Marque Rome,
Freelance journalist
I arrived in Thailand from America in October 1988. I first worked for Siangtai (a Southern Thai newspaper) in 2000. I called up the editor and pointed out that he knew no foreigner so fluent in both languages and thus needed to know me. He agreed.
I’ve worked for Siangtai’s English publication off and on since then. For Siangtai, I generally have used their original Thai copy. When that’s wrong (it usually is) I try to correct it. When it lacks important detail, I find that.
How do I go about translating? I usually open one text editor with the Thai copy, and another with my English translation, the two editors splitting the screen roughly 50/50, one atop the other. I then read the Thai, think about how to phrase it in English, and write.
On route to Penang while living in Pattaya was where I first started learning Thai, with my Thai girlfriend.
Being bookish I had, while still in Bangkok, picked up a number of dictionaries and phrase books. We took the train down to Penang and, as Boom (my girlfriend) spoke little English, we had great opportunity, sitting opposite each other about forty hours, to converse in Thai.
It was, of necessity, slow, each of us taking turns searching through the dictionaries and phrase books so that one might know what the other was talking about. But by the time I got back to Pattaya, I could – with patient interlocutors – make my way in Thai conversation.
I avoided the alphabet for a few months, till I got a job teaching English in 1989 at what was then the Pansea hotel in Phuket (then the Chedi, and now The Surin). It was most embarrassing, for when called upon to translate any part of the English text into Thai, or to use the dictionary, I quickly showed myself illiterate.
So, about a month after embarking on my new career, after a frustrating morning, I went to my room during lunch and memorised what I could of the alphabet.
Some time later, as I was in my bath, a man walked into the shower and asked, did I speak Thai? I asked in reply whether it was his normal habit to survey language skills in the toilets of complete strangers.
He said he had been informed I read Thai and he needed someone capable thereof to translate, then make English voice-overs for his Thai classical dance troupe.
That afternoon I went to a studio in Phuket Town and was confronted with short descriptions of Thai classical dance prepared by the Fine Arts Department of Silapakorn University.
I finished the voice-overs and the engineer asked, “You ever consider doing radio?” I modestly allowed that I knew the use of a microphone but had never done radio.
That evening he brought me to a station at the top of Khao Rang hill in Phuket Town, introducing me to a rather drunken millionaire, in a satin bathrobe, glass of Ballantine’s in one hand, cigarette holder in the other.
“Go read this into the mic,” he said, handing me the Bangkok Post.
I did radio most of the next decade – FM 89’s Late Show. It was a three-hour slot, the end of an otherwise all-Thai broadcast day. It was daring when we started – 1990 – to have so much English air-time.
I was fired several times for commentary deemed too political; but they always hired me back. Not many other foreigners read Thai well enough to readily translate government documents, advertising, notices and so on.
Speaking Thai was not automatic. I have no gift for languages, so it took study. But persistence pays off. Some may disagree, but I am convinced most foreigners living here fail learning Thai well because they never translate.
Any curriculum mainly of Thai phrases transliterated into Latin alphabet is of minimal worth to those seriously interested in study. You’ll miss most of the language. Courses concentrating on conversation are similarly worthless: what you need to know is not contained in conversation.
What do you need to know? The spelling. When you can spell, you can use the dictionary, learn new words and translate. Translating will quickly get one reading, opening a window on the culture.
You’ll understand not just Thai, but Thais – who are otherwise inscrutable to untutored Occidentals.
Fluency in Thai can open doors. Conversation improves dramatically. You’re no longer condemned to converse mostly about food, supernatural phenomena and local gossip with folks whose formal education ceased after fourth grade.
Besides doing radio, I’ve written news for the Bangkok Post, and various other publications – interviewing governors, MPs, senior business figures, entertainers and quite common people, oft-times getting the interview just because it’s so novel to be interviewed in Thai by a farang.
In 1996, together with the TAT, I organised the three-province, 15-day Jazz and Blues Festival in Honour of H.M. the King’s 50th Anniversary Since Accession to the Throne, involving some 45 musicians, mostly from the US. The government granted us B3.5 million to stage the event.
I couldn’t have done it if I didn’t know Thai. Likewise, lacking fluency I couldn’t translate in the provincial court – occasional, yet enormously interesting, work.
A word about Thai tones: Some say it isn’t necessary to learn the tones, that context is everything, as may easily be inferred from the fact that Thais understand each other while speaking different dialects with incompatible tone systems.
Stuff and nonsense, I say. Thais have a keen ear for tones. They are deaf to differences between some consonants (think ‘R’ and ‘L’; ‘F’ and ‘Kw’, ‘D’ and ‘L’). Their focus is clearly tonal, with well-known standardised deviations prevailing among the regional dialects.
Foreigners’ deviations from standard tone rules are unpredictable, their concepts and topics of conversation frequently alien – you cannot therefore expect to have mutually satisfactory interchanges without a good grasp of the tones.
You must learn the system. If I did it in half-an-hour during lunch, you can too.
Tim Markin,
Translator and production manager
American Tim Markin credits knowing fluent Thai as the key to successfully finding employment in the country, and in turn, forging a completely new career.
Tim first arrived in Thailand 10 years ago, finding himself placed with a local family in a village in Ratchaburi province, west of Bangkok. He was 22 years-old, fresh out of university and on a two year volunteer placement with the Peace Corps. No local people spoke English in the area.
“The Peace Corps had a great language programme. There was one Thai teacher and four of us volunteers, and we weren’t allowed to speak any English during the lessons, which were four hours a day for three months.
