Posts regarding Thai Language and Thai Culture including Cracking Thai Fundamentals, Thai Bites and other Thai series by Stuart Jay Raj.
Chinese
Try saying these words - Nguyen, Ngan, Ngoai, Ngoh, Ngoi, Ngai, Nggak, Ngopi, Ngerti, Ngut-ngit, Ngi-ngau. Imagine living in Vietnam with 38% of the population having the surname Nguyên, and not being able to pronounce their name properly? In spoken Indonesian, the initial 'ng' sound often plays a
Culture and Business
The Original Story Appears in Hotel Intel.co. Click here for full story. Several months ago, I was brought into a project in a high-end hotel in Bangkok that was a couple of months away from completion. Right now in Thailand, the labour market is flooded and finding internationally minded
Language and Linguistics
Over the weekend I had the privilege to present to a group of around 100 expat Indians working in the Engineering and Technology sectors in Thailand. I had spoken to the group a couple of months earlier and after the seminar, many people approached me and mentioned how much trouble
Mind and Brain
By the end of this article, you will have all the tools available to automatically generate your own customised multi-lingual audio, spaced-repetition vocabulary learning training files as well as physical flash cards to help you increase your vocabulary in the language that you are learning and develop a much more
Arabic
Bahasa Jawi – ภาษายาวี – بهاس جاوي Chances are if you pick up a copy of today’s newspaper in Thailand, there will be something warranting a front page story coming from the south – and in particular the three provinces of Patani, Yala and Naratiwat. The history of these three provinces is
Thai
“You Speak So Well!” Have you ever been learning a language like Thai, Chinese or Vietnamese and received a compliment in the very beginning stages along the lines of “You speak so well!” While providing that much needed motivation to keep going in the language, receiving such compliments can start
Thai
In order to put this clip together, I thought to myself "If I were to be learning Thai from scratch again, what advice would I give myself?" - I tried to make it applicable to anyone learning Thai - from someone just wanting to impress the wait staff
Language and Linguistics
How do You Know What You Are Experiencing is Also What Everyone Else Around You Is? So many expats that I meet in China, Indonesia, Thailand and other countries around the region tell me that they get around just fine without knowing the local language. I suppose that is a
Thai
[](http://stujay.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/CIMG4271.jpg)I’m very reluctant to reveal too much about this subject. It’s very personal, very
Language and Linguistics
Have you ever spent weeks, months … even years learning a language only to have people still scratch their heads trying to figure out what you’re saying? .. Or even worse? How do you know that people are really getting the message you intend them to get? Have you ever had
Language and Linguistics
Pick a Language Any Language Over the past 2 weeks, I have received over 50 messages, comments and emails from people all over the world asking about how they should embark on learning a language. I normally keep the following for people who enroll in my Cracking Thai Fundamentals programme,
Interpreting and Translation
R.I.P. Stuart Jay Raj’s NAATI Professional Level 3 Thai Interpreters Exam 19th of August, 2010 Moving to Australia recently was a tough call for me. I love my life in Thailand and never would I have imagined a year ago that this time this year I would