Posts regarding Thai Language and Thai Culture including Cracking Thai Fundamentals, Thai Bites and other Thai series by Stuart Jay Raj.
Chinese
How should you REALLY pronounce 'Huawei' 华为 (華為)? Xiaomi 小米? - How about surnames starting in NG like 'Ng', 'Ngo' 吳 and 'Nguyen' 阮? - And what about Muay Thai (มวยไทย)? Some people spend a lifetime mastering Thai boxing and even moving
Thai
Asking for 'Not too spicy' and still getting Nuclear level spicy? - Maybe you're saying it wrong. This issue has come up twice this past week with 2 foreigners learning Thai who finally realised that they were ordering 'spiciness' wrong for many years now
Thai
There are two topics that recur month after month in all of the Thai language online groups that I follow. The first is whether or not the Thai letter ก should be transliterated as a 'g' or a 'k' when written in the Latin alphabet and
Language and Linguistics
"I'll see you on my furry this evening" - This might sound like the introduction to an 'R'-rated story, but this in fact was the parting sentence that led to a deep state of confusion for an American friend visiting Thailand when he
Thai
Learning a new language can be confusing sometimes. No matter how hard we listen and how hard we try, there are often times where native speakers struggle to understand what we are trying to say. Surely we're saying it right aren't we? Take a look at
Thai
Getting Tattoos in Thai, Chinese, Arabic and other Foreign Scripts is Dangerous - Think Before You Ink Getting a tattoo in Chinese characters, or using Thai, Khmer or even Arabic writing may seem exotic, mysterious, spiritual or just 'cool' to some, however even if you actually manage to
Thai
The lady had the word ไทย 'Thai' tattooed inThai on her foot. “I wish someone would throw acid on her – that would show these uneducated people without couth to respect people” “I would like to splash acid in her face” “How would she feel if I put her country / name in the same place?”
Thai
Take a look at the following words in English and see if you can work out what they all have in common: pedestrian, podiatrist, pedestal, pedicure, pedal, path. FEET! If you're a native speaker of English, even if you don't speak fluent Latin or Greek, you
Thai
While the Thai language did not derive from Sanskrit (which is an Indo-european language akin to Latin and Greek), because of its cultural and religious history, there are an enormous amount of Sanskrit based words and influences used in everyday Thai. Take a look at these words in English and
Chinese
Try saying these words - Nguyen, Ngan, Ngoai, Ngoh, Ngoi, Ngai, Nggak, Ngopi, Ngerti, Ngut-ngit, Ngi-ngau. Imagine living in Vietnam with 38% of the population having the surname Nguyên, and not being able to pronounce their name properly? In spoken Indonesian, the initial 'ng' sound often plays a
Culture and Business
The Original Story Appears in Hotel Intel.co. Click here for full story. Several months ago, I was brought into a project in a high-end hotel in Bangkok that was a couple of months away from completion. Right now in Thailand, the labour market is flooded and finding internationally minded
Language and Linguistics
Over the weekend I had the privilege to present to a group of around 100 expat Indians working in the Engineering and Technology sectors in Thailand. I had spoken to the group a couple of months earlier and after the seminar, many people approached me and mentioned how much trouble