไม่ต้องเขียนคำตอบแล้ว หมดเวลา มา... ผมจะเฉลยให้

คำตอบคือ...

ไม่มีอะไร

ไม่มีอะไรทั้งสิ้น

ศูนย์ครับ

ZERO

ในโลกแห่งความเป็นจริงแล้ว ไม่มีอะไรย่ำแย่เกิดขึ้น หากคุณพูดภาษาอังกฤษไม่ถูกต้อง โลกจะไม่แตก น้ำไม่ท่วม ไฟไม่ไหม้ แผ่นดินไม่ไหว สรุปว่าถึงพูดผิด ทุกสิ่งทุกอย่างที่อยู่รอบตัวคุณก็ยังอยู่สภาพปกติ

...ดังนั้นคุณกลัวพูดผิดทำไม่???

Even though I got the gist of this small piece, because I didn't know the meaning of the following words, some of the nuances were lost on me;

คุ้น ๆ - familiar with

บัณฑิต - ?? skillful? <- dunno about this one

ประเด็น - point of contention, topic, issue

กาลเทศะ - occasion, time and place, situation

สรุป - summarize

เคารพ - respect for, esteem for, regard for

ย่ำแย่ - unbearable, beyond toleration

เฉลย - disclose, respond, answer

I believe this book is written more at the ภาษาพื้น ๆ level or in a really informal format due to Andrew’s target audience young-adults.

Any and all feedback is welcome, and FWIW; the book is an interesting read.

It relates so many parallels between what thais go thru to learn english and what foreigners must go thru to learn the thai language.

Thanx

[SoftWater]

IMHO, the 'Union' system used at AAA (chit lom), this is level 3 (Basic reading); level 3.1 and I think now 3.11 are more advanced in terms of structure.

In Thai schoolbooks that I've used, I'd say this equates to the stuff about Prathom 4 in terms of difficulty. Although there was a few words I didn't know too, the basic sentence structure and grammar patterns are pretty simple.

(Compare this with ป.6 schoolbooks, I think you'll find the latter are far more complex.)

[Peppy]

บัณฑิต - ?? skillful? <- dunno about this one

บัณฑิต means "scholar", and, interestingly, is of the same Indic root as the English word "pundit".

[Tod Daniels]

Are you sure that isn’t the engrish word “pundit” just back translated into thai, from what ever language it originally came from?

FWIW: I have some ป.๔-๖ text books teaching thai, but the material is not of interest to me, so it makes for a very hard slog..

I prefer to read things that I already know the subject, and can guess the story line, but in and of itself; that is self defeating, as I will never progress.

Perhaps that is why I am stuck at the level of reading that I seem to be stuck on .

As an aside; I have seen thais outside my gate struggling to decipher the daily thai newspapers, and it seems more like a group effort rather than one person can read it and understand everything..

Then again, I may be around stupid thais. I dunno .

What I DO know is that they can read thai better than I can, for sure. ..

[Peppy]

Are you sure that isn't the engrish word "pundit" just back translated into thai, from what ever language it originally came from?

Quite sure.

Pundit is a loan word borrowed in English during the British Raj from the Hindi language and is of Sanskrit origin. A Pundit is someone who offers to mass-media his or her opinion or commentary on a particular subject area (most typically political analysis, the social sciences or sport) on which they are knowledgeable. The term has been increasingly applied to popular media personalities. In certain cases, it may be used in a derogatory manner as well, as the political equivalent of "ideologue."

....

The term originates from the Hindi term pandit, which in turn originates from the Sanskrit (a language from ancient India) term paṇḍitá, meaning "learned" (see also Pandit). It refers to someone who is erudite in various subjects and who conducts religious ceremonies and offers counsel to the king.

(From

http://en.wikipedia..../Pundit_(expert

) )

A paṇḍit (Hindi; Devanagari: पण्डित, Sanskrit: paṇḍita) is a scholar, a teacher, particularly one skilled in Sanskrit and Hindu law, religion, music or philosophy. The English loan word pundit is a derivation thereof.

In the original usage of the word, 'Pandit' refers to a Hindu, almost always a Brahmin, who has memorized a substantial portion of the Vedas, along with the corresponding rhythms and melodies for chanting or singing them.

