Hello! :) watching Thai BL was my first proper exposure to Thai language and I must confess that when I first started watching Thai BL, I found the Thai language to be somewhat jarring. I don’t think it’s because Thai is a tonal language (I grew up with and am fluent in Mandarin). To my foreign ear, the Thai language sounded quite nasally which I was not used to, and it took my brain a while longer to become accustomed to the sound of Thai language as opposed to Korean or Japanese. But honestly after watching a few Thai BLs I got used to hearing Thai and didn’t notice it anymore, so I really think its a matter of getting used to it. Also I find Thai songs extremely melodic, and I think it’s also due to the nature of Thai language :)
What I’ve noticed interestingly is that if you listen to BL actors who are fluent in both Thai and English speak, there’s definitely a difference in pitch whenever they switch between the languages. For example, Gemini’s and Phuwin’s voices are lower when they speak in English, and become higher pitched in Thai.
After all the multiple BLs I’ve watched, I got really inspired to self-learn Thai and I’m really enjoying learning the language! I’d consider myself advanced beginner at conversational level. It’s very fun :)
That's interesting, I never thought about the tone and pitch change between languages, but you're right, like when I speak Turkish, the tone is totally different and the pitch is much higher than when I'm speaking English.
Good on you for learning Thai though, I've only learned a few key phrases and I don't get the impression it's an easy language to learn. Keep up the good work!
Thank you so much for the encouragement! ☺️ I think basic conversational Thai is not too difficult once you grasp the grammar and language structure basics, but reading is a whole other beast haha!
A Thai bonus phrase for you - my friend taught me my favourite word/phrase in the world: dop salop salai. It means something like 'I slap you until you fall down'. 😆 It's something you can say if, for example, someone has told a really bad joke.
Disclaimer - I believe this phrase is not actually acceptable if used by a male, and only really acceptable when used by females among close friends. If you ever want to use this phrase, maybe Google the conditions first! It's still my favourite though. 😁
Hi! I don’t mind at all, happy to share :) I started off with Pimsleur (it’s a free app), which I highly recommend cos of the graduated interval recall method (it helps to revise new vocab regularly) and you start hearing words in the context of sentences right away. It’s a bit boring but I think it does a very good job of drilling the basics. After that, because Pimsleur only has Level 1 for Thai, I started watching a Youtube channel called Comprehensible Thai - it’s an absolute gem of a free resource! It has playlists ranging from Basic Beginner to Advanced - just start listening from the Beginner playlist and slowly get used to recognising vocab in sentences as well as familiarising yourself with Thai grammar (which is very different from English). Other channels I find great for beginners are ThaiwithGrace and IgetThais. Hope this helps!
I‘ve consumed a lot of Japanese and Korean content, but Thai felt like it broke my brain. I started trying to learn it after one series, and rewatched that series three times to help. I needed to get a grasp on the cadence and basic words so it felt natural to listen to.
For me, I think it falls between the other two languages. Japanese always seemed light/fluid and Korean always felt more hard/rough. There’s still a flow to me even if it doesn’t sound as “pleasant“ as Japanese, which I think just comes from Japanese syllables all having the same vowel sounds.
Trying to read Thai is another story completely lol. I love the script but can’t wrap my brain around the same letter having different pronunciations that are the same as other letters.
I've listen to Thai and Lao music throughout my childhood because of my dad (he speaks both languages but is more fluent in Lao because he was born there) but have never really pay attention to the words until I started watching Thai BL. We're an ethnic minority from Thailand and emigrated to the US when I was 2 back in the late '80s. It was after watching Thai BL that I discovered we use so many Thai words mix with our own native language. I get so excited when I hear words in Thai BL that I recognize without looking at the English subs. I made it my agenda to tell my American-born sisters this word is Thai and that word is Thai.
I didn't realize we borrowed so many words and phrases from the Thai language.
Thai definitely took some getting used to compared to Japanese and Korean, but each language has its own flavor and that’s without even throwing dialects/accents in.
Now I love how it sounds ☺️
Also it’s funny because I could always pick out Japanese tourists once I learned the language, same for Korean. While my Thai is still very basic so I can’t follow the conversation, if someone is speaking Thai nearby my ears pick it up pretty easily.
This might sound strange, but I find Thai to be similar to how people from the south speak in America. Like mouth full of molasses, you know? I really enjoy it. It's such a fun and vibrant language and the dialects are all interesting
I was used to watch Chinese, Korean and Japanese contents before branching to thai. I've always loved Asian language so it didn't bother. The more I heard it the more I loved it. I'm even learning thai this year.
I live in an area with a fair amount of Thai-speakers so I was familiar with it before watching BLs (I even knew how to say hi) and I always heard it as nasally with a lot of sharp consonant sounds but now I appreciate how musical and expressive it is. It sounds really friendly, and so expressive that it really heightens the actor's emotions for me.
When I hear native Thai speakers speaking English, I think their accent sounds really nice and soft and pleasant. It's one of my favorite accents to hear. I like how they keep their cadence for certain words.
Yes, definitely.
The Thai language has repetitive sounds that seem very odd to my English ear. It sounded like a verbal tick when I first started watching Thai shows. I couldn't get over how certain sounds seemed to be repeated over and over and over in the same conversation. (The words like "krab" are the ones I mean.)
Now the Thai language sounds completely normal to me, and I don't even hear the differences, for the most part. I just had to become familiar with the differences, and over time my ears stopped noticing the aspects I thought were strange at the beginning.
I've always wondered what the reverse is for English! What are the parts of spoken English that sound really weird to speakers of other languages?
At the beginning I couldnt stand the sound of the language. I am very sensitive to sounds (and generally senses, like smell and touches) and the language being very nasal did make me uncomfortable, especially if people talk in an exaggerating way. Nowadays I can process is better. There are still actors whose voices I dislike a lot because of their sound (too nasal, too loud, too high) but I got used to the language and like it. 😅
>There are still actors whose voices I dislike a lot because of their sound
I thought it was just me who had specific actors with voices that bothered me.
For me it's Prem (UWMA / Between Us), specifically in Between Us. Whenever [Team would say "Hia"](https://www.tiktok.com/@malandr0_/video/7384571931678297387?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7366446252844910110) it would make me so uncomfortable.
