Tinglish

I've noticed that when I talk to Thai people in English, I don't speak proper English, but more of a dumbed-down simplified English. I know that it's not really good if the Thai person is trying to learn to speak English properly, but if you use the "extra" words in your sentence, it just confuses them. It is butchering the English language for the sake of communication. Most of the time I want to convey a message. How that message is conveyed becomes secondary. Examples (to English speakers, to Thai speakers):

English: Where're you going?
Thai: Where you go?

English: I'm going over to Lamthong Mall.
Thai: I go to Lamthong.

In English we have two ways of saying verbs. For example, you can say it the simple way "I go" or the more complex way "I am going". Unfortunately, for some reason conversational English dictates using the complex way for most cases. And that requires a more complex form of the verb. Most Thais know only basic English, so if you want to be understood, you have to use the simple form of the verb. (Yes, yes, I know you might be thinking "Or you could just learn Thai"--I'm not there yet.)

To keep things simple, you have to cut out all the non-essential English words, such as : a, the, am, are and -ing endings.

Also, if you want to be understood better, you will have more luck if you say things in the butchered English way that the Thais say it, rather than saying it using proper English pronunciation. For example, there is a large department store here called Lotus (The full name is Tesco Lotus). I have asked the Songtau drivers to take me to Lotus (LOW-tus) and they give me a puzzled look. If you want to be understood you have to say TES-go Lot-AAAS. If you tell the van driver "Royal Ping Resort" he will not understand, but if you say "Loyl Ping", they will know what you are talking about.

Their English also takes some getting used to. For example, in Thai if a word ends with a consonant, you end the word with your mouth in the shape of the consonant as if you were going to say it, but you don't actually say it. Pronouncing the last consonant is a foreign concept to Thais, so they often don't do it. That means they don't say mouse, they say mou, and science becomes sien (silent n). Then theres the pronunciation of two consecutive consonants that really throws me. If they see two consecutive consonants, they try to put a vowel between them. So "st" becomes "set", "sp" becomes "sep", "tr" becomes "ter", "sc" becomes "sec". So the name "Scott" become "Secott", and "Sprite" becomes "Seprite". One time a student was telling me what software programs they use in school, he told me he was using Ill-you-set-ter-rater. That one really threw me. Eventually I figured out he was saying "Illustrator", but he was separating out those consecutive consonants (and butchering a perfectly good English word).

What I have learned is that learning another language goes deeper than just the different words and the accent. It means learning a number of rules about the pronunciation that we just don't have in English. The rules are foreign to us, but a lot of our rules are foreign to them. And it helps to explain why they have an accent.