Thailand Expats: Special Offer on Easy Thai Language Books
LivingHour.org would like to make a special offer to expats, teachers, and retirees in Thailand who wish to take advantage of our Learning Easy Thai language books and ebooks. We know how difficult it is sometimes for expats to acquire credit cards in Thailand, or sometimes getting Thai credit cards honored when ordering online with foreign businesses. Therefore, we will be happy to accept ATM payment transfers from residents in Thailand. 180 Baht Special Offer* For a 180 baht ATM payment we will send you: 1) The Original Thai-English Cognate Dictionary & Learning Tool eBook 2) The Learn Thai Top 40: Colloquial Language...
English-Isaan (Isan) Dictionary
Here at LivingHour.org we have several new Thai language books and eBooks in the works, in addition to our new Original Thai-English Cognate Dictionary & Thai Language Learning Tool. One such book is the first handy English-Isaan Dictionary. Isaan (sometimes spelled Isan, Isarn, or Esarn) is the name for the Northeast region of Thailand. Home to over 20 million Thais, it is the largest region of Thailand. While few Western and Asian tourists ever make it up to this part of Thailand, more foreign retirees are finding the Isaan area a quiet, simple, and beautiful place in which to settle down. The Isaan people share much in common with...
Call for Manuscripts: SBNR & Thai Language
LivingHour.org is currently issuing a call for manuscripts. We will consider SBNR (Spiritual But Not Religious) books that involve Progressive Christianity, Buddhism, Taoism, or Islam. For a manuscript to be seriously considered it must be in keeping with the perspective of the material that you see posted on LivingHour.org—so do spend some time reading the website to make sure your submission is appropriate. We appreciate works that are both literary and accessible, books where the author exhibits a sense of humor about themselves and the world around them. We are also accepting submissions of learn Thai language books that are original...
Learning Easy Thai: How to Speak Street Thai
When it comes to learning easy Thai, the biggest obstacle is how to speak Thai. That is, how to speak the Thai language without sounding like a Thai phrasebook, how to speak Thai more naturally like a native speaker. One of the problems with many Thai language books is that the Thai editors or co-writers are Thai academics who feel compelled to teach the student more formal Thai, even if they claim that the language is “colloquial Thai“. The sample sentences tend to be too wordy, lack common Thai particles, and use word choices that the average Thai on the street would not use. On the other side of the coin, we have young...
Free Language Resources: Women Learning Thai
When it comes to finding free resources for learning Thai, the blog “Women Learning Thai” is a great place to start your search. The blog is loaded with links to free Thai language resources. The site is also filled with interviews with farangs who have conquered the Thai language, conducted by the blog’s creator Catherine Wentworth. A quick browse of the top posts on the “Women Learning Thai” website shows the following as the most popular blog posts: * Learn Thai Online for FREE * Review: Thai Language Schools in Bangkok * FREE: Quick & Dirty Thai Vocabulary Download * Thai Language...
Learning Easy Thai: Teaching in Thailand
If you are teaching in Thailand and want to quickly add to your working Thai vocabulary, then the Original Thai-English Cognate Dictionary & Learning Tool is an excellent easy Thai book from which to learn. The book and eBook are filled with hundreds of easy Thai-English loanwords, as well as English words that sound similar to the Thai word or a related Thai word. The colloquial sample sentences are unlike the kind you find in other Thai language books and will get you talking more casually and naturally with your Thai students and Thai colleagues. Here are a few entries from this new Thai dictionary: dictionary n. – ดิก...
Learning Easy Thai: At the Workplace
Learning Thai does not have to be hard or boring. At LivingHour.org we make learning Thai easy and fun. Our book The Original Thai-English Cognate Dictionary & Learning Tool is especially helpful to expats working in Thailand who want to learn the Thai language quickly. In one week’s time you can expect to add hundreds of easy Thai words to your working vocabulary. The cognates, loanwords, and similar sounding words featured in the book makes it easy to remember new Thai words. And the colloquial Thai sample sentences help you to speak Thai correctly. Here is a brief excerpt of a few entries from the book and eBook dealing...
Learning Easy Thai Language: Emotions & Feelings
The following material dealing with the Thai language and the expression of emotions and feelings is excerpted from the new easy Thai language book and eBook The Original Thai/English Language Cognate Dictionary & Learning Tool, which includes loanwords as well as similar sounding words to help you learn colloquial Thai in the quickest possible time. Within the book you’ll find hundreds of easy Thai sample sentences not included in any other Thai learning book. You will quickly and easily be better able to express your emotions and feelings with your Thai friends and colleagues. love (think luck) v. – รัก – rák He...
