Learn English the Thai way
Sisaket (Isan) Station
For many Thais, the English language is of vital importance. Mastering the English language increases the opportunities to earn money. The tourism industry could use someone who speaks good English. You can then quickly start working as a doorman, waiter, maid, receptionist or possibly as a bargirl.
For a country that receives around 14 million tourists every year, you would expect the government to do everything it can to educate its citizens in the English language. That's right. There are language lessons on Thai TV. Into everywhere Thailand English language courses are given. Children learn English at school at an early age. As a result, there is a shortage of 'English teachers'. The strict requirements for a 'work permit' in Thailand do not apply when you start working as an English teacher in Thailand.
Speaking skills limited
Yet it is strange that despite these efforts, the level of speaking of the English language is limited. Apart from the Thai who have studied or lived abroad, there are not many Thai who speak fluent English. Even the Thais who have completed university studies sometimes hardly speak English. The reason for this can partly be traced back to the mediocre to poor education system.
In the vicinity of Saraburi I was a guest of a Thai family a number of times. A poverty-stricken family but neat and very hospitable. Family composition: Dad, Mom, Grandma and two children. A 15 year old boy and a 12 year old girl. Dad, who is sort of a forest ranger by trade, didn't speak a word of English. But he did his utmost to communicate with the farang with hands and feet.
Too shy
The 12-year-old daughter was taught English at school. When she did her homework, I looked at the English textbooks. I was impressed, it was of a decent level. From the exercise material she had made, I could conclude that she must already have a decent knowledge of the English language. Unfortunately I couldn't figure that out. No matter what I tried she wouldn't talk to me. “To shy” said my girlfriend at the time, who was not shy at all.
That is also an important part of the problem, the theoretical knowledge of English is not in proportion to the speaking skills. Children are often too shy to talk to a farang or to practice the language in any other way. As a result, knowledge quickly ebbs away. Applying the English language in practice is important to master speaking skills. Repeating words in class has little effect.
“Hey you!”
When you come to Isaan, the official language is a kind of Lao dialect, which is unintelligible even for Thai people. Towards the Cambodian border they speak Khmer as a third language. When I was walking around in a village in Sisaket province, the village youth shouted “Hey you!” at my appearance. The only English they could speak.
Sisaket station
Conversely, it is not made easy for farang either. You can see a good example of this at the train station of Sisaket. The only English I could detect was on a sign with the well-known international symbols (see photo above). I still understand that a telephone receiver means that you can call there. There is no need for an English translation. What is really important, namely the rail timetable, was written on a large sign in Thai script unreadable to tourists. “On the back it must be in English”, I thought in my ignorance. No, no English on the back of the board. Because of this it is not easy for a farang to go through Isaan without a guide journey.
As soon as you have left the tourist centers, road signs, signage and information regarding public transport no longer bilingual. A mention of both Thai and English would not only be nice for tourists and expats, but also educational for Thais.
Railway timetable Sisaket (Isaan) station
The province and place is called: Sisaket. The station sign says Srisaket. Where they suddenly get that 'r' from is a mystery to me.
Also funny on the top picture: 'Shop food' instead of 'Food shop'. Restaurant could also have been, but that was too much credit for the stall 😉
'Inquire' is to inform. That should have been "Information"?
Hi Peter, as you know Thai place names are often written in different ways. Sri is a Sanskrit word. Most 'sris' in Thailand are rendered as 'si', but sri and si actually mean the same thing.
If you look at Thai, and I'm not an expert, but I can follow it a bit, it still says 'sri' I think. The first character is 'so', the second character is 'ro'. The 'roof' above the 'ro' indicates the 'i' vowel. So if I read this in Thai I would pronounce it as 'sri' and not as 'si' because the 'r' is definitely there. But maybe there is a rule where you have a silent 'r' or something, I don't know. At least it explains where that 'r' comes from.
OK, redeeming word from my girlfriend: 'si' is easier for say than 'sri' and Thai people be lazy.' We know that too. So you do indeed write sri, but colloquial language is si.
Ah, clear. I wouldn't have been surprised if someone came up with that. But your statement makes more sense.
It is officially Sri (with an R) but in the colloquial language the R has hardly ever been pronounced for 100's (there is 1 TV show host who does). The English translation on the board is a pronunciation translation…. and since the Thai pronounce it without R, it is not “translated”.