“We weren’t allowed to take notes, which was the most frustrating part – we couldn’t write anything until the end of the class. But it was good because we were forced to understand as many concepts as possible before trying to write them.
“I was introduced to the alphabet and the general rules too, and basically from there I started carrying around a notebook. Any new word I would write in a phonetic version of the Thai word.
“I started with a very simple word I heard often, such as dog, cat, or eat. I would look it up in the dictionary and find the word, see how it was spelt, and tried to write it. I did that for the first two years, and my reading became fluent after three or four years.”
Fast forward 10 years (Tim spent six years on Koh Yao Noi and has been in Phuket for one year) and he is now fluent in spoken and written Thai, and can write at a primary level.
He now works as a translator and production manager for an Italian graphic design company, as the “go between” between the Phuket Thai staff, and the customers who mainly live in Europe.
“The company outsources the making of catalogues and magazines to the office here in Phuket, and I manage the production. I translate the orders and show the Thai staff what to do, and explain it to them. I was just lucky I can speak Thai because I didn’t know how to use a computer at all.
“I had never used a Mac before, or any of the Adobe programmes they used at the company. But during the interview my boss said to me ‘If you can learn Thai like this, then you can learn computers no problem.’
“And now it’s been a year and I’ve got InDesign completely down, and I don’t just do translation. I do quality control and check the final pages and check the staff have followed the directions.”
Not only has knowing Thai provided employment options for Tim, it’s also helped him considerably in his personal life. Tim married Fon five years ago, and the couple have two children, Hana, aged four, and Sophia, 9 months.
He says dealing with government officials, running errands, and even the birth of his two daughters was made significantly easier by being able to understand and communicate in fluent Thai.
“I don’t think I would have got married and had children had I not had that level of fluency. My wife can learn a lot about what it’s like to be American (the couple speak Thai to each other) and I can explain a lot of things to her, and vice versa.
“Any time you translate something it can be lost, but we don’t have that. I also can get a real insight into how the Thai people think and what they talk about, by understanding conversations, and finding a lot more out about the culture and religion.
“If you didn’t know the language you would only be reading or hearing what someone else had to say about it, you wouldn’t really know for yourself.”
Tim says he initially learnt the central dialect when he moved to Thailand, but now understands and speaks the southern one too.
“I don’t have a gift for language, it’s just I’ve been here 10 years and I’ve been in areas that were an all-Thai environment, so I was forced to. If I was living in Phuket for the same period of time, I would still be at a beginner level – guaranteed.”
His advice for new learners? “Watch the way Thai people move their mouth, and ask them how to move their tongue and how to breathe, that will help with the pronunciation.
“Volunteering is a good idea too – go for a week to Phang Nga and usually the projects are in places where there isn’t so much English, so you will pick up a lot of Thai.”
Stefano Colombo,
Events, Sales and Marketing Manager for Events Thailand
Stefano Colombo only moved to Thailand two and a half years ago, but has already mastered speaking Thai to a level that most foreigners would be envious of.
Even more remarkable is the fact that he has taught himself how to read and write in just six months, using books, the internet, and Thai friends.
“I’m somewhere between a good speaker and fluent. I can have a good conversation with a Thai person, maybe not about political science, but about regular and complex things.
“I can read and write, but both are quite slow. I read like a four year-old learning a new language. But I’m sure in six months I will be able to read and write perfectly, that’s my goal.
For Stefano, 27, the biggest challenge has been the tones in the Thai language, and the fact the alphabet has 44 consonants, 15 vowel symbols that combine into at least 28 vowel forms, and four tone marks.
“Speaking Thai is quite easy, because of the simple grammar. One of the difficult things that Thai people always forgive you for is saying the correct tones.
“One word in Thai can mean five different things depending on the accent. When you go to the night market and try to buy a T-shirt, you can easily ask to buy a tiger if you’re not careful with the accent you use. And most of the time the Thai people just laugh.
“They appreciate the fact you speak Thai – and by the way you get great discounts, 50 per cent off the price most of the time.”
Another perk is obvious – knowing what Thai people are talking about, something which Stefano says has provided him a lot of enjoyment and fun in the social scene.
“As I’m a foreigner, Thai people never expect me to speak Thai. So if I’m in a restaurant or bar and I see other people, I understand them. For example if they are talking about me or the group I am in.
“Very often I play a game – I order my drink in English and then listen to the conversation, then sometimes approach them after. You can have a bit of fun.
“Most of the Thai people are quite shocked I speak it. It’s not common for foreigners to speak Thai, which is a pity because it is quite helpful.”
While he claims learning Thai is easy, he admits has has an affinity for languages. Stefano is already a fluent speaker in French, German, English and Italian, and has a decent grasp of Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, and of course, Thai.
While he doesn’t believe he got his job at Events Thailand because of his Thai skills, he says that knowing Thai definitely does help in the business world.
“We have a Thai assistant anyway, but the fact that I know how to speak Thai and people not knowing actually gives us some competitive advantages. I can say to my boss “They just said that, what should we do?”. It does help us sometimes.
“The easiest way for people to learn Thai is to get out of their comfort zone, to meet new people and socialise with Thai people. Most Thai people are more than happy to teach you a few words.
“If you’re going to be here a while, I think it’s a matter of respect to learn the language. They aren’t the ones who are supposed to be like you, you’re supposed to be like them because at some stage you decided to be in Thailand, in their country.”