ศาลาชุมนุม

[Tgeezer]

It almost reminds me of a snooty Thai teacher I 'interviewed' for possible private conversation lessons. I wanted to get a better handle on Thai slang, and idiomatic expressions (which often carry double-entendre's). In short I wanted my spoken Thai to sound more like a Thai, than like a foreigner speaking Thai.

This Thai girl was adamant that NO person would ever speak/type this way, even though I’ve heard it every day in this country from Hat Yai to Chiang Rai eavesdropping on Thais. In fact she got all pissy with me , when I showed her some "chat rips" with slangy and totally misspelled words. She said to me, "Only people with no education talk like that." I thought it was soo comical that I laughed out loud to her face . Needless to say, she didn't work out as a private teacher . That’s okay because she came across as one of those “holier than thou thais” you run into from time to time.

Still interesting thread, none the less. . .

That wasn't a marriage made in heaven, I am not surprised that it didn't work out, not many teachers have the guts to tell their student that he has no education. I expect that you would run into more than the average number of 'holier than thou' types.

[tod-daniels]

That wasn't a marriage made in heaven, I am not surprised that it didn't work out, not many teachers have the guts to tell their student that he has no education. I expect that you would run into more than the average number of 'holier than thou' types.

Perhaps you mis-remembered what you read in my post , because I never took her comment to mean "I had no education" and still don't to this day.

I believe she was referring to the "chat rips" I'd shown her. It wasn't until after she saw them that she insinuated the people who wrote or spoke like that were the "uneducated" ones .

Still she's far from the first Thai teacher who "failed to make the cut" as far as what I want out of a teacher and what my objectives are in learning Thai . I just happen to be a foreigner who knows what I want and who refuses to be “spoon fed” the sanitized, overly polite, and totally “foreign” Thai most schools teach non-native speakers .

In reality, I'm just tryin' to learn to speak Thai like a "run-‘o-the-mill" Thais here in this country. Last time I checked there are a LOT more “run-‘o-the-mill” Thais here than the “holier than thou” ones .

I’m of the opinion there are also more than enough goofball foreign speakers of Thai here already; ones you can "peg" as such, the second they open their mouths. I most definitely don’t wanna be tossed into that heap, EVER!!

That's me, Tod Daniels; alienating the Thais, one person at a time . .. Just 63 odd million more to go, and my job is finished here, .

Still I find the answer that กลับ้าน could be plausible from Richard interesting.

[Tgeezer]

Still she's far from the first Thai teacher who "failed to make the cut" as far as what I want out of a teacher and what my objectives are in learning Thai . I just happen to be a foreigner who knows what I want and who refuses to be “spoon fed” the sanitized, overly polite, and totally “foreign” Thai most schools teach non-native speakers .

In reality, I'm just tryin' to learn to speak Thai like a "run-‘o-the-mill" Thais here in this country. Last time I checked there are a LOT more “run-‘o-the-mill” Thais here than the “holier than thou” ones .

I’m of the opinion there are also more than enough goofball foreign speakers of Thai here already; ones you can "peg" as such, the second they open their mouths. I most definitely don’t wanna be tossed into that heap, EVER!!

That's me, Tod Daniels; alienating the Thais, one person at a time . .. Just 63 odd million more to go, and my job is finished here, .

Still I find the answer that กลับ้าน could be plausible from Richard interesting.

Be reasonable, a teacher has spent a great deal of time and energy learning the language and can't possibly be interested in expanding their knowledge to include a lot of language which is not considered polite, not correctly constructed, not universally understood and can't be validated. Surely the language of comics must be normal Thai, isn't that bad enough for you? Its only a matter of buying a book and trying to find a few people who can tell you what the non standard words mean and choosing the answer you like best in each case.
Better still post it here. I happen to have a note from a normal Thai here who helps out round the house; he didn't do more than tech school and worked as an assistant on land surveys.
My name,
ผมซื้อผลไม้มาฝาก
รดน้ำต้นไม้ให้แล้วนะครับ
That's all he wrote, of course he seldom curses but then I don't know many people Thai or otherwise who do, I consider this to be normal everyday Thai.

[tach.skypethaiteacher]

Hi Richard,
Wow, you are so good I couldn't think of those words.
However, I would still say no Thais would write กลับ้าน maybe because the second syllable has a long vowel? and that makes it so weird?
Sometimes languages don't follow rules so much and from my experience using Thai all my life, I am certain nobody would write กลับ้าน.
You can disagree all you want though. I do not have rules to argue back but it is from my hunch as a Thai person.

[Pirin]

I saw this contraction on Facebook: กลับ้าน.

This is not contraction. It is a clause that is (probably intentionally) misspelled. It can be read as a clause composed of two words: 'กลับ' and 'บ้าน'.

