English Language Arrogance

[elliss]

No interest in learning the local language?

Why bother?

In government offices in the UK they now have Urdu, Hindi, Polish and Serbo Croat services....

I think Thailand should follow suit.

BRITAINISTAN

[maxme]

No interest in learning the local language?

Why bother?

In government offices in the UK they now have Urdu, Hindi, Polish and Serbo Croat services....

I think Thailand should follow suit.

BRITAINISTAN

Utter nonsens...

To compare the problems with immigrants in the west and in the east is comparing apples with durians.

Foreigners here dont have basic rights and never will have while we give the immigrants a fair chance atleast in the west.

I don´t care about having extra privilegies just because Im a westerner, I just want to be respected like everybody else, being able to apply for the same work as the locals (Have you ever seen a westerner working at KFC or McDonalds?) and being able to vote so that I can help make a change.

If you take most of western and northern Europe the immigrants have all this and much more while people who have families in Thailand suffer greatly because of incorporated racism. Not being able to buy land, not being able to own your own company and not being able to choose the job you want. Along with a load of cash that has the be represented every year and almost no chance of becoming a citizen.

I think the people who complain here sometimes get their biased minds mixed up and forget that they too are foreigners in LOS.

[saengsureeya]

Probably, the guard was so pissed off, that he learned English for approx. 4 years and now he has an altercation with an English native speaker and guess what..........he couldn't understand the guy.

Pure frustration!!!

[kerryk]

As for the BTS guard, what sort of English comprehension would I expect ... not much.

If I was told by the guard 'no, can not' and he pointed to the balloons, I would be fairly comfortable with that as an understandable instruction.  But I don't want to talk about there, in this thread.

We are very lucky that English is indeed the world acceptable language.

Maybe also because the UK is an island nation, same as Australia and New Zealand, we've had little need, until modern travel, to learn other languages.

Where the likes the Dutch, regularly speak 3 or 4 languages.

My Finnish friend spoke 5 languages ... because she had to.

Could Thailand improve it's customer service interface with more English being spoken by those who had a job with a strong tourism flavour ... sure.

But there certainly would be a difference between the level of English language required to give clear and understandable instructions to customers by a BTS guard then that required by the same BTS guard to debate the intricacies with the man why he could not bring the balloons onto the train.

I don't think that luck had a lot to do with it. English was exported and taken along by explorers, occupying armies and colonisers. Other agents for the widespread use of English are the rich culture of literature, films, TV series, live theatre, pop music and sport, not forgetting technology.

Being an island race hasn't prevented quite a few words from other countries being introduced and accepted into the English language recently or indeed over the centuries.

I have made no conscious effort to acquire my smattering of Thai. I see no lasting value in making such an effort. Better that I spend what time I have left teaching the youngsters, and others willing to learn, how to speak, read and write English and then a few other subjects. Why should I make the effort, spend the money and then snuff it? I won't be meeting Buddha will I? And if there is a God it is odds on that he speaks English. HE would know that that makes sense.

For what is is worth, some acedemic guru prophesied a month or two ago that in about 50 years therer will be only 3 languages in common use. English, Spanish and Mandarin.

Did you ever take Thai lessons from a Thai person who spoke no English? I did. I also took Thai lessons from a Thai person who spoke English. I learned 100% quicker from the Thai person who spoke English. I have taught Thai to executives and found they learned 100% quicker if I spoke Thai in addition to English as opposed to speaking only English. The only people who I have met who teach English to Thai students and do not speak any Thai in class were Bozo's.

[inthepink]

It is a pity that the spelling of the uncontestable world language is a regular horrorshow.

I'll recite part of a poem which revolves around this theme:

Dear creature in creation,

studying English pronounciation

I'll keep you, Susy, busy

make your head with heat feel dizzy

That's good, apart from your misspelling of pronunciation (many people mispronounce it the way you spelt it)

[keestha]

I looked it up, and you are right, thank you! I always pay special attention when I discover that I have misspelled/mispronounced a certain word my whole life.

Edited March 28, 2012 by keestha

[cooked]

A pedant is a person who is excessively concerned with formalism and precision, or who makes a show of his or her learning.

[luckyluke]

Probably, the guard was so pissed off, that he learned English for approx. 4 years and now he has an altercation with an English native speaker and guess what..........he couldn't understand the guy.

Pure frustration!!!

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I can concur with this, many not native english speakers learn literary English, and then they are confronted with people who express themselves in colloquial English and even Slang, without mention the now, sad enough, more and more ones who can not express themselves any more without using the words fuc_k and fuc_king at least 3 times in one sentence.

Edited April 14, 2012 by luckyluke

[SlyAnimal]

English is the international language

The guard was working in a job where he will very regularly be dealing with non Thai people/tourists

Thus he should speak English, or at least a little anyway

However, eitherway balloon man was a douche, kicked the security guard (according to my gf at least, I didn't see the "pre metal detector" video myself). A communication breakdown might have pissed him off, but no need to start a scrap, not when im sure body language/tone would have communicated well enough what the guard was communicating I'm sure