(From

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandit

)

Given that Thai culture has far deeper linguistic, cultural, and historical ties with India than Anglo culture does, one would assume the Thai usage came straight from India, along with the myriad of other Sanskrit/Pali words in Thai. And the Thai meaning (scholar) is much closer to the original Sanskrit/Pali meaning than the English meaning (commentator).

It's also a part of many school names: มหาวิทยาลัยธุรกิจบัณฑิตย์ (Dhurakij Pundit University) in Bangkok is one prominent example.

Edit: Have no idea why there's no paragraph breaks there--they show up in the editor. Had an awful time trying to get this post up, I was trying to get the Wikipedia quotes in quote boxes, and it kept telling me "The number of opening quote tags doesn't match the number of closing quote tags", though I counted them and they all matched. So anyway, I finally just deleted the quote tags and it let the post through, but it looks like this... readable enough I hope.

Edited August 11, 2010 by Peppy

[Joosesis]

Are you sure that isn't the engrish word "pundit" just back translated into thai, from what ever language it originally came from?

FWIW: I have some ป.๔-๖ text books teaching thai, but the material is not of interest to me, so it makes for a very hard slog..

. ..

I agree that the school text books don't always have interesting topics, but I have found two great advantages to studying them.

1) I have a much better sense of my skill level and can share that with my Thai friends and family in a structure they understand (I'm currently studying ป.๔) (fwiw: I read the above passage with relatively little difficulty....I love Andrew Biggs books)

2) The stories are often well known stories in Thailand...and can make for some fun conversations with Thai friends/family. Even the ones that aren't well known are great cultural lessons about Thailand. The essay that my class is working on for next week: อย่างนี้ควรทำ it has a lot of great (new to me) vocabulary specific to religion/morality.

[Baa_Mango]

good posts. nice work everyone.. ps the easiest way to get this is from maj ekk ? รึกูจะเจอได้ที่SE-EDไหม

[Tod Daniels]

Again, thanx everyone for posting on this thread. It has been enlightening for me to see just how low a level I actually read at (much to my dismay. ..)

I routinely go to SE-ED Boox and peruse the teach engrish to thai book section, as it's been a good source of idioms, phrasal verbs, business words, etc. There are NO shortage of books written in thai to teach specific english grammar or phrases and they've provided me with quite a lot of vocabulary which I think woulda taken me a long time to come across in casual study/reading.

I just recently went back out to the Andrew Biggs Academy at Major Ekami and got some more of his books, as they give a 10% percent discount and it’s easy to get to for me.

He has a small ‘book’, really more like a ‘booklet’ which is called; “The Little Book of Questions.” It goes over the english words; Who, What, When, Where, How, Why, Which & Yes-No questions. There are some pretty good explanations in thai as well as english examples too. It’s a cheap one, and has actually increased my understanding and usage of those words in thai.

Although beware, sometimes thais will stare (more like gawk ) at you for being a foreigner, yet reading a book about speaking english which is written in THAI . Still the books are fairly easy to read, and often times good conversation starters when thais are curious enough to ask you about what your reading

[meadish_sweetball]

Don't be dismayed, tod. Most foreigners in Thailand are not able to read at this level. And from here, the only way is up.

[kokesaat]

" Most foreigners in Thailand are not able to read at this level"

My sentiments exactly......well, maybe even "Most foreigners in Thailand aren't able to read (Thai) period!" There are depressing days I understand precious little about what's said on TV and brighter days when I can read through a นิทานพื้นบ้านอีสาน story and only have to look up 10 or so words. Keep at it.....it does get better with each day.

[Tod Daniels]

Don't be dismayed, tod. Most foreigners in Thailand are not able to read at this level. And from here, the only way is up.

For as many foreigners as Ive met who profess to live here, that sentence really makes me SO SAD. ..

This is their country, their language, &lt;deleted&gt;??

Thank frickin' God the only way is up. ..

Edited August 16, 2010 by tod-daniels

[Joosesis]

I just recently went back out to the Andrew Biggs Academy at Major Ekami and got some more of his books, as they give a 10% percent discount and it's easy to get to for me.

I would also encourage you to find Andrew Biggs on Twitter. He replies to everyone and gives some great idiomatic examples.

[Tinkelbell]

tod-daniels, you're one of the few foreigners who know Thai language well above average Thai people ( judging from reading posts from ThaVisa). Your Thai ( writing & reading) is very impressive.

This Thai give you big hand, you deserve more than ป.๔ , at least ป.๖

As someone said......." And from here, the only is up."