How farang speak Eng better than Thai ppl?

[friends]

How farang(who isn't Eng native langauge) speak English better than Thai ppl??

[kaunitz]

Well, I think this is easy to explain. English, and the other European languages - and to a certain extent even Arabic! - are constructed in a similar way: The have conjugations for the verbs, declensions for their nouns, they have their verbs in different times (past, present, future etc...) and also the syntax (i.e. the way of how to build sentences - e.g subject - verb - object or subject - object - verb) follows certain patterns that do not vary so much from one language to another. The system of Thai language is completely different with nothing that we would call "grammar" and also with a completely different syntax. So of course for Thai people knowing the system of their native language it is very difficult to get into this completely different system as they are not used to it. So I think that it has nothing to do with vocabulary, but nearly only with grammar and syntax. In most farang languages, you can translate simple phrases literally - but not from Thai to English, as the system is completely different. But - for casual use - if you are able to make yourself understood, it is ok. By the way - Thai language also offers a lot of traps for farang, especially if you look at the various intonations, something that is not common with our languages. We only use intonations to highlight an important part of our sayings or to mark a question (generally speaking).

PS: My Thai is worse than rudimentary, but I am trying to learn a bit and already went through some "easy to learn" books, so if I did a crucial mistake in my explanation, please don't crucify me - a simple flogging would do it :wink:

[DJTX]

You want to hear and see something interesting. Put a Brit, a Canadian, an Australian, and an American in the same room and listen to them talking. If you really want to make it interesting - put a Scot in with them.

[falangboy]

~You want to hear and see something interesting. Put a Brit, a Canadian, an Australian, and an American in the same room and listen to them talking. If you really want to make it interesting - put a Scot in with them.

Do Scots speak English??? I can't understand a damn word they say. Oh, and if you want to make the situation even more interesting drop a few good bottles of booze in the middle of that group.

[zeusbheld]

indian english can get REALLY interesting. as a legacy of the british empire, it is widely spoken in india. india consists of a number of states, each of which has its own language. hindi and english are the official languages of india. however, hindi originated in the north, and ppl in the south are not terribly excited about learning it.

consequently, the main purpose of english in india is communicating with other indians...

thus indian english can be extremely sophisticated, and nearly indecipherable to non-indian native english speakers.

[khun_lung]

How farang(who isn't Eng native langauge) speak English better than Thai ppl??

Hi Beer -

As has already been mentioned, the similarities in grammar and syntax between European languages and English is an important factor.

Another factor is that the Thai language has no aspirated final consonants which to a large extent explains why Thai people tend to have a strong accent. For example, the words "can" and "can't" when spoken by some Thais sound virtually identical because the sound of the final "T" isn't audible. So unless Thai people can aspirate consonants it's better to use "cannot" instead of the contracted form or risk being misunderstood. And another factor is that there are some sounds in English that are not present in Thai, such as the letter "R" at the end of a syllable. And also there is no "SH" sound in Thai, only "CH". So can you say the words "chair" and "share" and be understood? It's really hard for Thai people!

Anyway, I think this begins to explain why Europeans who are not native English speakers tend to speak more clearly than Thais. Unless you have me as your teacher, of course! hahahahaha

[Japhrodisiac]

indian english can get REALLY interesting. as a legacy of the british empire, it is widely spoken in india. india consists of a number of states, each of which has its own language. hindi and english are the official languages of india. however, hindi originated in the north, and ppl in the south are not terribly excited about learning it.

Zeus, the constitution recognizes 18 official languages in India:

1. Assamese.

2. Bengali.

3. Gujarati.

4. Hindi.

5. Kannada.

6. Kashmiri.

7. Konkani.

8. Malayalam.

9. Manipuri.

10. Marathi.

11. Nepali.

12. Oriya.

13. Punjabi.

14. Sanskrit.

15. Sindhi.

16. Tamil.

17. Telugu.

18. Urdu.

And even though English is not official, an ammendment has been made to the constitution that it can be used for official purposes. Hindi alone has at least 13 dialects, so communication is beyond difficult sometimes. I spent a few months there, on motorcycle, and it was great, but i must say, english is far from being well understood if you get out of the major tourist line.

