I don't like to correct my gf when she's speaking English. Am I the only one?

[brucegoniners]

I don't think you are doing her a service when she makes major English mistakes. Minor ones, ok. But she'll never learn unless you help her. I've helped improve my wife's English a lot since we've been together this way.

[Jasun]

Jasun finds certain things cute, but Jasun thinks you should correct her sometimes.

Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

[bra]

When I first met my Thai GF her English was good enough to hold a conversation, and we have never resorted to pidgin. I initially spoke with her as I would with anyone who is not a native English speaker - slower than my normal fast Australian, without the accent (I don't think I had one much)and avoiding any slang and unnecessary complexity. I did not try to correct her English then to avoid disrupting the flow of conversation and we could understand each other quite well.

She then majored in English at a private university so I was required to correct her English, especially grammar and spelling which I gladly did, even if her lecturer (PhD from somewhere?) did not agree with me sometimes.

Obviously her English (especially written) has improved, and I no longer correct her unless it could be embarrassing if she uses the same words or phrases in conversation with others. This is partly my fault as we now converse in more "Australian" English, some of which may not be received as intended and I still find some of my attempts at humour need some explanation.

Its my turn now, learning Isaan Thai, and I need all of the correction I can get.

[thailandbeachisland]

When i see how Thai speak English I guess you are not the only one :-)

[gchurch259]

I never correct my wife in public. What I do in private is repeat back to her in proper English, such as; I understood you want me to turn on the TV, when what she said was open the TV.

One of the problems with Thailand is they do not make the students speak English enough. I have a very good Step Son who will finish Siam Technical University with a BS in Electrical Engineering. He gets A's and B's in English and yet can not tell me to kiss his butt in English when he gets mad.

With my Texas accent I do not even try to speak Thai.

Good day to all, Jerry

[crazydrummerpauly]

WHY in the name of sanity would anyone enjoy their partner speaking like a baby ??? And then actually COPYING IT !!! Cute ? Not in my experience. If my Thai lady couldn't speak excellent English i'd have fled the scene years ago. But as another poster said : everyone's entitled to their own taste, can't argue with that. But then again - other posters have noted how that pidgin-level of English is a real negative in the employment field...

[Nemesis7]

If you are planing to keep your girl friend for SHOT TAME ( short time) bare with what ever she says.

But if you have plans for LOVE YOU LONG TIME , please help her to improve.

[crazydrummerpauly]

My English mate speaks pidgin English to me. I'm English.

Haha - yep, had the same experience a few times. Baffling. Can't be bothered talking with such blokes - but then i don't have a 'mate' or friend who does it, thank god.

[Jawnie]

Yes,let's all speak perfect English in a BBC estuary accent,what an interesting place the world would be then!

Er...uh, I'd say mid-western American English is the way to go...hahaha. I have no idea how Thais manage to learn a word of English from some of you Brits and especially Germans and French.

Seriously, though. Avoid pidgen English and 'dumbing down' your English, it sound childish. It sounds even worse when English speakers have gotten so used to speaking pidgen English that they continue using it when speaking to other English speaker (good god, man, get a hold of yourself). The OP will be doing her a favor by helping her get the he/him/his and she/her/hers pronouns right (all Thais mess these up) and helping get the a/an/the correct occasionally. Best of luck.

[David48]

WOW ... 69 replies, all arguments for the affirmative ...

I've always happy to have been the contrarian at the appropriate time ...

What's more important to the relationship?

English grammatically perfect ... or communication?

I say spare the rod ... have some fun with your partner ...

My Lassie, she's learning quite fine, but she does it at her pace, studies from the language courses on the internet when possible.

I tell her not to worry about the grammar, the 'glue' words which are unnecessary in English, concentrate on the vocabulary, the pronunciation ... grammar will come in it's good time.

That said, we do work on tense quite a bit as that is an effective communication tool.

[wileycoyote]

Sometimes.best to try anyway

[Sam Gold]

Good topic.

This is a tricky issue as speaking native English with her would basically mean not being understood (out of the question of course) and speaking "Thaiglish" isn't helping her improve in the long run and could even result in yourself not speaking your own language properly anymore.

So what I've started doing is this: I speak the bad English she is used to, but I pronounce one sentence or structure (always one at a time) the right way as many times as necessary until she picks it up. And it works! She now says "What are you doing" instead of "What you do?", "I forgot" in the past tense instead of "I forget" etc.

