Stu Jay Raj on Cursing, Dirty Talk & the Importance of Tones [S6.E2]

Greg interviews our old pal Stu Jay Raj - linguist,
polyglot, and true Renaissance man. As you would expect, the
topic is the Thai language and foreigners' struggle to learn it
properly, but with a focus on the trouble you can get into if you
don't understand how tones work. 


Stu begins with an important point: the nature of English
allows a fair amount of flexibility in pronunciation and accent
without sacrificing intelligibility, whereas Thai does not. In
short, 'getting close' to correct Thai is often not good enough,
leading to frustration among foreigners who don't understand why
Thais cannot figure out what they are saying. 


Greg gives Stu a few examples of difficulties he has faced,
starting with the pronunciation of the popular street "Charoen
Krung." It turns out even something so short and seemingly simple
is not so, and even if a foreigner's tones are correct, a slight
mispronunciation of the vowels can confound native speakers. Greg
then brings up a common Thai curse word and the shocked reaction
of Thais to any foreigner who uses it. Stu goes into an in depth
explanation of close Thai relationships that allow a casualness
with language that is very difficult to replicate as a
foreigner.


The two continue discussing the Thai language minefield
with Stu dropping many pearls of wisdom along the way. Listen in
next week for Part 2 of this interview. 


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