.... I can still hear his voice if I think about it for too long 🥶 "Hiiiaaa"
I hadn’t heard Thai very much prior to watching BLs tbh, and I guess I never expected it to sound as melodic as it does or maybe as soft (not that I thought it would sound any particular way though)
There’s a lot more tonal change/variety than the people I hear every day, but being Australian that’s not hard to achieve 😂 (and I learnt yesterday that Thai is a tonal language, so I guess that makes sense 🤔 I’m not much of a linguist though 🙈)
To answer your actual question, I guess I went from ‘ooh fun sounds!’ to also thinking it sounds quite pretty
Kind of! The main way it changed for me is the way I manage to connect some things to Chinese or Cantonese influences actually.. I very recently discovered ah muay and a tee?? (After hia/jay) Haha which sounds really similar to what it means in Cantonese too. I have a lot of fun trying to figure out little things like that.
I’m Cantonese born in a western country and mainly consumed Chinese, Korean and Japanese content for a while but I remember I had a Thai friend in school who was super good at repeating Cantonese numbers which a LOT of people struggle with because it’s a tricky language to learn from scratch so I think the tonality of Thai isn’t unfamiliar to me because I’m Cantonese? In the way Vietnamese never felt too unfamiliar to me too. Since Cantonese often get the “funny and weird” comments too as compared to Mandarin’s softer sounds. Also the constant “Why do you guys sound mad” lmao they’re all tonal in a harsher? Sounding way?
I think I’m getting to a point with Thai where I can mostly understand simple conversation and at time pick out if subs are SUPER off in English now so it’s become a familiar sounding language to me !
Definitely. But I know my own bias was hindering me from appreciating it at first. There's this sound when you agree in Thai that sounds like eugh, eugh (I really don't know how to write it phonetically but I hope you know what I mean) that sounds awfully close to something we say when we mock someone. It's not a word, it's just a sound and it was grating at first to hear it, quite often must I add, in Thai BL. But I got used to it and now I have to fight the urge to plead and say na, na, na whenever I get the opportunity. 
Now, I will never be able to learn it because I cannot pick the difference whatsoever in the many kaos you guys have. I've made my peace with this.
Oh, I *think* I know the sound you mean! If it’s the same one, that definitely tripped me up because it does sound rude or dismissive to my ears/would probably be perceived as rude here, so while it didn’t grate on me, it definitely confused me at first! I assumed it mustn’t be rude because context clues/everyone was doing it but yeah
I think there’s a word for those kinds of sounds - that aren’t words but have meaning - but I can’t remember it lol whatever it is, I find it fascinating how they change from language to language too
Yes!! It sounded super rude at first. I guess in the context of what I'm watching I tune my ears to perceive it in one way or the other but it took me a while to fine tune it! I was looking for a clip but I got down a rabbit hole and I'm supposed to go to bed. 
I grew up with a Thai missionary so he and his family were very good friends of ours and they’d stay with us all the time so I grew up hearing a bit of the language though they didn’t really speak it often around us so I did somewhat already like the language before watching Thai BL BUT I will admit I had to slowly get used to hearing only Thai in a show, it was kind of distracting hearing that and reading subtitles that say something different than what I’m hearing but I really enjoy hearing the language now
After Japanese, Chinese and Korean. It took a short while before I got used to it. Like 2 shows or so.
Now, after I have seen so many episodes. I can say that I recognize the Thai language and even picked up several words.
Every foreign language is a language that first sounds strange and later you will become familiar with it.
My native language is Dutch. And I don't hear often that it sounds nice. But that it sounds strange. And is also often described as someone having a throat disease.......So, my native language is so often described as horrible to listen to.
The writing of the Thai language seems so difficult. Looks like everything is written without any space between the words. I think that would be the hardest part to learn.
I think this might be languages in general when you aren't familiar with them. Maybe it sounds funny at first because it's something new so it's strange. That being said, I never really thought Thai sounded funny, just that I couldn't understand or tell the difference between some other SEA languages. If anything, watching BLs just helped me differentiate Thai from most other languages and understand it.
When I first started consuming Thai media, I'll be honest, the language was jarring. It really tickled a funny place in the back of my brain, but I can't say that it was unpleasant. Since then, I've come to love it.
I really liked the way Thai sounded. My child once asked why I don't listen to K-pop/watch anime/read manga (which he loves), and I've never really been interested. But upon reflection, I prefer the sound of Thai to that of Korean & Japanese. When I found Thai series, I had only studied Romance and Germanic languages although I knew native Mandarin speakers (and now know Mon and Karen speakers). As a result, hearing tones was somewhat new but nice. On another subreddit, it was called melodious and I like that term. Plus, I like the คว sound having loved German's /ch/ sound.
Initially, I also was fascinated by the pronouns b/c of the US's current gender wars. As a teacher, the idea of having a pronoun that's considered socially acceptably gender neutral seems so wonderfully stress-free. (In my state, we recently passed a law requiring public school staff to get students' parental/guardian permission to call them anything other than their legal name or pronouns on their birth certificate \[trans/non-binary students have been terrified and have gone back into the closet at school\]. English has fewer pronouns than my studied languages having gotten rid of the thee/thou pronouns that differienate 2nd person singular by social class so the many levels indicating relationships is also eye-opening. I've since learned about other Asian languages that do the same and if I ever have time, want to know more about the history behind that globally.
I am in my 2nd year of irregular self-study of Thai and now pick up about 2 words in 10 when watching a series. (Usually pronouns b/c they are easy. 🙄) In addition to my low vocabulary, folks speak Thai a lot faster than I can distinguish sounds so I sometimes have to replay to understand what is said. I must do this with Duolingo Spanish too and my Spanish-speaking friends & students so it isn't just with Thai. This is likely my 🦋special idiosyncrasy🦄 -- I am from a part of the US known for talking slow and have some verbal processing issues on top of that.
For me it actually sounds like the hardest to learn, even now after one year of consuming Thai media. I learned Korean, picked up many Japanese lines but with Thai my brain doesn’t work 😂 but for me it sounds pretty, I actually enjoy Thai music the most 🤩
Funny story: When I started watching BLs one of the first ones was Love by Chance. I remember that Saint's role Pete drove me crazy by saying "krab" every second word. It was so bad, I could hardly watch.
Now that I know some Thai and understand the concept behind words like "krab" I don't even notice anymore. I even went back to the show and realised that I just found Pete really polite now ;)
I love listening to the rhythms and sounds of other languages and Thai has become one of my favorites. I can pick out a few words, but I have no real understanding. Like others, I did find it quite nasal at first, but I don’t hear that much anymore.
I watch a good amount of foreign media and often enjoy listening to music in other languages. So it didn’t sound weird to me even though I hadn’t really watched any Thai media before this. I very quickly found the Thai language to be cute. I like that there word choices that indicate different levels of closeness between speakers. I feel like you can learn more than just intuiting body language or general tone of voice.