I intend to throw in a few dozen hours of English classes with that and she should be fine.

[uptheos]

WOW ... 69 replies, all arguments for the affirmative ...

I've always happy to have been the contrarian at the appropriate time ...

What's more important to the relationship?

English grammatically perfect ... or communication?

I say spare the rod ... have some fun with your partner ...

My Lassie, she's learning quite fine, but she does it at her pace, studies from the language courses on the internet when possible.

I tell her not to worry about the grammar, the 'glue' words which are unnecessary in English, concentrate on the vocabulary, the pronunciation ... grammar will come in it's good time.

That said, we do work on tense quite a bit as that is an effective communication tool.

I've noticed that communication can be tense.

[kikoman]

When my wife mispronounces a word or use a word not common to English Speakers, I make a point of telling her that I understand what she means, I only correct her to help her as one day, after my time on earth has expired she could get a better Job based on her English proficiency, if she chose to.

I never make fun of her, my only hope is for her to speak English as well as she can! .

Cheers

[CapeCobra]

"Learning is like rowing against the stream. If you stop, you will drift back. "

OP and many others, please, consider mastering vocabulary, grammar, punctuation and style of your own language first, before trying to lift your TGF's skills from "awful but funny" to "bad but not so funny".

Lawyers of TGF {Thank God it's Friday}, don't sue me!

[rjcampbe]

Lots of pidgin phases we use in today's English is from the Cantonese, believe it or not:

Long time, no see

No this no that

No money no talk

Look-see

Chop chop

I'm sure there are more.

This could be a good thread on its own.

How about these...

Me no likey!

No ticky no laundry!

And of course the infamous "no money no honey"

[M12MKD]

I don't like to as I don't want to knock her confidence but she loves it if I do correct her.

So even though I find some of her English cute I do make the effort to correct her when possible.

I guess it depends on your other half. Mine wants to at some stage to work in the uk, as in Thailand she has a well paid and good job and wants to do a similar job here so a good command of the English language is needed.

[khunpa]

I once met a Thai girl who spoke with an over-acting American accent... (most likely learnt from her American boyfriend(s). I would prefer pigeon/baby English at any time...

I correct my girlfriend sometimes, but since I speak pigeon Thai myself I see no need to interrupt every conversation we have, with language lessons.

Besides that, I do not care if my girlfriend does not speak perfect english... Why? Because she is Thai and I like her being Thai! If she spoke english with a "fake" english or american accent, I would for sure kill her within 5 min.

One of the things I hate most is when I hear a Thai girl saying... Ohhhh.... Reeaallllyyyy... with a fake accent and a big smile. Then we all know, where she learnt that.

[Dellie]

Can't really correct my wife as she went to Cambridge and speaks far better english then I do (Im not a native english speaker). most people on here probably don't have Thai wives with doctorates from western universities though so I can see where you are coming from. I encounter some really basic english daily from Thais.

[khunpa]

I hate hearing Guys talking to their wives /girlfriends in pidgeon english ,a friend of ours has just gone back and insisted on talking to my wife like it ,in the end i just said "listen you never spoke to her like that the 8 years we lived in the UK ,why do it now?" she speaks english really well,amazing

Well, my girlfriend speaks pigeon Thai to me, because when she speaks Thai fast I often get lost in the conversation... So there is really no difference, until people learn better over time...

BTW... You spelt pigeon wrong... Some people also hate when other people can not spell correctly ;-) But who cares, as long as the meaning is understood?

[namdocmai]

My wife still likes to wash the tv, pump the tiles of the car or let the garage check the oir of it. She irons my brouses, loves to eat bloccori, after 8 comes the numbe ny, doesn't like woowee blead but likes to eat flied fish. For the rest her english is vely good. I have collected her about 100 times on these examples but i wonder if she will ever learn to pronounce these words perfectly.

Maipenlai, we are happy.

[khunpa]

In general, I think most people who cares about how good their Thai girlfriend is at english, is because they are worried about what other people think of their relationship and girlfriend.

Well face it guys... If you have a Thai-girlfriend or wife, you will always meet prejudices where ever you go. She can be rich, make her own money and even have several master degrees. But if she is Thai and you are a Farang, then you will meet people who think something different of you. Thats what follows from a Farang and a Thai-girl deciding to live together. You will even find the prejudices amongst Thai-people.