RID:
กลับ [กฺลับ] ก. ตรงกันข้ามกับภาวะเดิมหรือทิศทางเดิม เช่น กลับหน้าเป็นหลัง กลับบ้าน, คืนมาสู่ภาวะเดิม เช่น กลับมีอีก, พลิกหน้า เป็นหลัง เช่น กลับปลา, เปลี่ยน เช่น กลับชาติ กลับใจ, ทําตรงกันข้ามกับที่คาดหมายหรือที่ควรจะเป็น เช่น เราพูดด้วยดี ๆ เขากลับด่าเอา.

บ้าน น. ที่อยู่ เช่น เลขบ้าน เจ้าบ้าน, สิ่งปลูกสร้างสําหรับเป็นที่อยู่อาศัยเช่น บ้านพักตากอากาศ บ้านเช่า, บริเวณที่เรือนตั้งอยู่ เช่น เขตบ้าน, หมู่บ้าน เช่น ผู้ใหญ่บ้าน, ถิ่นที่มีมนุษย์อยู่ เช่น สร้างเป็นบ้านเป็นเมือง; (กฎ) โรงเรือนหรือสิ่งปลูกสร้างสําหรับใช้เป็นที่อยู่อาศัย ซึ่งมีเจ้าบ้านครอบครอง และหมายความรวมถึงแพหรือเรือซึ่งจอดเป็นประจําและใช้เป็นที่อยู่ประจํา หรือสถานที่หรือยานพาหนะอื่นซึ่งใช้เป็นที่อยู่อาศัยประจําได้ด้วย. ว. ที่มีอยู่ตามบ้าน เช่น หนูบ้าน คู่กับหนูนา หรือที่เลี้ยงไว้ เช่น หมูบ้าน คู่กับ หมูป่า.

In 'กลับ', because this word is just a simple Thai word consisting of one syllable, 'บ' is the final consonant. The final consonant 'บ' does not carry with it any inherent vowels to enable it to act as the first consonant of the syllable following it. There is no other syllable of this word either. Therefore, 'บ' is the signal showing that it takes no other additional role at all when the word กลับ is 'used'.

In 'บ้าน', 'บ้าน' is also a simple Thai word in which 'บ' is the first consonant of the word. This consonant always appears when this word is used.

By the way, the reason why we undersatnd the misspelled clause "กลับ้าน" does depend on the function of our brain.
http://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/people/mat ... Cmabrigde/

[tach.skypethaiteacher]

I agree with Pirin

David has discussed this issue with me and he made a very interesting point that กลับ and บ้าน are not บาลี-สันสกฤต root words. True enough that the double-acting consonants are the phenomenon that can only be seen in words that are built by สมาส สนธิ of บาลี-สันสกฤต root words. กลับ and บ้าน are both Thai origin words. Therefore, the final consonant of กลับ and the initial consonant of บ้าน cannot be combined.

Also, I did a little bit of a survey on my Facebook to see how other Thai people would react towards this issue and here are what my Thai friends said in comments.
-> เกิดมาเพิ่งเคยเห็นเนี่ย
-> น่าจะพิมพ์ผิดหรือพิมพ์ตกมากกว่านะ - -"
-> ไม่น่ามีนะ

Please believe me it was just a typo
If you ask another million Thai people, they'll say the same thing.

[claude06thailand]

> "น่าจะพิมพ์ผิดหรือพิมพ์ตกมากกว่านะ"

I could not find พิมพ์ตก in my dictionaries but I suppose it is "to mistype"

What do you think ?

[tod-daniels]

Well, despite your argument “tach.skypethaiteacher”, I'm still "on the fence".

Chat-speak clearly mimics how Thai is spoken much more than how it is spelled.

If you factor in the oh-so common Thai penchant of shortening everything they say to the least number of syllables, I still think กลับ้าน falls under "plausible", in fact I weigh in with; "entirely plausible".
เป็นอย่างไรบ้าง becomes ไงบ้าง
สวัสดีครับ becomes หวัดดีคับ
ทำอะไร becomes ทำไร

I can site example after example of this "shortening", and that's just in spoken Bangkok Thai, there's no telling what is actually happening to the language in "internet-land" via "chat-speak".

I for one don't have any problem with กลับบ้าน becomin' กลับ้าน because it's sure spoken like that by Thais the country over. Given the final and initial consonant sound of the two words are exactly the same.

I guess we'll hafta wait for the "dinosaurs in charge of the language" the "ราชบัณฑิต" to tell us "what to think", or wait for another one of their rants in the newspapers about how Thais are "losing their language" due to its corruption by the Thai youth of today

Now I'll be the first to admit I ain't a native Thai speaker, but, for you to go so far as to say NO Thai would write this, hmmmmm that's painting with a very broad brush indeed.

[tod-daniels]

First I’m sorry for pulling this thread so far off-topic, but man “tgeezer” you just won’t give it a rest will you?

Sorry I have to disagree (not really sorry all that much, but it sounds more polite)..

