HHTel wrote: ↑Tue Jul 05, 2022 8:17 am
I've noticed that trait through all the years I've been here. Doesn't matter what the business. No customers then raise the prices. Quite the opposite of common sense.
There is no "common sense" here. That's a Western concept that is unknown in Asia. It is coupled with logic, that also doesn't exist here. It's difficult to deal with on a daily basis & I'm still not used to it.
A friend, who's lived here for 50 yrs., told me that the best thing I could do to adapt to Thailand would be to leave my DNA at the border. If I were in my 20's or 30's, that may have been possible but 75, it was way too late. Still, I'm learning to laugh, sometimes, at the incongruities of Thai culture and language.
Rice- Kao
White- Kao
Knee- Kao
Mountain- Kao
News- Kao
They.Them- Kao
Fishy= Kao
hhinner wrote: ↑Tue Jul 05, 2022 9:14 pm
Only the words for mountain and the pronoun are spelt the same and pronounced the same.
As noted, these near homophones are (with one exception) pronounced differently in Thai. The problem arises because they are all generally spelled the same (usually khao) when transcribed into the Roman alphabet. This seems specially designed to make it impossible for foreigners who don't read Thai to pronounce Thai words correctly. Witness the abomination that is Suvarnabhumi (สุวรรณภูมิ). The The Royal Thai General System of Transcription (RTGS) does a slightly better job at Suwannaphum. But this "official" system doesn't seem to have been adopted by the highway department or many other government agencies.
Near my home is the village of บึงอ้อ, which is transcribed on most signs a Bung Ao. The result is that every foreigner I've met from the place pronounces it something like "bung ow" when it should be more like "bueng o".
Yet another Thai trick to mess us up.
BTW, does spelt equal spelled? I always though spelt was a kind of wheat. Or is that just another British trick to mess us up?
Ratsima wrote: ↑Wed Jul 06, 2022 6:34 am
She just laughed. We long ago established a tacit agreement that in order to maintain matrimonial harmony we will not discuss the Thai language.
My wife asked why I pay for Thai lessons when she could teach me. I told her because I want to stay married.
The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.
BTW, does spelt equal spelled? I always though spelt was a kind of wheat. Or is that just another British trick to mess us up?
There are more examples of that. In general the past tense ending in 't' is used in British English where 'ed' was used un the US and Canada. Both spellings are used everywhere now.
Taking the mick out of the anomalies in the Thai language doesn't come close to the 'quirks' in English. That would be a discussion which would never end. Take the 'ough' rule for one.
Whereas in English, foreigners trying to learn the language face almost the opposite problem - letter combinations that are spelt (or spelled, if your prefer) exactly the same but pronounced totally differently.
The classic example is "ough" which can be pronounced 9 different ways (if you include the Irish spelling of "lough").
A short sentence including all 9 pronunciations:
"The rough, dough-faced, ploughman fought through the borough to the lough, hiccoughing and coughing."
When I first started to study Thai, back in 1996, I made two horrible mistakes.
One was to use learning materials that Romanized spoken Thai. As a result, I never learned to distringuish between khao, khao and khao.
The other mistake was to make the astoundingly stupid assumption that Thais would be able to use context and logic to figure out what I was trying to say, even if my pronunciation was poor. As a result, I paid almost zero attention to tones and vowel length. To this day I don't know either the tone or the vowel length of any Thai word. When the stupidity of my assumption and subsequent study shortcuts finally hit me, it was far too late for me to go back and learn what I had ignored.
I simply, and with great shame and regret, gave up. Although I manage simple transactional Thai (7Eleven clerks and baristas) I otherwise am unable to make myself understood and have no idea what's being said in ordinary conversational Thai. (Oddly, I can read.)
I blame it all on khao, khao and khao. (ขาว ข้าว ข่าว)
After learning that Thai was one of the world's most difficult languages to learn, I didn't feel so bad about my inability to learn it. Also, it's difficult to learn a language at age 75+.
