Thailand Voice

Tip Number 1: Take your time, enjoy your studies… “Why does it have to be sooooooo hard?” “Why does it have to take sooooooo long?” Maybe we need a little attitude adjustment…? Maybe we need to listen more carefully…? Most of us do have nearly excellent hearing skills for normal… Read full story >>>

Pravit in The Nation lists a few reasons, but it is the double standards reason which BP thinks resonates the most and that is the logic of “The logic of double standards”. This issue is almost totally ignored by most of the mainstream mass media. However, it has been the main reason Read full story >>>

The Election Commission of Thailand ( คณะกรรมการการเลือกตั้ง ECT), or maybe more exact the provincial branches, are responsible for organizing the elections for the local government entities. Whenever I try to to add some more data to my XML, I use the province of Surat Thani as the testing case, so that one is… Read full story >>>

Talking Thai on the telephone… It probably took me ten years before I could understand anything anyone said on the telephone here in Thailand. It’s not the language. My wife had the same problem in English when she got to America. It is just really hard dealing with a disembodied… Read full story >>>

Directed by Pakphum Wonjinda Story by Prachya Pinkaew, screenplay by Eakasit Thairatana Starring Sinjai Plengpanich, Kanya Rattapetch Released in Thai cinemas on February 25, 2010, rated 18+ Wise Kwai’s rating: 4/5 Tightly composed frames that come right out of a comic book leap off the screen in … Read full story >>>

It wasn’t long ago that knitting and crocheting were a popular pastime for women in the United States, as a matter of fact it was a pretty big industry as well. Obviously these were serious skills that were needed throughout the beginning of the country that took … Read full story >>>

One of the claims by the prosecution in the Thaksin asset seizure case was that: Telecom concession fees were converted into an excise tax to benefit their massive AIS shareholdings. The Nation summarizes this part of… Read full story >>>

I am blogging live as Thaksin Shinawatr speaks on his video link from Dubai. He starts with repeating his accusations that he remains the victim of the Sept 19, 2006coup. “This is an unfinished coup. They want to get red of all Red shirts. That is of course impossible,” he declared. Thaksin said… Read full story >>>

In case you were wondering why the reds were waiting two weeks after the verdict to protest, Marwaan in IPS has an explanation The date for such an improbably high figure of protesters – the previous best the UDD was able to… Read full story >>>

A trusted native speaker is essential…. You may have noticed by now that learning Thai takes real effort and discipline. No two ways about it. Expect to put in long hours tweaking your pronunciation, expanding your vocabulary, solidifying your grasp on the… Read full story >>>

WARNING: Do not read while trying to drink your coffee at your computer. Not The Nation at its best. Key excerpt: The Thai Journalists Association warned today of an impending apocalypse in the local news media if the Supreme Court’s Criminal Division for Holders of Political Positions rules to seize… Read full story >>>

The bloody serial-killer thriller Slice ( Cheun ) is the top nominee for the Subhanahongsa Awards, the Thailand National Film Awards, announced yesterday. Released by Five Star Production, Slice is nominated in 14 of the 16 categories, including best picture, director and screenplay for Kongkiat Komesiri, who wrote the script … Read full story >>>

Have already blogged (here and here) on the Supreme Administrative Court decision upholding an injunction against 65 projects at the Map Ta Phut Industrial Estate and in particular on the … Read full story >>>

(The crime scene of almost every Farang ‘murder’ in Pattaya – the infamous Pattaya hotel balcony) As a Farang in Thailand we have all heard some of the most laughable quack-wack Thailand myths: ladyboys who have coaxed clients back to their rooms only to drug ‘em and cut out …

Introducing Luca and his language learning method… Luca Lampariello is an Italian polyglot who speaks 9 languages: Italian, English, French, German, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Russian, and Portuguese. Chinese is his latest language project, and learning to speak Thai is a real possibility! When Luca was barely in his teens (13)… Read full story >>>

Directed by Phettai Wongkumlao Starring Janet Khiaw, Busarakam Wongkumlao, Harin Suthamjaras, Phethay Wongkumlao, Anuwat Tarapan Released in Thai cinemas on December 3, 2009. Rated 15+ Wise Kwai’s rating: 4/5 Just as much fun as the original and perhaps twice as colorful, Yam Yasothon 2 is another heaping helping of … Read full story >>>

http://www.l-lingo.com/en/learn- thai / Read full story >>>

The Royal Gazette now starts with publishing the constituencies for the municipal council elections in the municipalities newly created this year. Even though so far it were only a few of them covered so far, there were already two municipalities I did not find in the board meeting transcripts. Khok Lek… Read full story >>>

Last week — with the help of a lot of friends on and off the Internet — I learned something very important pertaining to how tones for syllables without final consonants are produced, and I would like to share what I learned with you today. There… Read full story >>>

In an earlier example , I showed one subdistrict municipality where the boroughs (Chumchon, ชุมชน) and the administrative villages (Muban, หมู่บ้าน) coincide one-to-one. Now I have come across another different case, this time it has villages split into several chumchon, thus the local administration is giving the subdistrict … Read full story >>>

The Guardian columnist Ben Goldacre devoted his most recent column to the ADE651 bomb detecting device which is much in use in Iraq – even though scientific analysis suggests it produces no better than chance (i.e. you might just as well guess whether someone is carrying a bomb). This device is supposed … Read full story >>>

The word ของ (kɔ̌ɔng), which means “of” in English, is used to show possession. For example, “Josh’s car” or “your friend.” It’s a pretty simple grammatical concept for Thai, thankfully. All you have to do is remember the structure: Noun + ของ + possessor I put… Read full story >>>

เป็น The word เป็น (bpen) means “to be/is” in Thai. It is a very common and important word to learn and, more importantly, to understand how it’s used.   In its most simple usage, เป็น is used to join nouns… Read full story >>>

The vowel ใ – called ไม้ม้วน sara ai mai-muan (” sara ” means vowel in Thai, ” ai ” is the sound of the vowel, and ” mai-muan ” is the vowel’s name) – is found in only 20 words in the Thai language. This list has been repeated many… Read full story >>>

I’m quite sure no one will take notice, but I decided to change the tag line of my blog to “Navigating the New Culture Frontier.” When I started the blog a few months ago my goal was to write about my … Read full story >>>

Thai language and Thai culture go hand in hand… Thai, just like any language, has multiple ways to say the same things. And culture has a lot to do with which words we use in which situations. Although this makes for… Read full story >>>

Pali and Sanskrit Roots of Thai Words… Have you ever seen those brilliant kids in the national spelling bees? When given a word to spell, the first thing they ask for is the word’s origin. Knowing the “Latin”, or “Greek”, or any of the many… Read full story >>>

I just realised that I never updated the blog with the final outcome of the visit of the Thai PM, really sorry about that. It turned out as a real fizzer protest wise (always a good thing) but as I mentioned earlier it was good for business! One day we were … Read full story >>>

(The following is a brief Thai> English translation from various local news sources) Customers at Melody Karaoke, in the close vicinity of Prachacheurn Police Station, were originally charged an astonishing 30,000 Baht for 3 hours of karaoke. Charges included 100 Baht for a…

Rikker’s Friday post on bumper stickers, Bumper-to-bumper Language Lessons , reminded me that I had one more bumper sticker post waiting in the wings… Stickers from Buy Thai Books … When I ordered two packs of books from Buy Thai Books last December, as a thank you they sent over a handful of… Read full story >>>