[khun_lung]

Are there contractions in Thai? That may be another difference between Farang languages and Thai.

Ummmmm...yes and no. Contractions are formally recognized as acceptable in English and are signified by the use of the apostrophe, such as can't being the contraction of cannot. There is no direct counterpart in Thai but in common spoken Thai and more and more in written Thai slang, words are abbreviated for example, pao [à»Ò] instead of reu plao [ËÃ×Ãà»ÅèÒ] It's my impression that this is more trendy and fashionable than it is an evolutionary process in the language.

Maybe a native Thai speaker would like to comment on this.

[tallboyno1]

One thing I have noticed is that some countries in Europe before, the "big" language countries like German, France that dubbe their movies or whatever that comes from english speaking countries, may got a disadvantage of pronounciation of english. Its maybe not the case today but the old generation in those countries was not good in speaking english.

In Sweden no movies have ever been dubbed and also children's films are all too rarely dubbed into Swedish so we get used to different languages. So everyone can speak english pretty well here I think.

I also think that is better not to dubbe movies because people en general get a better chance to get use to listening to different languages and also to hear the real actors voice. And I believe this is also the case in Thailand= dubbed movies etc

[khun_lung]

One thing I have noticed is that some countries in Europe before, the "big" language countries like German, France that dubbe their movies or whatever that comes from english speaking countries, may got a disadvantage of pronounciation of english. Its maybe not the case today but the old generation in those countries was not good in speaking english.

In Sweden no movies have ever been dubbed and also children's films are all too rarely dubbed into Swedish so we get used to different languages. So everyone can speak english pretty well here I think.

I also think that is better not to dubbe movies because people en general get a better chance to get use to listening to different languages and also to hear the real actors voice. And I believe this is also the case in Thailand= dubbed movies etc

Well, let's clarify the meaning of "dubbed". When that word is used, to me it means that the sound track has been altered into another language.

When I first started coming to Thailand most Western movies were dubbed in Thai and it was really hard to find a theater which showed the film with the original English soundtrack. That has now turned 180 degrees and these days it's difficult to find a theater with a Thai-dubbed sountrack, albeit there is always sub-captioning in Thai.

Why such a dramatic turnaround? Hats off to the younger generation! Now that English is the de-facto international language more and more young people throught it was "cool" to see movies with the original soundtrack and that going to a dubbed version might signify that they were uneducated or "country bumpkins". So more and more movie houses got the message and switched to original soundtracks with subtitling.

And it's interesting to sometimes read the captioning. For example I recently saw Meet the Fockers and when the baby speaks it's first words (assssss...hooooole! hehehe) in Thai it's translated as "ai gno" or "really stupid", since Thai doesn't have a direct translation for "a**hole" that would be humorous, "really stupid" was substituted and would be equally shocking first words for a baby.

[PaperFlower]

I accept just Farang who is an english native speakers such as UK and Irland,US,Canada,Australia,Newzeland. They can speak english better than Thai ppl but others depends on how oftens they use an english language in their life. Many Thai ppl who educated from up-country can speak english very well. I found that some english teacher in Thailand who is not an english native speakers, their accent are incorrect and wrong gramarticallity.

Some of German, French, Swedish and Italian at my office are terrible english conversation.

[khun_lung]

I accept just Farang who is an english native speakers such as UK and Irland,US,Canada,Australia,Newzeland. They can speak english better than Thai ppl but others depends on how oftens they use an english language in their life. Many Thai ppl who educated from up-country can speak english very well. I found that some english teacher in Thailand who is not an english native speakers, their accent are incorrect and wrong gramarticallity.

Some of German, French, Swedish and Italian at my office are terrible english conversation.

I don't like to say this but there are plenty of NATIVE English speakers teaching in Thailand who have no qualifications and don't know how to use English properly themselves. They teach because it's a way to stay in Thailand for whatever reason. They ought to be weeded out as teachers, but it's hard to do that.