Personally, I could care less about how good my girlfriend spoke english or who heard us speak pigeon english together. I know my girlfriend is hardworking, smart and a loving partner. I like her for what she is and who she is. Who cares what other people think?

My girlfriend speaks okay english, but far from perfect. So what? The people who know her, all know she is a very good partner and a hardworking good hearted person and she gets respect from that. When she makes a mistake speaking english, we laugh about it and thats it. Same as she laughs, when I speak rubbish Thai sometimes.

I would be much more worried, if she could not speak Thai - especially since she is Thai and we live in Thailand. That would scare the shit out of me.

[harryfrompattaya]

Much of it depends on where and how they learned to speak English in the first place.

subtle ...

Very....given the fact, large numbers of Thai English degree holders, some,even with masters degrees from the likes of Chula can't speak proper English either, and do talk in baby English as well

All my friends wives speaks great English but I can not understand them.

But they do not known I speak Thai and I know plenty about who they are phoning to when they are over the house without their Farang Husband.

Husbands are the last to know anything but they love to judge how great their wives speak English. Can they be that stupid?

[namdocmai]

I know some college friends of my wife, they have studied in the USA for 4 years and a master degree but even can't say: hello how are you to me! In fact their english is far worse then pidgeon-english. I still wonder how they got their degree's because it is not possible to pay the teachers there to get the degree, right?

I also know some friends of her who still work in the US on high positions and their english is also far from fluent. Also they are shy to talk to a foreigner which makes me think how they can survive there for more then 15 years.

Also i met some Thai that have been in the US or Canada for only 2 years and speak english fluently, much better then me.

Amazing Thailand.

[nithisa78]

My wife happily corrects my Lao, and I her English

When it is harmless and it can actually be understood, the meaning. . . What does it matter. The bride tells me when I ask and same for me. We had big laugh the other day over tooth and teeth. Our primary objective is ignore small things and enjoy our lives. Nobody lives forever. The Mrs. English is by far superior to my Thai.

We're in the USA right now and she is learning Spanish in few weeks time from my friend's wife faster than I have in lifetime. Spanish is second language in USA. Thai people maybe East Asians in general are very intelligent and catch on quickly to, carpe diem.

[ultimate weapon]

meanwhile on the thai forum thais were commenting on how the farangs were speaking "baby thai" like how 5 yr old children spoke.

[Soutpeel]

I know some college friends of my wife, they have studied in the USA for 4 years and a master degree but even can't say: hello how are you to me! In fact their english is far worse then pidgeon-english. I still wonder how they got their degree's because it is not possible to pay the teachers there to get the degree, right?

I also know some friends of her who still work in the US on high positions and their english is also far from fluent. Also they are shy to talk to a foreigner which makes me think how they can survive there for more then 15 years.

Also i met some Thai that have been in the US or Canada for only 2 years and speak english fluently, much better then me.

Amazing Thailand.

A case in point would be dear YK studied at a US university and obtained a master's degree at said institution and if anyone has watched her English language interview's well the less said the better

Another example the jouro who presents the news on NHK....very obvious she went to school and spent time the UK as she has a bit of a strange "British" accent, but even she messes up the pronunciation of English words, a native speaker would have no problem with

I have work colleagues whose English is good (by my standards) but they mess things up all the time with silly basic mistakes a native or fluent speaker would not make

[MrBanks]

I read the original post........ skipped all the rest....... just wanted to say, excellent piss take!!!!

[DavidMavec]

Whenever I hear a Thai woman speaking pigeon English, especially in the company of a farang male, the thought goes through my head that she is a current or former bar girl.

[Soutpeel]

Whenever I hear a Thai woman speaking pigeon English, especially in the company of a farang male, the thought goes through my head that she is a current or former bar girl.

One suspects you need to get out of your isaan village or farang ghetto a bit more and open your ears 99.99% of the thai population that do "speak " english speak pigeon.....including large numbers of graduates from the top universities and include doctors & lawyers etc

One suspects the opposite is actual true in a lot of cases a Thai woman who speaks good English has come out the bar as this would be only place where they would be exposed to enough foreigners to become that proficient in the language and would be as an essential job skill, and would them quite popular among the punters