Thai Tourist Police Soon To Speak Fluent English

[noob7]

Will they issue to all of the fluent English speaker work permits and a paycheck?

With only volunteers from English speaking countries they can't make it, methinks!

[noob7]

To illustrate my point: 2007 I passed a shop on Sukhumvit, that was obviously being renovated.

in the window there was a sign, saying "open monday october!"

Still in time, never mentioned the year!

[chooka]

Seems a little like a pipe dream. One would have thought that when they were planning and establishing the corp of tourist police a "prerequisite" of employment would be that they were fluent in a foreign language. The whole concept of the tourist police semms a little pointless if they can't communicate with tourists.

It is a little like thier high speed train project, they have organised the box lunches but then oh <deleted> we forgot to build the lines and order the trains,

[chainarong]

Standby for more gut wrenching news on a english speaking HUB

[softgeorge]

Seems a little like a pipe dream. One would have thought that when they were planning and establishing the corp of tourist police a "prerequisite" of employment would be that they were fluent in a foreign language. The whole concept of the tourist police semms a little pointless if they can't communicate with tourists.

It is a little like thier high speed train project, they have organised the box lunches but then oh <deleted> we forgot to build the lines and order the trains,

Now that would be logical to recruit staff who already have a fluency in a 2nd language but this is Thailand. The roof has to go up before the walls.

[fareastguy]

Foreigners being employed as tourist police. now that's a step too far, even for forward thinking Thailand.

I can see the conversation going something like this:

Where u come fom

What ur name

give me Bt1000 & can go home.. dankyou.

Sawadee Krup

[transam]

Foreigners being employed as tourist police. now that's a step too far, even for forward thinking Thailand.

I can see the conversation going something like this:

Where u come fom

What ur name

give me Bt1000 & can go home.. dankyou.

Sawadee Krup

I have helped a few of you. You have a problem with help from your perhaps countryman ?

[harrry]

Our lad, 17, passed English . I am English and he can't talk to me, done via mum.

most sons are like that anyway.

Though they really do have a way of setting goals and then not doing any work to achieve the goal.

[MaxLee]

English serves only for one purpose in Thai school curriculum: to annoy the hell out of the students bad attitude and create a negative impression over a language they rarely use in their daily lives,.... excluding the 5% that are actually willing to go through that streneous learning process...

[silverhawk_usa]

English serves only for one purpose in Thai school curriculum: to annoy the hell out of the students bad attitude and create a negative impression over a language they rarely use in their daily lives,.... excluding the 5% that are actually willing to go through that streneous learning process...

But can't that also be said of foreign languages taught as a requirement in our western schools? I am sure very few of my classmates ever really used the languages they were taught in High School. As for me; I am hopeless with foreign languages, especially Thai.

[rheinwiese]

Define fluent speaker

A fluent speaker can participate in extended conversations, understand the language when spoken normally (on TV, radio, film, etc.), figure out meaning of words within context, debate, and use/understand complicated grammatical structures with little or no difficulty. Has good accent and understands dialects with slight-to-moderate difficulty.

[lujanit]

Is Thailand now the hub of english speakers? Or will that be in 6 months

[Dr Robert]

So given the negative cynical and smarty pants responses so far, lets look at the potential positives. It will be a good move to have police who have a minimum grasp of English. It is possible to create English communication skills in six months with willing participants and competent trainers. Thai people have capacities for growth beyond most of the commentary here. Few of you yet appear to grasp the significance of the attempt. If you tend to rely on smug superior criticism instead of embracing a forward thinking ideal you are diminishing the chances of its success. Try and be a bit more optimistic.

[noob7]

Our lad, 17, passed English . I am English and he can't talk to me, done via mum.

What is that saying about your Thai?

[noob7]

It will be a good move to have police who have a minimum grasp of English.

Don't confuse 'tourist police' with 'police', please!

Edited October 18, 2012 by noob7

[MEL1]

This will be the lingo of the tourist police!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkWMcRlE1mQ

-mel.

[Songhua]

I also had to check the calender to make sure it wasn't 1st April.

Weeeeeeeeelllllll, this goes on the list, drug problem gone in a year, no more floods in BKK, corruption to be routed out, etc. Really is pathetic.

Oh, forgot, the guy who built my kitchen extension roof who provided a lifetime guarantee, I can't find the sod.

5555 You forgot the rice.

[Songhua]

Fluent english should be very handy when dealing with other Asians after the ASEAN floodgates open.