[atomicflower]

You want to hear and see something interesting. Put a Brit, a Canadian, an Australian, and an American in the same room and listen to them talking. If you really want to make it interesting - put a Scot in with them.

and irish too :shock:

their accents are very unique, and the used of languages are a lot different.

actually, even within canada alone, different regions are distinct from one another.

and i agree with p'charlie and khun_lung that a lot of native speakers are not the excellent english speakers...regarding to this fact, i feel better about my terrible english..lol

[tallboyno1]

on the subject of dubbing movies and such' date=' the first time i went to visit my brothers ex wifes family who are spanish and live just outside of Barcelona i noticed they was watching a dubbed episode of 'Fawlty Towers' on TV, my brothers mother in law turned to me and said "he very funny this stupid man" meaning 'Manuel' the waiter/bellboy who is always making such a fool of himself, i replied to her "yes he is, he comes from Barcelona" to which she looked at me a bit strange, later on my brother told me that in the Spanish dubbed version of Fawlty Towers the 'Manuel' character is not from Barcelona and is not even Spanish, but is Mexican.

so i'd well and truly put my foot in my mouth :shock:

Exactly this is what I mean lol lol love this story! Thanks andy! :wink:

[tallboyno1]

You want to hear and see something interesting. Put a Brit, a Canadian, an Australian, and an American in the same room and listen to them talking. If you really want to make it interesting - put a Scot in with them.

Add New Zealander too

and a case of johnnie walker

and come back in two hours lol

[tallboyno1]

How about the accent for South Africa, India and Scottish? I think they have something in common or I am only wrong here Andy? if I am right why so ?

Any suggestions?

[bobbyboy112003]

Hi Beer,

Sorry, but I think i'm reading your question wrong (what do you want, i'm a native speaker 8) )

Aside from what many ppl here have said, i'm not sure that what you said is accurate. I am saying this because a "farang" to you is a non Thai I believe. That being the case:

1.I have heard many many Chinese speaking English as a second language and their grasp of English is no different that many Thai's. This holds true for many Koreans also.

I believe that if a language that you are trying to learn is in the same language family, it may be easier to learn. For example, I learned Spanish fairly easily and Norwegian as well. Spanish is in the romance language family I believe, which is close to English. Norwegian is in the Germanic language family as is English.

Thai on the other hand (as well as other Asian languages), are very difficult for me to learn. I have a hard time for many reasons. I can use the same lettering (or very close), with Spanish and Norwegian, but not Thai or Chinese. Sentence structure is also a factor for me.

If you are asking why western Farangs pick up English better, maybe it's because the languages are closer. I know there are many other factors involved in this, but I will stop now as my fingers are getting tired lol

Hope I have helped maybe a little Beer

[bobbyboy112003]

There are many versions of English as the language has outgrown it's original use and mprphed into something else that reflects the local differences where it emerged as the main language.

I am not familar with all the versions but I do know that American English is widely recognised whereas less well know is what Irish people speak.

Hiberno English. http://www.hiberno-english.com/

This is often not noticed because Irish people had an uncanny knack of taking the language and making it very much their own. Hence the disproportionally high [compared to the small population that is] amount of famous Irish wirters using English who became so successful and influential. Yeats to Heaney. Joyce or Wilde and Shaw to Behan, Beckett, Kavanagh etc.

Much of this stems from the very strong oral tradition and the love of talking which although clliche has it's basis in truth. Before English took hold so completely the first langauage was Irish or Gaelic as it is often called-being part of the family of languages that still survive in Wales and Scotland. The final blow to the language was the great famines of the 1840's in which millions either died or emigrated to North America, Australia or England. where English was the language.

After this it became virtually impossible to get ahead without English in or out of Ireland so Gaelic faded out very quickly and dramaticially which was a real tragedy in many ways but also perhaps a blessing in diguise? It is still the joint official language of the state but is not widely spoken compard to English. Most Irish can speak at least bit of it. while some are fluent. with many schools where only Irish is spoken.

These ancient languages have no connection with English and because of this many sounds that were used in Gaelic were not used in English [and vice versa] accordingly many ways of speaking are different but as with any langauage the need to standardiize the language has eroded the us of a more distiinct way of speaking.

In Northern Ireland it was often possible to tell who was British and who was Irish by virtue of the spoken use of the letter H. Saying the number 33 was another such example.

