Practical Situational Thai
I
bought my first “How to speak Thai” book over 30 years ago. Since then I
have become a connoisseur of “How to speak Thai” books, resulting now in an
ability to speak Thai semi-fluently to order food and find a toilet, and not
much else. When this book, Practical Situational Thai (ISBN 974-9985-42-7,
Amarin Publishing, 2006) landed on my desk, I wondered if finally I was
going to be saved from the blank looks that my supposed mastery of the Thai
language over the past 30 years has produced in the native Thai population.
The book was written by a Peter Faller, one of those bright young men who
has not only mastered Japanese, but also Thai as an encore. It has always
been difficult for me not to hate people like that.
This book purports to present some easily understood lessons (25 of them),
written as an ongoing story or novel, which in addition to teaching you
Thai, will also give you a glimpse of the culture. It revolves around a
central character called John Hunter who arrives and catches a taxi to his
hotel, which teaches you how to direct the cab driver (and turn on the
meter), go via the expressway, get a receipt and an introduction to the Thai
numbering system.
From there, the intrepid John Hunter arrives at the hotel, checks in, goes
out to eat, mingles in a club, shops, eats breakfast at the hotel, goes
sightseeing, uses a Tuk-Tuk and then the Skytrain, goes to Jatujak market,
tries a beer bar, goes out with the receptionist from the hotel, gets sick
and reluctantly checks out. I think we have all been John Hunter at some
stage.
In each chapter the phrases spoken by friend Hunter and the particular Thai
people are given as English conversations, and then again in phonetic Thai.
The theory behind this being that you can understand and relate to the
different situations and then speak the dialogue as a Thai person would.
That’s the theory.
Now the reality. Right at the beginning of the book there is the guide to
the phonetic system as used by author Faller. This begins with marks above
the letters to indicate in which tone the word should be spoken. This is
followed by explanation of how to pronounce the consonants. I was fine up
till that point. Then comes the problem with vowels, including some of those
that do not exist in English. Faller resorts to writing these in phonetic
script, a ‘language’ I am sure you have seen before, with strange characters
such as backwards ee which is pronounced like the ‘a’ in ‘bad’ and the
upside down ‘e’ which is pronounced like the final ‘e’ in the word
‘preacher’.
This is where this book falls down. To learn this second language called
Thai, you have to learn a third ‘language’ first, called phonetics. I am
sorry, but for me it is easier to use the known English alphabet, as I don’t
have to learn it beforehand. Phonetics is fine for linguists like author
Faller, but not for non-linguists like me!