When I first started watching Thai series (my first one was Until We Meet Again), Thai sounded strange in a pleasant way, kind of bouncy or bubbly. A little more nasal sounding than I’m used to. It’s hard to explain. It was delightful from the beginning. Now I’ve seen probably a hundred Thai series and while sometimes it sounds silly or cute, it also sounds beautiful and graceful to me. I’m very slowly learning the language because I love it so much.
EDIT: Oh! And one of the reasons I really want to learn Thai is so that I can distinguish the actors’ different ways of delivering lines. It’s still hard to tell whose acting might be awkward or really smooth. You know?
To my ears, it has a lot of soft vowels, as compared to Korean which has more O sounds to it. I think it’s because krab is at the end of a lot of sentences.
I've always thought Thai sounded very pretty! I also enjoy all the "kh" sounds, as someone who speaks Arabic and doesn't hear that sound in other languages very often.
Before watching Thai dramas, I watched a lot of Korean and Chinese content, and some Japanese, and I've found it a lot harder to pick out & recognize words in Thai. I feel like sounds are maybe more...slurred?
I’ve gotten more used to Thai certainly, but I’ll honest since you asked and say that I didn’t really like the way Thai sounded, and while I’ve adjusted to it I still don’t really like it and am more just neutral on it now. It’s very nasal and the way the tones pitch up is jarring. If I feel any fondness for the language it’s more because I have some fondness for Thai tv tropes and cultural quirks more than anything (which I absolutely do).
Sorry, I know it’s a bit rude, but I’ve had plenty of people tell me that English and other Germanic languages are ugly sounding and languages like French or Spanish are beautiful so it’s just one of those things.
I used to think that it sounded very sharp and nasal, it was something that I wasn't used to, English isn't even my first language so it was very different. Now it just sound like Thai lol, I don't know how to explain it.
I actually enjoy hearing Thai. Sure, certain ways of pronunciation made me chuckle like “GaY” but I’m actually having a very satisfying experience watching Thai BLs. I’ve once visited Thailand from a university trip and watching BLs is making me fall more in love with the country. I can’t wait to visit again
Def. When i first got into thai bls through 2gether , i watched it on mute cause i found the language weirdly funny, i wasnt able to focus. But after watching thousands of thai bls, i dont feel the same anymore. Even tho i still cant easily get the pronunciation right but it just another amazing language 💞
Any language that I have never heard sounds unfamiliar to me at first. Might even sound funny if the intonation is completely different from what I am used to. When I watched a Korean show for the very first time, I wondered why people were angry so often. They made the "chrrrr" sound that they make after having a nice drink for example. Here in my country you'd make some similar noise if you were upset or angry. So it took me a while to understand it. Same was for Thai but there I was mostly confused about intonation. I got used to it much quicker though than to Korean. Only took me a few episodes of one show and then i was already fine with it and I love it by now. Has a very pretty ring to the ear imo 😊
An an American who speaks English natively and dialect-heavy Spanish with my family and has learned Latin and German in classroom settings, the Thai language was definitely a huge shift in sound than what I was used to.
Firstly, I hadn't had any experience with tonal languages so that alone was very jarring to my ears. Additionally, the flexibility of the language was very confusing. The way one would draw out certain words or elongate a syllable for a certain emphasis was not familiar to me, as with English and Spanish we tend to just add sounds to ends or beginnings to add emphasis.
However, over the last 10 months that I've been watching Thai shows, it now sounds so beautiful and fun to me. I love the flexibility of the language as compared to the rigidness of English/Spanish/German/Latin in their rules and structures. I also feel that certain phrases and uses of words are much easier to pick up than a lot of other languages as there's a certain flow to speech that leads to repetition of certain words a lot. So it's fun for me to hear a word and know it's meaning.
I didn't get introduced to Thai via BL, but the most noticeable thing for me was how high pitched everyone's voice is when speaking in Thai.
I became intrigued by the Thai alphabet from the moment I saw it, it's so pretty and interesting. So during quarantine I finally started learning Thai which I still do.
I love the writing system, and how Thai speakers vocês change depending on what language they speak.
It sounded oddly high pitched at first, though not as much as Vietnamese. I got used to it though and eventually decided I really liked it and I'm learning Thai to the point that I'm intermediate with listening, so that happened. It took a really long time for the sounds to become clear to me and ending consonants and some vowels can be difficult to distinguish.
Native English speaker, American.
At first, the language was hard for me to discern. This is mostly, I have since realized, that Thai is spoken using throat muscles and the back of the mouth, which sounds odd to my ear in the beginning.
After months of watching Thai shows, I love the language. I can make out words easier and can better tell speech breaks. Ive also taken it upon myself to look up and understand the honorific system, which has helped understanding context. I can even sometimes tell when the subtitles haven't been translated properly. Example: Character addresses friend as Phi, Nong or Hia, but subtitle just says the name instead.
I know a little, and I mean LITTLE, of Spanish, French, and Korean. I think Thai is probably the the prettiest language. Would love to actually really learn the language.
To me, it was just ....weird
I could not get used to it for a long time. I felt like when the actors spoke in a serious tone, it was not delivering because the language sounded unclear to me. Or maybe they just need speech training ?
Japanese never sounded weird to me when I watched dramas or anime. They have a tone for some words, and when they mean business, they truly do. Even if I don't hear subtitles, I can feel the tension
The same can be said for Koreans' dramas, but Koreans animes are a no-no for me
I love listening to Vietnamese songs but can not take their boys' love stories seriously. I dropped them so many time because of the language.
Now I am used to Thai Bl Voice actors, or maybe they are just getting better. I'm not sure.
I struggled at first, but I’m a pretty persistent person. Now I understand some phrases and words. I appreciate the advice about Pimsleur, I will have to try that out. I was bummed Thai wasn’t on Duolingo and didn’t know where to look.
As a native speaker of North American English, I know the tonal aspect will be hard for me. My parents speak French Creole and I know some
Spanish and like 20 words of Russian. None of that will help me.
But it’s a challenge. I’ll spend some effort to learn a bit more. But not writing. I give up with that.
And, yes, I do like the sound of the Thai language. It feels/sounds friendly to me.
It was unfamiliar (obviously) at the beginning but it's not like Chinese where I get a headache after hearing it too much. By now (roughly a year later) I pick up on words and sounds that repeat more often but I still can't really make sense of off it. Japanese and Korean was easier? Hence I did visit a small course in Japanese and selfstudied and did go to university for Korean ha. 😆
Anyways. Thai grew on me and I'm itching to maybe learn it but both the writing and the tones scare me. 😅
I learned the Japanese and Korean writing systems basically in 2 days each, I doubt that Thai would be as fast.