[transam]

Our lad, 17, passed English . I am English and he can't talk to me, done via mum.

What is that saying about your Thai?

What Thai, for me it's ''Check Bin'' only. ....................

[noob7]

Our lad, 17, passed English . I am English and he can't talk to me, done via mum.

What is that saying about your Thai?

What Thai, for me it's ''Check Bin'' only. ....................

Ok, we improve your Thai, today:

Use 'geb tang, kraph', next time.

The wife will have to explain to the waitress, why you never spoke Thai before!

[lizardtongue]

Optimists till the end gotta love em!

I can see it now, "Excuse me sir, I really do require some extra disposable income this month, is there any chance you can possibly loan me 1000 baht? Before you answer, I must point out that you are not wearing appropriate head attire for riding a motor cycle"

[nong38]

HAHAHAHAHA. They won't even be able to speak basic English in 6 months.

Manchester United, Chelseee, Liverpull, Arsenal, been speeking English long time.

So they know thier english geography, I presume these are english towns but I may be wrong.

You are, go to the back of the class!

[Beng]

28 Mio arrivals and fluent english !! Let's wait and see.

[Semper]

I also had to check the calender to make sure it wasn't 1st April.

Weeeeeeeeelllllll, this goes on the list, drug problem gone in a year, no more floods in BKK, corruption to be routed out, etc. Really is pathetic.

Oh, forgot, the guy who built my kitchen extension roof who provided a lifetime guarantee, I can't find the sod.

Maybe it was his lifetime?

[Fozfromoz]

To illustrate my point: 2007 I passed a shop on Sukhumvit, that was obviously being renovated.

in the window there was a sign, saying "open monday october!"

Still in time, never mentioned the year!

Thats right, any October with a Monday in it will do.

[WilliaminBKK]

In 5 years time there'll be an app that does a better job speaking Thai than I do.

[softgeorge]

So given the negative cynical and smarty pants responses so far, lets look at the potential positives. It will be a good move to have police who have a minimum grasp of English. It is possible to create English communication skills in six months with willing participants and competent trainers. Thai people have capacities for growth beyond most of the commentary here. Few of you yet appear to grasp the significance of the attempt. If you tend to rely on smug superior criticism instead of embracing a forward thinking ideal you are diminishing the chances of its success. Try and be a bit more optimistic.

I understand what you are saying but how long have the tourist police been in existance, 15 yrs or so? (maybe longer) Weren't they established to help promote tourism and to assist International tourists if they found themselves in a predicament or were the victims of crime? How long have tourists been coming to Thailand? Why has it taken Thailand so long to realise that probably 99.9% of the tourists who come for thier one week annual holiday actually speak a different language to Thais? Would it not make more sense for them to actually recruit people who already (from the beginning) speak english, russian etc instead of waiting years to realise that they can't communicate and perform thier basic role.

It's the 7 PPPPPPP's (Prior Preparation & Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance)

[Moruya]

What a great idea.

However........

[Mosha]

The mods are gonna struggle for a credible April 1st story next year

[Guest]

So given the negative cynical and smarty pants responses so far, lets look at the potential positives. It will be a good move to have police who have a minimum grasp of English. It is possible to create English communication skills in six months with willing participants and competent trainers. Thai people have capacities for growth beyond most of the commentary here. Few of you yet appear to grasp the significance of the attempt. If you tend to rely on smug superior criticism instead of embracing a forward thinking ideal you are diminishing the chances of its success. Try and be a bit more optimistic.

About being optimistic. There was an old story about a boy who take care of the sheep flock. One day he yelled "Wolfs, wolfs" and whole village run to help to get rid of the wolfs, except there were none.. boy just had a bit of <deleted>. The same did happen the following day and everybody were pretty angry to the boy. The next day the boy yelled "Wolfs, wolfs" again.. and nobody came.. this time the wolfs were there and the whole sheep flock was killed..

I believe we all have been optimistic of the changes in Thailand. Things to get better. Over the years we have heard lots of similar stories as this. Waited for the results, which never came. After enough time it's hard to believe that there will be real results.

Then about learning a new language. If a person have a very little language skills of an foreign language, it's virtually impossible to speak it fluently just after 6 months. Specially if the person is not fully exposed to the new language. These tourist polices are not all young and so keen to learn something new anymore. We tend to get a bit lazy to learn new when we get older. Specially if there is not really good motivator for the task.

So I believe that some of the force who have previous skills will be able to speak ok English, some not even that, after the 6 months period. But fluently, no.