It is my personal experience after visiting a lotta private Thai language schools here in Bangkok, interviewing a whole flock 'o possible private Thai teachers, and having more than a few Thai teachers currently employed at various schools as friends, that contrary to your statement “they spend a great deal of time learning the language”, in fact nope they don’t really spend that much time at all. I mean, come on these are all native speakers and learned Thai as kids, just like I learned English.

Granted most Thai teachers currently employed who I've come across have degrees, but FEW; as in I could count 'em on a single hand with fingers left over have a degree even REMOTELY related to language, the Thai language and fewer still had any experience teaching Thai to non-native speakers before they got their jobs. I know Thais currently teaching in several schools who have degrees in; marketing, law, tourism, business administration, to name a few. BTW: not a single one of the above mentioned degrees help a native Thai speaker teach thai to foreigners even a little bit. (This coincidentally is the same reason obscure degrees don’t help native English speakers be better teachers of engrish, the field of the degree is unrelated to teaching).

It is my experience that most private Thai language schools have the "bar set quite low" as far as qualifications for their teachers to teach Thai to non-native speakers. Most will take any native speaker, with any old degree, who has a fair to middling grasp of engrish, (although one all too well known private Thai language school ONLY hires beautiful girls, or at least ones he thinks are beautiful). Honestly, the biggest lynch-pin seems to be as long as the teachers aren't petrified when entering a classroom full of foreigners they’re considered qualified for the job..

Almost any native Thai speaker who speaks passable engrish, can get up and parrot Thai phrases out of a text books, go thru "rote dialogs", and "preach" how Thai is supposed to be spoken. Not all that many can answer a question from a student about WHY Thai is structured the way it is, and fewer still have what it takes to really "make the cut". By that term I mean developing a teaching style, utilizing good time management in the classroom, controlling a "herd of unruly loud foreigners". In short learning all the things they would know IF they possessed a degree in education instead of “underwater basket weaving”. Even less understand the "whyz-in-thai" as opposed to answering every question posed with "That's just how Thai is.." Believe me, that AIN'T the answer, because Thai is the way it is from RULES, whether the teacher knows the rules intuitively (like native English speakers do) or not, they were most definitely taught rules when they learned Thai, they just forgot 'em like I did the English rules.

It takes a pretty savvy Thai to really be able to "teach" this language with a degree of proficiency to non-native adult students. Simply by being adults these students possess a first (and possibly a second) language already, they are able to make analogies based on their usage of the language(s), they are able to ask intelligent questions, and in turn they expect "real" answers. What they don't want from a teacher is the Thai penchant for side stepping the question, or falling back on the “that’s how Thai is” answer as a face saving tactic when a teacher is caught out on not really knowing the answer to the question asked.

As far as I’m concerned; there is abso-tively, posi-lutely NO reason a young adult Thai teacher; as in the age of most Thai teachers I've run across (say between 30-35 y/o) wouldn't know a whole boat load of Thai slang. There is also no reason why that teacher should have ANY reticence in teaching Thai slang and/or idioms. If a foreigner already possesses a good enough grasp in Thai to "parrot foreign sounding Thai phrases" and give "pat foreign sounding Thai answers" to routine questions, why wouldn't they help them to sound more like a Thai than a "foreigner-speaking-thai-sock-puppet"? They get paid by the hour to teach, what's it to them? That's almost like a Thai NOT wanting to teach the ending particles เลย or หรอก because they can add “negative emotional context” to what is being said.

I must say I find the whole “pig in a poke” being sold to foreigners about “thai is a super polite language and we must always interact with each other politely” totally laughable. These people are as coarsely spoken in Thai as we are in English, when they wanna be. I’m just wanting to know how to be that way too. You know, just in case I wanna be more coarse than I already am.

[Pirin]

Well, despite your argument “tach.skypethaiteacher”, I'm still "on the fence".

Chat-speak clearly mimics how Thai is spoken much more than how it is spelled.

If you factor in the oh-so common Thai penchant of shortening everything they say to the least number of syllables, I still think กลับ้าน falls under "plausible", in fact I weigh in with; "entirely plausible".
เป็นอย่างไรบ้าง becomes ไงบ้าง
สวัสดีครับ becomes หวัดดีคับ
ทำอะไร becomes ทำไร

I can site example after example of this "shortening", and that's just in spoken Bangkok Thai, there's no telling what is actually happening to the language in "internet-land" via "chat-speak".

I for one don't have any problem with กลับบ้าน becomin' กลับ้าน because it's sure spoken like that by Thais the country over. Given the final and initial consonant sound of the two words are exactly the same.

I guess we'll hafta wait for the "dinosaurs in charge of the language" the "ราชบัณฑิต" to tell us "what to think", or wait for another one of their rants in the newspapers about how Thais are "losing their language" due to its corruption by the Thai youth of today

Now I'll be the first to admit I ain't a native Thai speaker, but, for you to go so far as to say NO Thai would write this, hmmmmm that's painting with a very broad brush indeed.

องุ่นเปรี้ยว!