By comparision English people are often regarded as more reserved, added to which having been around far longer in England with far greater variety many more distinct acents have established themselves . That said there are many Irish acents that are really hard to understand.

[ A well known piece of humour in Ireland is to say that the English stole our country and we stole their Language!]

For that reason among others Dublin is often regarded as a better place to learn English than any comparable city in the UK. Personally, while up untili a few years ago I would have said Ireland was a better place to learn English than just about anywhere else and certainly better than in England, nowadays though Ireland is such a rip off that Id tell people not to bother. Dublin is taking on more of the characteristicsr of a much smaller London.

Celticcola, thank you, very nice piece of writing...well done!

[eagle]

How do MOST native speakes speak poor English??? If that were the case, then just who is speaking English correctly??? The French? The Germans?

Da eets zee Germans

It would all depend on the individual.. I've heard chinese speak english without much accent. In reality if we can understand each other it works. I for 1 don't mock a person for not spealing correct english. I prefer to destroy the language with slang anyway and find correct speaking people to sound like pompous asses sometimes.

[farangnbkk]

Some good answers. Especially that English shares roots with many of the European languages. Honestly, English stole words from these languages.

I think the best explanation for the generalization that non-native English speaking farangs speak English better than Thais (hehe, that's a tough sentence!) is that they just have a lot more exposure.

Even incidental exposure through media. English language just hasn't penetrated Thai society in any big way. I know English is taught in the school system from a very young age, but it's taught in a rote way without any meaningful usage. Especially pronunciation and listening as most are taught by Thai teachers with awful accents. The people I know who have gone through the Thai school system and speak English really made an effort above and beyond to acquire the skill.

It's a very small minority of Thais who actually interact with English speakers and can actually sharpen their skills.

[princesspink]

I don't think it is true at all. I have many friends those are Italian, French, and German, their English is not any better than some Thais. (no offence) But all my Denish, and Nordic friends are extremely good when it comes to English language. I guess, it might be all about the media in the country, and the degree such country gets expose to English medium.

That's just my opinion though.

[LadyVin]

I accept just Farang who is an english native speakers such as UK and Irland,US,Canada,Australia,Newzeland. They can speak english better than Thai ppl but others depends on how oftens they use an english language in their life. Many Thai ppl who educated from up-country can speak english very well. I found that some english teacher in Thailand who is not an english native speakers, their accent are incorrect and wrong gramarticallity.

Some of German, French, Swedish and Italian at my office are terrible english conversation.

I don't like to say this but there are plenty of NATIVE English speakers teaching in Thailand who have no qualifications and don't know how to use English properly themselves. They teach because it's a way to stay in Thailand for whatever reason. They ought to be weeded out as teachers, but it's hard to do that.

Khun Lung pood took tong .. nuu++ chop khun lung tob mak makloey ka!!

[LadyVin]

i might add I prefer British or American accent

the most horrible accent is Indian speaking english ( I completely lost lol)

Do you notice that Farang teachers tend to get Thai students speaking more than writing..On the other hand, Thai teachers (who teach English) prefer their students writing more .. That's why the students dont try to speak English in the classroom they focus on the grammar..

I ever listened to the thai teacher had a conversation with farang teacher , they didnt understand each other that much ( such a communication failure).. the gestures played the important role in that discourse lol..

(Thais always afraid of making a mistake when they speak --the best way for them is KTMS - keep their mouth shut lol)

by the way many of my friends said i have Tinglish accent ( thai+brit+american) very funny

[Khun_Sam]

I've noticed a couple of sounds that Thais have difficutly pronouncing besides the 'r' sound. There are probably more.

- Fish would come out as fisss. Many can't say the shh sound.

- Twenty sounds like swenty. This got me confused the first time I was in LOS. The sign at Robinson clearly showed 20% discount. But the salesgirl kept saying seventy percent discount. It took me about one minute of sign language to understand that she was in fact saying twenty percent.

[Dave40]

There are so many accents with English especially in England they seem to me to speak the clearest,especially those with an Oxford accent and a London accent as well.Us Aussies tend to speak really fast some Americans have trouble understanding us at first.

Its the accent that makes it hard to understand at times