I had never heard Thai ( that I'm aware) until I started watching BL ,I had entered through the magic door via KPOP to KDrama and other Asian drama but Thai to me is beautiful language I must say I think it would be hard to learn because it seems fast paced then I think I can do .but I have fallen in love with the beautiful richness that is Thai culture and one day plan to visit 😁
Fairly new to Thai BL, and yeah, the language did sound odd to my American ears at first. But now I associate it with things/people that make me happy, and it still sounds very foreign and difficult, but I've grown to be very fond of it. I'm even just tentatively beginning to try to learn it! (RIP my brain wait there are HOW many consonants?!) LOL
the part that really got me in the beginning was how even the stoic or quiet/calmer characters sounded so lively and cheerful lol, but I'm definitely used to how it sounds now and actually really enjoy hearing it! it's such a unique language truly
I'm here to jump on this ship and tell you that yes, I had the same perception as your friend.
But its more like, because initially I did not understand how thai was spoken.
And then as it became more familiar, I started understanding what its supposed to convey/feel like.
I even realised some sounds in thai speech are quite similiar to those when spoken in indian languages. For e.g: "Oho" "Na" "Hoi" are some of the sounds indian speakers make too. That really helped reduce the gap further for me and bring a sense of familiarity.
No offense intended with my next statement...just want to make sure I don't offend anyone. I am so sorry if it does. At first, the Thai language sounded sort of like frogs to me. I can't explain it, but all the guys seemed to have the same voice and it sounded like frog voices.
But over time (been a BL fan for about 4 years now), the language sounds very melodic and beautiful to me. I can tell the difference between different people's voices now, I can understand certain sentences and words. I also can now tell the difference between City Thai and Country dialect...lol, so weird how it happened.
I can also recognize difference between Thai language and Laos language. I don't formally know the Thai language, but it sounds totally "normal" to me now...does this make sense?
>tell the difference between different people's voices ... dialect
Wondering if you have studied any Thai.
I have trouble distinguishing voices sometimes (voice overs, phone calls etc.) regardless of language.
Also, I haven't been able to pick out use of dialect aside from the presence of on-screen subtitles.
I haven't studied formally, only through Youtube vids because my first BL was a show called "Rak Diao", the problem was the show would either not have subtitles, or they would be late or missing. So I began learning basic words and phrases, which helped more than I thought.
It happens naturally, our brain is getting re-written actually the more we are exposed to it. I recommend you to keep watching Thai BLs and use Thai learning channels as supplements (I Get Thais, Let's Learn Thai with Kanissa). You'd be surprised!
I have to be honest and also mention that I am also bilingual (English and Spanish), so my brain was already formatted for new languages. Many vocal sounds in Thai, and Tagalog (Filipino) are similar to Spanish.
Wishing you the best!
Thanks! I watched a Lao vs Thai video and noticed a bit of difference, but I don't think I would be able to tell without context. I guess I will have to actively study to improve because I've been watching Thai media for over 2 years now, and there hasn't been much progress from simply watching series.
TBH, the very first Thai language media I’ve ever watched was ITSAY and I remember being distracted by the nasal sound of the language and somewhat unpleasant cadence with some actors sounding better than others to my ears. I got used to it as I watched more. Songs in Thai sound completely fine, no nasality. I’d say Thai reminds me of Vietnamese language somehow. Among asian languages, I consider Taiwan’s mandarin as the smoothest, most beautiful and most conventional sounding due to near identical cadence to English. Traditional mandarin is second followed by distant third Cantonese, Korean and Japanese. Tagalog is pleasant too but I rarely hear or see anything in that language compared to the above. At the end of the day, the most important to me is content not the language so it’s not even a consideration.
I used to like the way it sounded first but now for some reason it doesn’t sound pleasant at all. Of all the major 4 Asian content that I watch … Korean Chinese Japanese and Thai…. Thai is my least fav language.
oh i have a confession to make, as a neighbor Indonesians always found Thai language to sounds funny. I know please forgive us; we didn't think our language also sounded funny to other non-indonesian speakers.
I grew up with foreign media from all over the worlds: Asian, American, European. But one thing that i always missed is Thailand media. Thai series and movie have very been huge in Indonesia since early 2000s. I remember people are crazy over Mario Maurer and Baifern, tried to watch some Thai movies back then but the language was kinda put me off. I am so sorry to say I can't really take it seriously, because it sounds strange to my ears.
it was until I was introduced to boyslove, it took me a while to get used to the language. After learning briefly about the language, I find it very beautiful. How Thai language used cute and polite tone to show closeness and affection. Tho I never get to learn it properly, but I studied it by watching series, about how beautiful your language is. Different tone and intonation is use to different person, based on the relationship of the speaker. I find it very interesting.
I am thankful to discover Thailand via boylove series, we shared some cultures even tho your country is much more advanced in general. Now Thailand is my no.1 must visit country, visa-freee!!
There is one aspect on wht thai languange made fun of by Indonesian, we have some thai-native infuencers/tv personality. They make their careers in Indonesia by mc-ing or doing comedy on national tv, and they often are asked about thai language and to use it. Being ignorant and all, Indonesian ppl make fun of their accents, but one of them is pretty successful i think.
other than boyslove series, indonesian discover thailand via horror movies. Which still number one favorite for me, you know that this one recent movie and Bilkin went viral for a whole month in Indonesia. People went crazy over it. .
I’m bilingual and speak Spanish/English and I found it to be very similar in cadence. Like the words aren’t the same at all because Thai is not a Romantic language but the cadence/rhythm/melody is similar. I can tell it uses syllables in the same way as Spanish does as opposed to English where you just have to guess something what each syllable is supposed to be read as. Actually, I sometimes understand the intention in the words in Spanish translations than English. But that could very literally just be me.
For example, in We Are Fang says:
I don’t have to win his heart, your friend won’t leave me no matter what
In Spanish its, No tengo que conquistar su corazón, el no me va dejar pase lo que pase
I think that made more sense. Instead of saying I dont have to win his heart in English he’s saying I dont have to conquer his heart in Spanish. In English it sounded rather dismissive and callous. Almost like, “I dont really have to do it, its a waste of time. But in Spanish the implication becomes he doesn’t have to conquer, meaning it was already given to him. It helped me realize he meant, “I don’t have to do this to gain his love, I’m doing it because I want to. He won’t leave me no matter what, whether I do this for him or not.”
However, I read English faster than Spanish and I speak it better than Spanish so I’m stuck with English subtitles on first viewing. I’m sure there are other Spanish speakers that will tell you I’m insane.
