As I was getting in my elevator the other day I noticed someone posted this complaint on the bulletin board. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that this was written by a ฝรั่ง. Can anyone point out any of the clues that led me to think this?

Tune in tomorrow for the hilarious response the แม่บ้าน put underneath it on the board.

Text
อินเตอร์เน็ตเล่นไม่ได้เลย เป็นบ่อยมาก
ช่วยแก้ใขด้วย เล่นได้ไม่คุ้มกับเงินที่จ่ายเลย

The text is pretty simple, but to make it accessible to beginners, I will give you most of the words.

อินเตอร์เน็ต internet
เล่น – play
ไม่ได้ – can’t
เลย – at all (particle)
เป็น – to be
บ่อย – often
มาก – very; a lot
ช่วย – to help
แก้ไข – to solve (to fix a problem)
เล่น – play
ไม่คุ้ม – not worth it
กับ – with
เงิน – money
ที่ – that
จ่าย – pay; spend

I headed down to Bangkok last weekend to do a podcast with the dashing fellows from Bangkok Podcast, Greg and Tony.  We had a good time and they had some พิซซ่า.

Check it out here.

The National Astronomical Research Institute of Thailand (NARIT) has announced that we are having a full lunar eclipse tonight starting at 01:22:37am June 16th.  Supposedly the view from Chiang Mai is supposed to be pretty nice so if I can manage to stay awake I’m going to head over to the NARIT building if anybody is interested.

Below is the first paragraph from the wiki entry for Lunar Eclipse with vocab and here is the more colorful google doc version.

จันทรุปราคา (เรียกได้หลายอย่าง ตัวอย่างเช่นจันทรคาธ, จันทรคราส, ราหูอมจันทร์ หรือ กบกินเดือน) คือปรากฏการณ์ที่เกิดขึ้น เมื่อดวงอาทิตย์, โลก และดวงจันทร์เรียงอยู่ในแนวเดียวกันพอดี หากเกิดขึ้นในช่วงพระจันทร์เต็มดวง เมื่อดวงจันทร์ผ่านเงาของโลก จะเรียกว่า จันทรุปราคาปรากฏการณ์จันทรุปราคาแม้จะเกิดขึ้นตามธรรมชาติ แต่มีอิทธิพลต่อความคิดและความเชื่อในหลายวัฒนธรรมมาช้านาน รวมทั้งของไทยด้วย ซึ่งลักษณะของจันทรุปราคาขึ้นอยู่กับตำแหน่งของดวงจันทร์ที่เคลื่อน ที่ผ่านเงาของโลกในเวลานั้นๆ

จันทรุปราคา Lunar Eclipse (Note how these 2 combine จันทร + อุปราคา)
เรียกได้ can be called
หลายอย่าง  many/various things
(ตัว)อย่างเช่น for example
ปรากฏการณ์ event; phenomenon
เกิดขึ้น happen; occur
ดวงอาทิตย์ the sun
โลก  world; earth
ดวงจันทร์ the moon
เรียง arrange; line up
อยู่ในแนวเดียวกันพอดี to line up just so (แนว functions like ‘row’ here)
หาก if
ช่วงพระจันทร์เต็มดวง during a full moon
เมื่อดวงจันทร์ผ่านเงาของโลก when the moon passes the shadow of the world
แม้ even though
จะเกิดขึ้น this happens
ตามธรรมชาติ  naturally (according to nature)
อิทธิพล influence
ความคิดและความเชื่อ ideas and beliefs
หลายวัฒนธรรม various cultures
ช้านาน for/since a long time
รวมทั้ง including
ลักษณะ characteristic
ตำแหน่ง  position
คลื่อน  move

The Competition is especially fierce in Chiang Mai.

สอนภาษาอังกฤษ

• เก่งแกรมม่า + กล้าพูด

  ติวสอบ

รับ 2 ขวบขึ้นไป

*ติว – tutor

Learn Thai Squiggles has been approved and is now available in the app store.  Have a look!

Thanks to all the testers.  You will be receiving a free copy shortly if you haven’t already.

One of the most frustrating things (primarily because of how time consuming it is) I experience as both a teacher and a learner is finding bodies of text that are somewhat related and contain crossover words and phrases.  Back in the days when I would occasionally get roped into teaching private English lessons I would buy a bunch of those Penguin Readers (out of my own pocket of course) and force my students to choose whichever one looked interesting to them and read it on the days between lessons.  Then they’d have to come back and tell me what it was about.  If their English was still on the low end I would tell them what it was about in different words over and over again while asking them questions to keep them involved and confirm that they were actually trying to read.   While the majority of these students faded out after a while,  a few of them actually put in some effort and improved dramatically in a short time.  It was just a matter of gradually letting them build up the vocabulary and perhaps more importantly confidence to talk about something.  When they didn’t know a word, I’d just tell them to use one from their language and then I’d note down what words they didn’t know so I could pummel the learner with them over and over in future lessons if they were important for telling the particular story.  If they started to get bored or frustrated with a book we’d start a new one,  but we would always come back to the previous one.  I’d spend a few minutes during each lesson asking them to tell me the story of The Murders in the Rue Morgue or whatever stories we had already read.  This significantly reinforced the whole process because I didn’t give them the opportunity to completely forget anything.  Many people do not have the slightest amount of discipline for doing flashcards so I would just sit and do the cards with them.  This allows me to to have them read it or turn the screen away so I can turn a card into a production card (where the learner is producing something as opposed to just reading/understanding) on the spot to check if they truly know it or are just able to recognize it.  Admittedly this is a pricey way to do flashcards (as I’m being paid for my time), but people tend to work harder when people are watching them.  I can’t stress enough how well this stuff works.  This is of course affected by how much effort the student and the teacher put into it.

It’s be pretty awesome if Penguin translated some of these books into other languages so more people could benefit.  Me for example.

The other day I read 3 headlines in the Thai wiki that were perfect for this post.  Enjoy.

The first version of the app is just about ready to go the store.  Thanks to the testers for their suggestions!

If anyone would like to be notified when it is officially released please sign up here.

Any of my readers that happen to have an iphone and would be interested in testing out my first app which is nearly completion please shoot me an email at -

learnthaifromawhiteguy AT gmail DOT com

I’m not entirely sure if it will be terribly helpful for regular readers of my site as it is more geared towards the beginner, but it may be useful as a reference for some of you.