Common Decency
In Albert Camus’ novel The Plague, there is a curious character named Tarrou who organizes the volunteer sanitary teams in the city of Oran, a town afflicted by the bubonic plague. He also assists the lead doctor in his rounds helping patients. Tarrou does this for no other reason he says than his code of morals, which he defines as “common decency“. A little bit later in the book, though, he mentions to the doctor that he is driven by the desire to become a saint. The doctor is shocked by this pronouncement and replies, “But you don’t believe in God.” To which Tarrou replies, “Exactly! Can one...
Learning Easy Thai Top 40 Series Launched
We are pleased to announce the launch of a new learning Thai language series titled the Easy Thai Top 40™. The first edition of this series is Colloquial Language and Expressions, and includes 40 popular colloquial Thai expressions along with related Thai language notes. In the coming weeks, we will be offering a wide variety of other “top 40″ Thai language eBooks, including a spin off series titled Easy Isaan Top 40™. All books in this series will cost only 99 cents. In addition, we will soon be offering accompanying Thai language audio books for this series for only 99 cents per book. The following is an excerpt and...
The Scientist & Jesus: Sharing the Devout Temper
William James once remarked that while scientists often possess no religious creed, their temper is devout. In other words, most scientists are deeply awed by the majesty of the universe. Thus they approach their work in a way that is earnest, patient, and humble before the face of the world’s grand complexity–regardless of whether or not they possess a religious faith. These days it often seems that only the scientist retains a devout temper. A coarsening of discourse and temperament has invaded not only our popular media and politics, but our workplaces and even, at times, our churches–with preachers letting their egos...
On the Road with Jack Kerouac – God is Pooh Bear
Towards the very end of Jack Kerouac’s classic novel On the Road, he writes several memorable lines, which he read famously on The Steve Allen Show in 1956. One passage is as follows: “In Iowa I know by now the children must be crying in the land where they let the children cry, and tonight the stars’ll be out, and don’t you know that God is Pooh-Bear?… The comment that God is Pooh-Bear has caused a lot of confusion over the years, with many people claiming that Kerouac thinks that God is a fiction. But to believe that Jack Kerouac felt that God was a figment of our imaginations is to terribly misread him....
Nothing New Under the Sun
In the world of Progressive Christianity and the SBNR (in its various forms), there seems to be a growing belief that we are on the cusp of a new age of spiritual enlightenment. This has engendered an enthusiasm much like in the 1960s, when the “spiritual but not religious” of that time thought they were ushering in the Age of Aquarius–a time when peace, love, and understanding would reign. Unfortunately that didn’t happen. The hippies of the 60s and early 70s quickly became the yuppies and capitalists of the 80s and 90s. All that talk about letting the sunshine in was well just talk. Many who grew up during that...
Jesus, Buddha, & Grammatolatry at St. Mary’s Brisbane
After talking about the Buddhist statue controversy at St. Mary’s South Brisbane, we were reminded of just how many similar teachings and attitudes exist between Jesus and Buddha. One of the most prominent behaviors which these two prophets share is that neither one wrote anything down. By today’s standards (where everyone seems to be writing about every triviality under the sun, and then sharing it with millions of online strangers) the idea of possessing profound wisdom but then not writing it down sounds absurd. Why in the world did Buddha and Jesus do that? After all, it certainly would have solved a lot of headaches and...
Did Jesus Have a Sense of Humor?
In our meditation on The Laughter of Christ, we talked about how Jesus must have had a great sense of humor. Finding examples of the Nazarene’s humor isn’t easy though when reading the Gospels. Some folks have pointed towards Jesus’s admonition that we shouldn’t worry about the speck in our brother’s eye when we have a beam in our own as one example. But that is a bit of a stretch. All things considered, Jesus the humorist wasn’t likely a joke teller or smug connoisseur of witty epigrams. He undoubtedly was a satirist: the wielder of that eclectic humor which, to this day, continues to be the most effective...
Thai Culture: Mai Pen Rai
In Thailand the ubiquitous phrase “mai pen rai” is well known to foreigners who have visited the Kingdom. Used in a variety of situations, mai pen rai is often translated as “never mind” or “it’s no big deal” in guidebooks, but a more accurate, albeit wordy, translation would be “this matter is so insignificant, let us not give it another thought.” Mai pen rai encapsulates much of what is admirable in the Thai character, and it is a phrase that one expects Jesus would have used liberally had it been available to him. Mai pen rai1 is perhaps most commonly used as a substitute for “you’re...