Chang Noi
'
like udorn thanit so and so on
Yes, the Tenglish is already entertaining, and Thai who speak Dutch too. This will also apply the other way around. Still, I think it's great that many Thais have turned English into their own language. The pronunciation and grammar may not be correct, but it is understandable. “No have” everyone understands. Thai are especially practical why make it difficult if you don't have to.
The above differences are, incidentally, surmountable. Should you send a foreigner to Den Bosch or The Hague in the Netherlands…they will never find it!
In Amsterdam, an American once asked me about Led Zeppelin. I sent him to Paradiso. Later I found out that he meant Leidseplein. In Den Haad I failed to answer a German who asked about the Sjikadee. He meant Schiekade. Did I know much….
That Led Zeppelin is fun!
Saraburi pronounce Thai as Salabuli which 'r' remains difficult to pronounce.
Esan people usually make the r a l Not the Thais
as a former English teacher I can't help it: it's 'too shy' not 'to shy'. The last verb means something completely different. Nice piece by the way.
Very good Hans, my English is slowly becoming Tenglish. What you deal with…
Now on the one hand it is not surprising that Thais speak or understand English poorly, here in Sungnoen there was an Englishman who taught at the secondary school here.
But this one was not able to speak the Thai language at all, (explain it well then)
Had a good salary, but when his six-month contract ended, he gave up.
An Irish acquaintance here teaches English to two nephews and two nieces here at my house, but he is proficient in the Thai language, commuted to Bangkok for 3 years, and has good teaching results.
But does not get a job at the school, as he does not have the necessary papers to teach at schools.
So am I so wise now, or are they so stupid.
However, a “lao” who has had several years of higher education in Bangkok will also pronounce the r. (at least he tries to if he wants to) So not like in the North East “long lian” but “Rong Rian” (school) Not “long Pajabaan or worse still long baaan” but Rong Pajabarn (hospital) etc.
I went to Chiangmai for the first time last week and what struck me there is that much better English is spoken than in Phuket and Bangkok, for example. And not what name you English, but decent sentences with even correct syntax and grammar. Where in Phuket and Bangkok you sometimes have to search hard to find someone who speaks and understands English well, it was no problem in Chiangmai.
I asked around why English is spoken so well, but I didn't get much further than “because this is a tourist area”. I did notice that people from Phuket and Bangkok don't like it when you say that certain things in Chiangmai are better than in their own city.
About the Shop food/food shop comment: I think that's because the order of the words in a sentence doesn't really matter in Thai. Thai logic in English is practical, How old are you gives a look of I have no idea what it's about, but if you ask how many year you an answer follows immediately.
All unnecessary words are often omitted, which is of course very clear. If you go along with that a little, you will go a long way. For example, the air conditioning in my hotel room was broken. If I had gone to the counter and said “Excuse me, the air conditioning in my room is not working properly as there is water and ice dripping on the floor, could you perhaps send someone to have a look at it?” then they probably wouldn't have had any idea what I meant.
So in my most compact English: “Air conditioning no good water come out” “Oh no good sir we send someone fix it” and within 5 minutes it was fixed.
On the other hand, you can also say why use so many words when you can do with less.
Nice response, ThailandPattaya and it's true what you say. The English language that Thai speak is Tenglish. Funny to hear and a way to learn English quickly. You adopt it because it makes communication with a Thai easier.
In addition, the Dutch think that we speak English very well. However, that doesn't seem to be the case, I've been told.
Yes, speaking good English is often overrated. I was near HuaHin and I heard someone speaking in coal English with the hotel employee so in passing I said "Ah a Dutchman" with the surprised answer "Yes how do you know!"
Language is a wonderful medium, it is fascinating that everywhere in this world people move their lips and produce a sound and his compatriot understands exactly what is meant.
That also applies to me in Thailand, I can enjoy Thai people talking to each other and I don't understand a thing. No, I have lived here for several years, but I do not speak Thai. I speak 5 languages and then my own Twente dialect and that is enough for me at my age.
It is true that in Thailand you should speak simple English and name things as the Thais do. Our refrigerator is a “box”, let a Thai say refrigirator. For example, underpants are a "bikini", a restaurant a "tetteron" and a hospital a "kapiton". I deal quite a lot with English people here, who say what they want in plain English and find it strange that they are not understood. I then often correct them to say the same thing in short terms.
So you speak English to a Thai (Tenglish), to an American you speak English to an American, in short, whatever country you are in, try to adopt their way of speaking English.