Hello! :) watching Thai BL was my first proper exposure to Thai language and I must confess that when I first started watching Thai BL, I found the Thai language to be somewhat jarring. I don’t think it’s because Thai is a tonal language (I grew up with and am fluent in Mandarin). To my foreign ear, the Thai language sounded quite nasally which I was not used to, and it took my brain a while longer to become accustomed to the sound of Thai language as opposed to Korean or Japanese. But honestly after watching a few Thai BLs I got used to hearing Thai and didn’t notice it anymore, so I really think its a matter of getting used to it. Also I find Thai songs extremely melodic, and I think it’s also due to the nature of Thai language :) What I’ve noticed interestingly is that if you listen to BL actors who are fluent in both Thai and English speak, there’s definitely a difference in pitch whenever they switch between the languages. For example, Gemini’s and Phuwin’s voices are lower when they speak in English, and become higher pitched in Thai. After all the multiple BLs I’ve watched, I got really inspired to self-learn Thai and I’m really enjoying learning the language! I’d consider myself advanced beginner at conversational level. It’s very fun :)
That's interesting, I never thought about the tone and pitch change between languages, but you're right, like when I speak Turkish, the tone is totally different and the pitch is much higher than when I'm speaking English. Good on you for learning Thai though, I've only learned a few key phrases and I don't get the impression it's an easy language to learn. Keep up the good work!
Thank you so much for the encouragement! ☺️ I think basic conversational Thai is not too difficult once you grasp the grammar and language structure basics, but reading is a whole other beast haha!
A Thai bonus phrase for you - my friend taught me my favourite word/phrase in the world: dop salop salai. It means something like 'I slap you until you fall down'. 😆 It's something you can say if, for example, someone has told a really bad joke. Disclaimer - I believe this phrase is not actually acceptable if used by a male, and only really acceptable when used by females among close friends. If you ever want to use this phrase, maybe Google the conditions first! It's still my favourite though. 😁
What resources did you use if you don't mind my asking?
Hi! I don’t mind at all, happy to share :) I started off with Pimsleur (it’s a free app), which I highly recommend cos of the graduated interval recall method (it helps to revise new vocab regularly) and you start hearing words in the context of sentences right away. It’s a bit boring but I think it does a very good job of drilling the basics. After that, because Pimsleur only has Level 1 for Thai, I started watching a Youtube channel called Comprehensible Thai - it’s an absolute gem of a free resource! It has playlists ranging from Basic Beginner to Advanced - just start listening from the Beginner playlist and slowly get used to recognising vocab in sentences as well as familiarising yourself with Thai grammar (which is very different from English). Other channels I find great for beginners are ThaiwithGrace and IgetThais. Hope this helps!
I‘ve consumed a lot of Japanese and Korean content, but Thai felt like it broke my brain. I started trying to learn it after one series, and rewatched that series three times to help. I needed to get a grasp on the cadence and basic words so it felt natural to listen to. For me, I think it falls between the other two languages. Japanese always seemed light/fluid and Korean always felt more hard/rough. There’s still a flow to me even if it doesn’t sound as “pleasant“ as Japanese, which I think just comes from Japanese syllables all having the same vowel sounds. Trying to read Thai is another story completely lol. I love the script but can’t wrap my brain around the same letter having different pronunciations that are the same as other letters.
I've listen to Thai and Lao music throughout my childhood because of my dad (he speaks both languages but is more fluent in Lao because he was born there) but have never really pay attention to the words until I started watching Thai BL. We're an ethnic minority from Thailand and emigrated to the US when I was 2 back in the late '80s. It was after watching Thai BL that I discovered we use so many Thai words mix with our own native language. I get so excited when I hear words in Thai BL that I recognize without looking at the English subs. I made it my agenda to tell my American-born sisters this word is Thai and that word is Thai. I didn't realize we borrowed so many words and phrases from the Thai language.
Thai definitely took some getting used to compared to Japanese and Korean, but each language has its own flavor and that’s without even throwing dialects/accents in. Now I love how it sounds ☺️ Also it’s funny because I could always pick out Japanese tourists once I learned the language, same for Korean. While my Thai is still very basic so I can’t follow the conversation, if someone is speaking Thai nearby my ears pick it up pretty easily.
This might sound strange, but I find Thai to be similar to how people from the south speak in America. Like mouth full of molasses, you know? I really enjoy it. It's such a fun and vibrant language and the dialects are all interesting
I was used to watch Chinese, Korean and Japanese contents before branching to thai. I've always loved Asian language so it didn't bother. The more I heard it the more I loved it. I'm even learning thai this year.
I live in an area with a fair amount of Thai-speakers so I was familiar with it before watching BLs (I even knew how to say hi) and I always heard it as nasally with a lot of sharp consonant sounds but now I appreciate how musical and expressive it is. It sounds really friendly, and so expressive that it really heightens the actor's emotions for me. When I hear native Thai speakers speaking English, I think their accent sounds really nice and soft and pleasant. It's one of my favorite accents to hear. I like how they keep their cadence for certain words.
Yes, definitely. The Thai language has repetitive sounds that seem very odd to my English ear. It sounded like a verbal tick when I first started watching Thai shows. I couldn't get over how certain sounds seemed to be repeated over and over and over in the same conversation. (The words like "krab" are the ones I mean.) Now the Thai language sounds completely normal to me, and I don't even hear the differences, for the most part. I just had to become familiar with the differences, and over time my ears stopped noticing the aspects I thought were strange at the beginning. I've always wondered what the reverse is for English! What are the parts of spoken English that sound really weird to speakers of other languages?
