The response that I’ve received after posting the Joh Jai interview clips on Youtube a few months ago has been truly amazing. I’ve been fortunate enough to have been opened up to many fascinating people, language lovers and many opportunities. Some of those opportunities are still brewing now,
Three Fridays ago a friend of mine gave me a call just before he was about to board a plane at Suvarnabhumi airport (Bangkok). This guy is a genius when it comes to financial matters and was about to travel to the US to work on the last stages of
Streaming from Youtube – If you’re having trouble viewing in this blog, search for video clips at http://www.youtube.com by username – stujaystujay A couple of weeks ago, I was fortunate to cross paths with a great cross cultural / language instructor here in Bangkok called Chris Wright. Chris is
Thai
From the age of about 6 until around 17, I was really into gymnastics and martial arts. I could flex and bend like a rubber band and was always flipping about the place. After a few injuries in both sports, I decided to focus my attention on my music instead.
Language and Linguistics
It's no secret that Thailand is a haven for pirated goods. Handbags, Clothes, Accessories, Electronic Devices and of course Software and DVD's. There are many different grades of ‘fakes' too – cheap fakes normally reserved for the tourists around MBK, Silom etc… Middle of the Road
Books
A few months back I was looking for a way to catalogue all my books here. After searching around for some programmes that could help me do the job, I came across http://www.librarything.com . What a great site! … While there’s still a lot of deevlopment to be
How to prepare for and what to expect from Cracking Thai Fundamentals by Stuart Jay Raj One of the questions that I often get asked when opening a workshop like Cracking Thai Fundamentals is “Do you really think that you can teach me to speak Thai in 12-16 hours?” The
I would just like to post this out to the gods that be in Microsoft developing the Thai tools for Microsoft Word. After spending a long time with my team translating a couple of books for a client, the client required the whole document to be indexed as its English
Language and Linguistics
When asking foreigners that have been in Thailand for any reasonable amount of time “How’s your Thai?”, I often hear the answer “Oh, I speaka bit of Taxi Thai and that’s about it”. Striking up a conversation with ataxi driver is a great way to build up fluency
Thai
Swee Sar Pok Wee’ Flai Lai – What’s in an accent? My grandfather used to tell me “When you’re learning a language, you want to try your best to avoid having speakers of that language complimenting you. If people are complimenting you on how well you’re speaking ‘their’
During my school days, there were two things I feared more than anything. The first was receiving my report cards and the second was the parent teacher evenings that normally followed shortly after. No matter how well I did in other areas, there would never fail to be a comment
Culture and Business
In October 2004, I was standing chatting with a group of Thai business owners at an Australian Chamber of Commerce networking evening at a five-star hotel here in Bangkok. As I turned to order another drink from the bar, a Dutch gentleman briskly extended his hand in my direction, teeth