Then there is the ability to shorten sentences. I once read a study where language use in preschoolers was studied. A toddler has not yet fully mastered the language, but can make it clear what it wants. The child sees a biscuit tin and does not say: Can I have a biscuit?, but simply: Me, biscuit? At a very young age, people are therefore already able to extract the essence of a sentence and that is a miracle! I often think about this research when, for example, I'm in a bar and the barmaid also says: Me, drink?
I think the most beautiful short drink that every Thai knows: No have!
Yes, recognizable. English is an easy language to learn. You only need to know a few English words to make yourself understood. It would be good if everyone in the world was raised bilingual. English and the native language. Then everyone, anywhere in the world, would be able to communicate with each other.
The Tenglish is not that crazy….
Not to be confused with the Taglish of the Filipinos, Tagalog-English.
It should certainly not be confused with that. Filipinos generally speak excellent English. A country with the largest population after the United States, with English as the (2nd) official language. Tagalog (Filipino language) is a mixture of Indonesian, mixed with Spanish and English.
When you are in the Philippines, almost everyone will be able to speak to you in English, unless you speak very good English (Tagalog?).
Let's also not forget that much of Tinglish is translated directly from Thai. Asian languages are generally much more direct and have a high 'me Tarzan, you Jane' content. They don't know tenses, conjugations and plural. For example, 'no have' comes from 'mai mi'. Coffeeshop is 'raankaaykaffe', literally 'shop sell coffee'. Restaurant is 'raanahaan', literally 'shop food'. If I'm not sure how to say something in Thai, I mentally translate straight back from Tinglish to Thai and in most cases I'm fine.
The lack of plural in Thai can obviously cause problems. I once had a discussion about this with my girlfriend, who wondered why an 's' is used to indicate plural. Her logic: '1 car, 2 car. You already say 2, so you already know have more than 1. Not need 's'. Then again I couldn't argue with that. 😉
My Italian friend Roberto is called Lobello in Bangkok. What's your experience with that, Robert? And when a Japanese says that Marcos loved the people, he means to say 'robbed the people'.
Lobelt. Which by the way means 'bomb' in Thai.
Ferdinand, you cannot call Tagalog a mixture of Indonesian, English and Spanish any more than Dutch would be a mixture of French, English and German. It is even more like Dutch as a completely independent language, with of course its influences from other languages from neighboring countries and its history. Tagalog is mainly a Polynesian language, spoken with fragments of English here and there, sometimes an Indonesian word and, especially in the south, also Spanish words or their corruption.
Indeed, plural, conjugations and tenses are missing in Thai, Robert. As for the plural, Bahassa Indonesia and Tagalog have the easiest solution; they simply repeat the singular. For example, both languages have the same word for child, namely 'anak', which in the plural simply becomes anak anak. Who doesn't know the famous song by the Filipino Freddy Aquilar: Anak! Although the Thais do not have a plural, they replace it by adding a so-called 'classifier' to the plural form for each noun. In Dutch we only know this for a few words, such as the word sla to which we add the classifier 'krop'. need to add to get a plural. The Thais divide this into many categories, such as all objects with a roof (house, mosquito net) have the classifier 'long', all hollow objects (barrel), books, knives, needles (lem), animals (tua) etc. etc. So 2 books is nangsuu song lem, 2 houses is job song lang, etc.
Since there is already a Ferdinand on this blog, it is Ferdinan(t). Well, that aside.
Because many English words and concepts occur in the Tagalog or Filippino, it is referred to as Taglish. Tagalog is derived from the words “taga” origin and ïlog” (river). The speakers of the language are called: “Katagalugan” (literally. River dwellers). Tagalog belongs to the Austronesian language family, which also includes Malagasy (the language of Madagascar), Malay, Bikol and Javanese. There is therefore some relationship between these languages and because of the Spanish and American predominance, the same applies to Spanish and English. It is therefore not surprising that English is the 2nd official language in the Philippines. Taglish English is therefore certainly not to be confused with Thai Tenglish, because the average Filipino speaks excellent English.
That Tagalog, which only has fragments of English here and there, sometimes has an Indonesian word, wo anak, is incorrect. In addition to anak, there are numerous words (mata/eyes, mukha/face, kumakain/food, pinto/door, mura/cheap and so on), which are written slightly differently in Behasa Indonesia. , but whose pronunciation is almost the same. In addition to 4 other languages, I also speak Malay and can reasonably tell from a conversation in Tagalog what my Filipino friend(s) are talking about.
Wikipedia says : Tagalog is related to Austronesian languages, such as Malay-Indonesian, Javanese and Hawaiian and belongs to the Malay-Polynesian language family.
Well, you're already moving in the right direction.