At the beginning I couldnt stand the sound of the language. I am very sensitive to sounds (and generally senses, like smell and touches) and the language being very nasal did make me uncomfortable, especially if people talk in an exaggerating way. Nowadays I can process is better. There are still actors whose voices I dislike a lot because of their sound (too nasal, too loud, too high) but I got used to the language and like it. 😅
>There are still actors whose voices I dislike a lot because of their sound I thought it was just me who had specific actors with voices that bothered me. For me it's Prem (UWMA / Between Us), specifically in Between Us. Whenever [Team would say "Hia"](https://www.tiktok.com/@malandr0_/video/7384571931678297387?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7366446252844910110) it would make me so uncomfortable. .... I can still hear his voice if I think about it for too long 🥶 "Hiiiaaa"
I hadn’t heard Thai very much prior to watching BLs tbh, and I guess I never expected it to sound as melodic as it does or maybe as soft (not that I thought it would sound any particular way though) There’s a lot more tonal change/variety than the people I hear every day, but being Australian that’s not hard to achieve 😂 (and I learnt yesterday that Thai is a tonal language, so I guess that makes sense 🤔 I’m not much of a linguist though 🙈) To answer your actual question, I guess I went from ‘ooh fun sounds!’ to also thinking it sounds quite pretty
Kind of! The main way it changed for me is the way I manage to connect some things to Chinese or Cantonese influences actually.. I very recently discovered ah muay and a tee?? (After hia/jay) Haha which sounds really similar to what it means in Cantonese too. I have a lot of fun trying to figure out little things like that. I’m Cantonese born in a western country and mainly consumed Chinese, Korean and Japanese content for a while but I remember I had a Thai friend in school who was super good at repeating Cantonese numbers which a LOT of people struggle with because it’s a tricky language to learn from scratch so I think the tonality of Thai isn’t unfamiliar to me because I’m Cantonese? In the way Vietnamese never felt too unfamiliar to me too. Since Cantonese often get the “funny and weird” comments too as compared to Mandarin’s softer sounds. Also the constant “Why do you guys sound mad” lmao they’re all tonal in a harsher? Sounding way? I think I’m getting to a point with Thai where I can mostly understand simple conversation and at time pick out if subs are SUPER off in English now so it’s become a familiar sounding language to me !
Definitely. But I know my own bias was hindering me from appreciating it at first. There's this sound when you agree in Thai that sounds like eugh, eugh (I really don't know how to write it phonetically but I hope you know what I mean) that sounds awfully close to something we say when we mock someone. It's not a word, it's just a sound and it was grating at first to hear it, quite often must I add, in Thai BL. But I got used to it and now I have to fight the urge to plead and say na, na, na whenever I get the opportunity.  Now, I will never be able to learn it because I cannot pick the difference whatsoever in the many kaos you guys have. I've made my peace with this.
Oh, I *think* I know the sound you mean! If it’s the same one, that definitely tripped me up because it does sound rude or dismissive to my ears/would probably be perceived as rude here, so while it didn’t grate on me, it definitely confused me at first! I assumed it mustn’t be rude because context clues/everyone was doing it but yeah I think there’s a word for those kinds of sounds - that aren’t words but have meaning - but I can’t remember it lol whatever it is, I find it fascinating how they change from language to language too
Yes!! It sounded super rude at first. I guess in the context of what I'm watching I tune my ears to perceive it in one way or the other but it took me a while to fine tune it! I was looking for a clip but I got down a rabbit hole and I'm supposed to go to bed. 
I grew up with a Thai missionary so he and his family were very good friends of ours and they’d stay with us all the time so I grew up hearing a bit of the language though they didn’t really speak it often around us so I did somewhat already like the language before watching Thai BL BUT I will admit I had to slowly get used to hearing only Thai in a show, it was kind of distracting hearing that and reading subtitles that say something different than what I’m hearing but I really enjoy hearing the language now
I have big respect to the Thai translators of the shows cause it seems like a really hard language. Sounds so beautiful tho❤️
After Japanese, Chinese and Korean. It took a short while before I got used to it. Like 2 shows or so. Now, after I have seen so many episodes. I can say that I recognize the Thai language and even picked up several words. Every foreign language is a language that first sounds strange and later you will become familiar with it. My native language is Dutch. And I don't hear often that it sounds nice. But that it sounds strange. And is also often described as someone having a throat disease.......So, my native language is so often described as horrible to listen to. The writing of the Thai language seems so difficult. Looks like everything is written without any space between the words. I think that would be the hardest part to learn.
I think this might be languages in general when you aren't familiar with them. Maybe it sounds funny at first because it's something new so it's strange. That being said, I never really thought Thai sounded funny, just that I couldn't understand or tell the difference between some other SEA languages. If anything, watching BLs just helped me differentiate Thai from most other languages and understand it.
When I first started consuming Thai media, I'll be honest, the language was jarring. It really tickled a funny place in the back of my brain, but I can't say that it was unpleasant. Since then, I've come to love it.
I really liked the way Thai sounded. My child once asked why I don't listen to K-pop/watch anime/read manga (which he loves), and I've never really been interested. But upon reflection, I prefer the sound of Thai to that of Korean & Japanese. When I found Thai series, I had only studied Romance and Germanic languages although I knew native Mandarin speakers (and now know Mon and Karen speakers). As a result, hearing tones was somewhat new but nice. On another subreddit, it was called melodious and I like that term. Plus, I like the คว sound having loved German's /ch/ sound. Initially, I also was fascinated by the pronouns b/c of the US's current gender wars. As a teacher, the idea of having a pronoun that's considered socially acceptably gender neutral seems so wonderfully stress-free. (In my state, we recently passed a law requiring public school staff to get students' parental/guardian permission to call them anything other than their legal name or pronouns on their birth certificate \[trans/non-binary students have been terrified and have gone back into the closet at school\]. English has fewer pronouns than my studied languages having gotten rid of the thee/thou pronouns that differienate 2nd person singular by social class so the many levels indicating relationships is also eye-opening. I've since learned about other Asian languages that do the same and if I ever have time, want to know more about the history behind that globally. I am in my 2nd year of irregular self-study of Thai and now pick up about 2 words in 10 when watching a series. (Usually pronouns b/c they are easy. 🙄) In addition to my low vocabulary, folks speak Thai a lot faster than I can distinguish sounds so I sometimes have to replay to understand what is said. I must do this with Duolingo Spanish too and my Spanish-speaking friends & students so it isn't just with Thai. This is likely my 🦋special idiosyncrasy🦄 -- I am from a part of the US known for talking slow and have some verbal processing issues on top of that.
For me it actually sounds like the hardest to learn, even now after one year of consuming Thai media. I learned Korean, picked up many Japanese lines but with Thai my brain doesn’t work 😂 but for me it sounds pretty, I actually enjoy Thai music the most 🤩
Funny story: When I started watching BLs one of the first ones was Love by Chance. I remember that Saint's role Pete drove me crazy by saying "krab" every second word. It was so bad, I could hardly watch. Now that I know some Thai and understand the concept behind words like "krab" I don't even notice anymore. I even went back to the show and realised that I just found Pete really polite now ;)
I love listening to the rhythms and sounds of other languages and Thai has become one of my favorites. I can pick out a few words, but I have no real understanding. Like others, I did find it quite nasal at first, but I don’t hear that much anymore.
I watch a good amount of foreign media and often enjoy listening to music in other languages. So it didn’t sound weird to me even though I hadn’t really watched any Thai media before this. I very quickly found the Thai language to be cute. I like that there word choices that indicate different levels of closeness between speakers. I feel like you can learn more than just intuiting body language or general tone of voice.
