I spoke Thai only for the first 6 years with my wife as she didn't speak English. Then I started speaking English as she was learning and the more time has passed, we speak English. We do revert back to Thai when arguing though.

Thai 10%.

The other 90% is when I am talking to myself, or to one of my other personallities.

No......sometimes......it depends.......

Of course my OP assumed that you had a Thai partner

As for not speaking Thai because we are not migrants, (unlike the subjects of the German TV programme in my OP link); whilst most of us are not 'migrants' in the sense of having acquired Thai citizenship, many of us are migrants in all but name, if it is our intention to live permanently in Thailand.

I do not have Thai citizenship (can't tick all the application boxes...), but I consider myself a migrant because this is now my permanent home and I have a long-stay visa.

Not many of you are migrants, why should you speak Thai?

Why should migrants speak Thai at home?

What's your point?

The point is,

One could argue a point for migrants to speak the language of their new country.

No reason at all for guests (expats) to speak the language of their temporary residence.

Of course my OP assumed that you had a Thai partner

As for not speaking Thai because we are not migrants, (unlike the subjects of the German TV programme in my OP link); whilst most of us are not 'migrants' in the sense of having acquired Thai citizenship, many of us are migrants in all but name, if it is our intention to live permanently in Thailand.

I do not have Thai citizenship (can't tick all the application boxes...), but I consider myself a migrant because this is now my permanent home and I have a long-stay visa.

You can't be a migrant in all but name, you either are, have a new passport, and can stay forever, or you aren't.

You long stay visa means jack, the Junta will have you out tomorrow, if they feel like it.

What you consider (in some delusional universe of your own) means nothing to the government of Thailand.

You have a temporary residence in Thailand.

And it's gonna get harder for you to stay in it.

We seem to have developed our own language, where often its a mixture of Thai and English in the same sentence totally confuses Thai people.

I speak English to everybody. It is a well known fact that if you speak it slowly, clearly and loudly, then everybody in the world can understand you!

We seem to have developed our own language, where often its a mixture of Thai and English in the same sentence totally confuses Thai people.

555

You should hear my 3 year old babble, Central, Lanna and English all mixed together in a sentence.

"Noo want nom"

Of course my OP assumed that you had a Thai partner

As for not speaking Thai because we are not migrants, (unlike the subjects of the German TV programme in my OP link); whilst most of us are not 'migrants' in the sense of having acquired Thai citizenship, many of us are migrants in all but name, if it is our intention to live permanently in Thailand.

I do not have Thai citizenship (can't tick all the application boxes...), but I consider myself a migrant because this is now my permanent home and I have a long-stay visa.

You can't be a migrant in all but name, you either are, have a new passport, and can stay forever, or you aren't.

You long stay visa means jack, the Junta will have you out tomorrow, if they feel like it.

What you consider (in some delusional universe of your own) means nothing to the government of Thailand.

You have a temporary residence in Thailand.

And it's gonna get harder for you to stay in it.

Someone's paranoid.

You have a temporary residence in Thailand.
And it's gonna get harder for you to stay in it.

For me, I think not I understand that 'money talks' in Thailand. So I have an Elite 5-year visa. No-one bothers me now

I speak most of the time Isaan/Thai in our home but to my boy in English. My lassie speaks English or Thai in the home.

Some days the dog wants to speak Thai and others English. I call the dog first in Thai if she doesn't come I switch to English.

The wife speaks rapid fire Thai to the dog which confuses her so I tell my wife to slow down her speech so the dog can understand.

The dog is tri lingual; speaking dog and understanding dog, English and Thai. She has about 20 different barks and 4 different cries that I can recognize. The snake and scorpion bark is quite distinctive and easy to recognize. The, "I just bit a Burmese guy climbing over the back wall one is a bit more complex."

Having a knowlledge of Thai is ok particularly when you live in the country side but no big use when you live in Bangkok where there is a big majority of Thai speaking or understanding english, with the coming Asean may be the 2nd official language of Thailand will be english.

We seem to have developed our own language, where often its a mixture of Thai and English in the same sentence totally confuses Thai people.

Exactly! I think this is pretty common among bilingual couples. Long ago I lived in New Mexico, where many people are bilingual in Spanish and English. The local paper had a weekly humor column about it.

It confuses some westerners, too.

No, Mia wouldn't understand me...

i speak thai to the maid.

My Thai wife, myself and 3 children speak English, Thai, and Khymer. My wife spent two years in the UK and strictly speaking our eldest daughter is an expat who speaks fluent Thai at home and BBC English.

Edited December 11, 201411 yr by Estrada

I speak Khymer to the wife, English to my boy and abosolute boll**ks in the bar

Only using English as I think it's better to have one common language instead of mixture of multiple languages.

Of course my OP assumed that you had a Thai partner

As for not speaking Thai because we are not migrants, (unlike the subjects of the German TV programme in my OP link); whilst most of us are not 'migrants' in the sense of having acquired Thai citizenship, many of us are migrants in all but name, if it is our intention to live permanently in Thailand.

I do not have Thai citizenship (can't tick all the application boxes...), but I consider myself a migrant because this is now my permanent home and I have a long-stay visa.

I understood from previous posts you had spat the dummy and was going to Myanmar?

I speak Khymer to the wife, English to my boy and abosolute boll**ks in the bar

Geordie's English goes something like this: Dee us some scran, hinny, I'm clamming (when hungry)

Howay, man, marra, let's gan doon the bar for some beltas scran(When going to the bar).

Wife says your "Veil Mook" (Drunk) you say "Mun Deng Tae".(I dee nae understand)

I speak Lao at home, as I live in ISSAN and very few people are good at Central Thai anyway

I speak Khymer to the wife, English to my boy and abosolute boll**ks in the bar

I'm not fluent in boll**ks in the bar, but have been acknowledged to be quite gifted when using shorthand...and occasionally awesome when I slip into Braille.

We seem to have developed our own language, where often its a mixture of Thai and English in the same sentence totally confuses Thai people.

I have a friends wife who speaks Thailish. There are 7 others in the world that speak the same language, and her husband isn't one of them.

You have to talk at home? I use guttural noises.

With my wife we have been talking Thai from the beginning, she would like to learn more English and Dutch (my native language), but it's hard to switch.

With my son of 17 I speak Dutch and he speaks Thai ans some English with my wife, with my stepson of 7 I speak English and some Thai and with our daughter of 2 I speak English and Dutch.

My wife speaks Isaan with her family and some friends and I have some colleagues that I speak German with.

From a linguistic point of view we are a messy household!

My wife doesn't speak English at all.

My English is poor.

I already knew the basics of thai language when I met her.

And she has learnt my difficult native language slowly.

Hence we are still speaking thai at home.

We have been married 24 years already.

After two years from now we both will have pension and it will be nice for me to

stay in Nong Khai while knowing some thai and isaan language.

Our adult daughter speaks perfect thai and isaan.

Her thai writing is good but not perfect.

Mostly Thai only English when asked to translate, I like them to use Thai/English Dictionary.

The word fluency gets thrown around a lot when it shouldn't. for example if you say " i am fluent in Thai but cannot read and write" then by definition you aren't fluent. Fluency can only be attained after becoming fully literate in a language as well as being able to speak....

Edited December 11, 201411 yr by Smurkster