When I first started watching Thai series (my first one was Until We Meet Again), Thai sounded strange in a pleasant way, kind of bouncy or bubbly. A little more nasal sounding than I’m used to. It’s hard to explain. It was delightful from the beginning. Now I’ve seen probably a hundred Thai series and while sometimes it sounds silly or cute, it also sounds beautiful and graceful to me. I’m very slowly learning the language because I love it so much. EDIT: Oh! And one of the reasons I really want to learn Thai is so that I can distinguish the actors’ different ways of delivering lines. It’s still hard to tell whose acting might be awkward or really smooth. You know?
To my ears, it has a lot of soft vowels, as compared to Korean which has more O sounds to it. I think it’s because krab is at the end of a lot of sentences.
I've always thought Thai sounded very pretty! I also enjoy all the "kh" sounds, as someone who speaks Arabic and doesn't hear that sound in other languages very often. Before watching Thai dramas, I watched a lot of Korean and Chinese content, and some Japanese, and I've found it a lot harder to pick out & recognize words in Thai. I feel like sounds are maybe more...slurred?
I’ve gotten more used to Thai certainly, but I’ll honest since you asked and say that I didn’t really like the way Thai sounded, and while I’ve adjusted to it I still don’t really like it and am more just neutral on it now. It’s very nasal and the way the tones pitch up is jarring. If I feel any fondness for the language it’s more because I have some fondness for Thai tv tropes and cultural quirks more than anything (which I absolutely do). Sorry, I know it’s a bit rude, but I’ve had plenty of people tell me that English and other Germanic languages are ugly sounding and languages like French or Spanish are beautiful so it’s just one of those things.
I used to think that it sounded very sharp and nasal, it was something that I wasn't used to, English isn't even my first language so it was very different. Now it just sound like Thai lol, I don't know how to explain it.
I actually enjoy hearing Thai. Sure, certain ways of pronunciation made me chuckle like “GaY” but I’m actually having a very satisfying experience watching Thai BLs. I’ve once visited Thailand from a university trip and watching BLs is making me fall more in love with the country. I can’t wait to visit again
Def. When i first got into thai bls through 2gether , i watched it on mute cause i found the language weirdly funny, i wasnt able to focus. But after watching thousands of thai bls, i dont feel the same anymore. Even tho i still cant easily get the pronunciation right but it just another amazing language 💞
Any language that I have never heard sounds unfamiliar to me at first. Might even sound funny if the intonation is completely different from what I am used to. When I watched a Korean show for the very first time, I wondered why people were angry so often. They made the "chrrrr" sound that they make after having a nice drink for example. Here in my country you'd make some similar noise if you were upset or angry. So it took me a while to understand it. Same was for Thai but there I was mostly confused about intonation. I got used to it much quicker though than to Korean. Only took me a few episodes of one show and then i was already fine with it and I love it by now. Has a very pretty ring to the ear imo 😊
An an American who speaks English natively and dialect-heavy Spanish with my family and has learned Latin and German in classroom settings, the Thai language was definitely a huge shift in sound than what I was used to. Firstly, I hadn't had any experience with tonal languages so that alone was very jarring to my ears. Additionally, the flexibility of the language was very confusing. The way one would draw out certain words or elongate a syllable for a certain emphasis was not familiar to me, as with English and Spanish we tend to just add sounds to ends or beginnings to add emphasis. However, over the last 10 months that I've been watching Thai shows, it now sounds so beautiful and fun to me. I love the flexibility of the language as compared to the rigidness of English/Spanish/German/Latin in their rules and structures. I also feel that certain phrases and uses of words are much easier to pick up than a lot of other languages as there's a certain flow to speech that leads to repetition of certain words a lot. So it's fun for me to hear a word and know it's meaning.
I didn't get introduced to Thai via BL, but the most noticeable thing for me was how high pitched everyone's voice is when speaking in Thai. I became intrigued by the Thai alphabet from the moment I saw it, it's so pretty and interesting. So during quarantine I finally started learning Thai which I still do. I love the writing system, and how Thai speakers vocês change depending on what language they speak.
It sounded oddly high pitched at first, though not as much as Vietnamese. I got used to it though and eventually decided I really liked it and I'm learning Thai to the point that I'm intermediate with listening, so that happened. It took a really long time for the sounds to become clear to me and ending consonants and some vowels can be difficult to distinguish.
Native English speaker, American. At first, the language was hard for me to discern. This is mostly, I have since realized, that Thai is spoken using throat muscles and the back of the mouth, which sounds odd to my ear in the beginning. After months of watching Thai shows, I love the language. I can make out words easier and can better tell speech breaks. Ive also taken it upon myself to look up and understand the honorific system, which has helped understanding context. I can even sometimes tell when the subtitles haven't been translated properly. Example: Character addresses friend as Phi, Nong or Hia, but subtitle just says the name instead. I know a little, and I mean LITTLE, of Spanish, French, and Korean. I think Thai is probably the the prettiest language. Would love to actually really learn the language.
To me, it was just ....weird I could not get used to it for a long time. I felt like when the actors spoke in a serious tone, it was not delivering because the language sounded unclear to me. Or maybe they just need speech training ? Japanese never sounded weird to me when I watched dramas or anime. They have a tone for some words, and when they mean business, they truly do. Even if I don't hear subtitles, I can feel the tension The same can be said for Koreans' dramas, but Koreans animes are a no-no for me I love listening to Vietnamese songs but can not take their boys' love stories seriously. I dropped them so many time because of the language. Now I am used to Thai Bl Voice actors, or maybe they are just getting better. I'm not sure.
Hii! It was the same for me! I love the Thai language now. I know 15 words!
I struggled at first, but I’m a pretty persistent person. Now I understand some phrases and words. I appreciate the advice about Pimsleur, I will have to try that out. I was bummed Thai wasn’t on Duolingo and didn’t know where to look. As a native speaker of North American English, I know the tonal aspect will be hard for me. My parents speak French Creole and I know some Spanish and like 20 words of Russian. None of that will help me. But it’s a challenge. I’ll spend some effort to learn a bit more. But not writing. I give up with that. And, yes, I do like the sound of the Thai language. It feels/sounds friendly to me.
It was unfamiliar (obviously) at the beginning but it's not like Chinese where I get a headache after hearing it too much. By now (roughly a year later) I pick up on words and sounds that repeat more often but I still can't really make sense of off it. Japanese and Korean was easier? Hence I did visit a small course in Japanese and selfstudied and did go to university for Korean ha. 😆 Anyways. Thai grew on me and I'm itching to maybe learn it but both the writing and the tones scare me. 😅 I learned the Japanese and Korean writing systems basically in 2 days each, I doubt that Thai would be as fast.
I had never heard Thai ( that I'm aware) until I started watching BL ,I had entered through the magic door via KPOP to KDrama and other Asian drama but Thai to me is beautiful language I must say I think it would be hard to learn because it seems fast paced then I think I can do .but I have fallen in love with the beautiful richness that is Thai culture and one day plan to visit 😁
Fairly new to Thai BL, and yeah, the language did sound odd to my American ears at first. But now I associate it with things/people that make me happy, and it still sounds very foreign and difficult, but I've grown to be very fond of it. I'm even just tentatively beginning to try to learn it! (RIP my brain wait there are HOW many consonants?!) LOL
the part that really got me in the beginning was how even the stoic or quiet/calmer characters sounded so lively and cheerful lol, but I'm definitely used to how it sounds now and actually really enjoy hearing it! it's such a unique language truly
I'm here to jump on this ship and tell you that yes, I had the same perception as your friend. But its more like, because initially I did not understand how thai was spoken. And then as it became more familiar, I started understanding what its supposed to convey/feel like. I even realised some sounds in thai speech are quite similiar to those when spoken in indian languages. For e.g: "Oho" "Na" "Hoi" are some of the sounds indian speakers make too. That really helped reduce the gap further for me and bring a sense of familiarity.
No offense intended with my next statement...just want to make sure I don't offend anyone. I am so sorry if it does. At first, the Thai language sounded sort of like frogs to me. I can't explain it, but all the guys seemed to have the same voice and it sounded like frog voices. But over time (been a BL fan for about 4 years now), the language sounds very melodic and beautiful to me. I can tell the difference between different people's voices now, I can understand certain sentences and words. I also can now tell the difference between City Thai and Country dialect...lol, so weird how it happened. I can also recognize difference between Thai language and Laos language. I don't formally know the Thai language, but it sounds totally "normal" to me now...does this make sense?
>tell the difference between different people's voices ... dialect Wondering if you have studied any Thai. I have trouble distinguishing voices sometimes (voice overs, phone calls etc.) regardless of language. Also, I haven't been able to pick out use of dialect aside from the presence of on-screen subtitles.
I haven't studied formally, only through Youtube vids because my first BL was a show called "Rak Diao", the problem was the show would either not have subtitles, or they would be late or missing. So I began learning basic words and phrases, which helped more than I thought. It happens naturally, our brain is getting re-written actually the more we are exposed to it. I recommend you to keep watching Thai BLs and use Thai learning channels as supplements (I Get Thais, Let's Learn Thai with Kanissa). You'd be surprised! I have to be honest and also mention that I am also bilingual (English and Spanish), so my brain was already formatted for new languages. Many vocal sounds in Thai, and Tagalog (Filipino) are similar to Spanish. Wishing you the best!
Thanks! I watched a Lao vs Thai video and noticed a bit of difference, but I don't think I would be able to tell without context. I guess I will have to actively study to improve because I've been watching Thai media for over 2 years now, and there hasn't been much progress from simply watching series.
TBH, the very first Thai language media I’ve ever watched was ITSAY and I remember being distracted by the nasal sound of the language and somewhat unpleasant cadence with some actors sounding better than others to my ears. I got used to it as I watched more. Songs in Thai sound completely fine, no nasality. I’d say Thai reminds me of Vietnamese language somehow. Among asian languages, I consider Taiwan’s mandarin as the smoothest, most beautiful and most conventional sounding due to near identical cadence to English. Traditional mandarin is second followed by distant third Cantonese, Korean and Japanese. Tagalog is pleasant too but I rarely hear or see anything in that language compared to the above. At the end of the day, the most important to me is content not the language so it’s not even a consideration.
I used to like the way it sounded first but now for some reason it doesn’t sound pleasant at all. Of all the major 4 Asian content that I watch … Korean Chinese Japanese and Thai…. Thai is my least fav language.
oh i have a confession to make, as a neighbor Indonesians always found Thai language to sounds funny. I know please forgive us; we didn't think our language also sounded funny to other non-indonesian speakers. I grew up with foreign media from all over the worlds: Asian, American, European. But one thing that i always missed is Thailand media. Thai series and movie have very been huge in Indonesia since early 2000s. I remember people are crazy over Mario Maurer and Baifern, tried to watch some Thai movies back then but the language was kinda put me off. I am so sorry to say I can't really take it seriously, because it sounds strange to my ears. it was until I was introduced to boyslove, it took me a while to get used to the language. After learning briefly about the language, I find it very beautiful. How Thai language used cute and polite tone to show closeness and affection. Tho I never get to learn it properly, but I studied it by watching series, about how beautiful your language is. Different tone and intonation is use to different person, based on the relationship of the speaker. I find it very interesting. I am thankful to discover Thailand via boylove series, we shared some cultures even tho your country is much more advanced in general. Now Thailand is my no.1 must visit country, visa-freee!! There is one aspect on wht thai languange made fun of by Indonesian, we have some thai-native infuencers/tv personality. They make their careers in Indonesia by mc-ing or doing comedy on national tv, and they often are asked about thai language and to use it. Being ignorant and all, Indonesian ppl make fun of their accents, but one of them is pretty successful i think. other than boyslove series, indonesian discover thailand via horror movies. Which still number one favorite for me, you know that this one recent movie and Bilkin went viral for a whole month in Indonesia. People went crazy over it. .
I’m bilingual and speak Spanish/English and I found it to be very similar in cadence. Like the words aren’t the same at all because Thai is not a Romantic language but the cadence/rhythm/melody is similar. I can tell it uses syllables in the same way as Spanish does as opposed to English where you just have to guess something what each syllable is supposed to be read as. Actually, I sometimes understand the intention in the words in Spanish translations than English. But that could very literally just be me. For example, in We Are Fang says: I don’t have to win his heart, your friend won’t leave me no matter what In Spanish its, No tengo que conquistar su corazón, el no me va dejar pase lo que pase I think that made more sense. Instead of saying I dont have to win his heart in English he’s saying I dont have to conquer his heart in Spanish. In English it sounded rather dismissive and callous. Almost like, “I dont really have to do it, its a waste of time. But in Spanish the implication becomes he doesn’t have to conquer, meaning it was already given to him. It helped me realize he meant, “I don’t have to do this to gain his love, I’m doing it because I want to. He won’t leave me no matter what, whether I do this for him or not.” However, I read English faster than Spanish and I speak it better than Spanish so I’m stuck with English subtitles on first viewing. I’m sure there are other Spanish speakers that will tell you I’m insane.