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 their Laos neighbors, who are separated from Thailand’s northeast by the Mekong River. The Lao influence can be found in the culture, food, and of course the language–the Isaan dialect being quite similar to Lao. While Isaan sometimes has the reputation of not being the most beautiful place in Thailand, many areas are quite lush with forests, mountains, lakes, and rivers. Especially nice is the cool season, which in Isaan is actually quite cool compared to Bangkok and central Thailand.

Although the Isaan people do learn Thai while in school, the Isaan language is what is always spoken at home and among friends. So, if you are thinking of settling down in an Isaan province such as Buriram, Kalasin, Khon Kaen, Loei, Nong Khai, Sakon Nakhon, or Udon Thani (to name a few), our new Isaan Dictionary will be a valuable tool in helping you make friends with your Isaan neighbors. Even if your Thai language skills are quite good, learning some Isaan is always appreciated by the locals.

So, stay tuned for the release of our handy English-Isaan Dictionary. Although Isaan does not have a written form, we are transcribing the words into Thai script as well as a Romanized transliteration. We hope to have it released within the next couple months.

In the meantime you can add 100s of Thai words to your working vocabulary in only a week’s time by picking up the our English loanword (cognate) dictionary and learning tool for only $8.99 (print) and $3.99 (ebook). Click on the following to learn more: The Original Thai-English Cognate Dictionary.

How to Speak Street Thai

When it comes to learning 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 Western authors who have spent a few years in Thailand as English teachers or Peace Corps volunteers publishing Thai language books that include outrageous epithets, vulgar slang, and bad advice about Thai personal pronouns under the pretense of sounding cool. Well let us set the record straight. There is nothing cool about insulting Thais and getting your ass kicked (or worse) in Thailand. What is cool is having a laugh with your Thai friends, often at your own expense,

One of the benefits of using our Original Thai-English Language Cognate Dictionary & Learning Tool is that the hundreds of sample sentences we include are truly colloquial Thai (i.e. street Thai) and will help you joke with Thais without insulting them. And the book includes all of the particles that Thais so often pepper their speech with. The following is a brief excerpt from the introduction of this book and eBook where we offer a few tips on speaking Thai:

We would like to share a few things that we’ve learned over the past ten years speaking with rural Thais who rarely have heard foreigners trying to speak their mother tongue. Firstly, do not get discouraged if you have trouble with the tones of the Thai language. What is most important to being understood by Thais is not proper tones (though that surely helps) but getting your words in the right order.

Unlike English, where foreigners can mix up words and still be understood, Thais will (more often than not) look at you with confusion unless all the words are correctly situated in your sentence. This is true even if you are speaking with correct tones. Therefore, special attention should be paid to the exact order of the words in the sample sentences of this book. Speaking proper tones will come naturally as you increasingly talk and listen to Thais.

That being said, for those who don’t find speaking Thai tones an overwhelming obstacle, do try to learn them as best you can. But don’t get discouraged if mastery doesn’t happen quickly (it won’t); nor get so hung up on tones that it causes you to hesitate and stumble when speaking. In the beginning, the most important tone to recognize and speak is the falling tone, which can be mastered even by those who consider themselves tone deaf. The other tones will fall in place around it…

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Add 100s of Thai words to your working vocabulary in only a week’s time with the Original Thai-English Language Cognate Dictionary & Learning Tool .

Buy the PDF eBook version for only $3.99

Buy the Print Book from our Bookstore for $8.99

Or pick up the multi-platform eBook edition for your iPad, Palm Pilot, Sony Reader, Nook, iPhone, or other portable device by clicking on the following link:

Purchase: Thai-English Cognate Dictionary

The Lord’s Prayer for Children

The book The Living Hour: The Lords Prayer for Daily Life was written in a way that we hope appeals to both teens and adults, each group of readers being able to take certain lessons from it, or simply food for further thought. But what about the child?

The Lord’s Prayer is the kind of prayer that children can learn at a young age, and it far surpasses that old standard: Now I lay me down to sleep; I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake; I pray the Lord my soul to take–a prayer which makes children think that the Grim Reaper is going to descend upon them in their sleep.

So, to assist Progressive Christian parents we’ve taken inspiration from the material of The Living Hour book to write some thoughts on how you can teach The Lord’s Prayer to your kids in a meaningful way, so that the act of childhood prayer goes beyond simple recitation.

Our Father who art in heaven. Jesus begins The Lord’s Prayer by letting us know that we are all in this together. God, the Father, is the father of all people. He is the father of people we like and who we dislike; people who we agree with and who we disagree with; people who look like us and don’t look like us; people who believe in him and who don’t believe in him. By telling us that our one true Father is in heaven, Jesus is reminding as that we are all Sons and Daughters of God, and that our lives go on forever.

Hallowed be thy name. You know how when someone calls you by your name, it is like they think they know you? Well, Jesus doesn’t tell us God’s name in The Lord’s Prayer because God is so big we can never know all of him. Jesus can describe God’s name, though. He calls it hallowed. The word “hallowed” comes from the word “holy,” which comes from the word “whole”. Jesus wants us to see us and God always together as a whole being. We are not separate. We are one.

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. Jesus teaches us in the Bible that the kingdom of God is within us and all around us right now. The problem is that we often don’t see it. Because we don’t see his kingdom, we end up making a lot of bad choices. When we make good choices though we are doing the will of God. We are making his kingdom come alive inside of us and in other people. That is why we should always try hard to make good choices and love each other.

On earth as it is in heaven. When people die they go to heaven, but when they live they go to heaven too. It is just that on earth, heaven (like the kingdom) is pretty hard to see sometimes. People hurt each other and do bad things. We get angry when we don’t get what we want or when people are not nice to us. But Jesus wants us to know that if we can just let those bad feelings go and forgive people, the world can be a pretty wonderful place.

Give us this day our daily bread. We all need food to live, right? Well, in this part of The Lord’s Prayer Jesus is talking about something that we need to live. But he is not talking about food. When Jesus taught he liked to use symbols. You know, like a smile is a symbol that you are happy. Jesus is using bread as a symbol of our experiences. Every day we have new experiences. These experiences can make us happy, sad, angry, or whatever. But we need them all, even if we don’t like them all. Because every experience helps us grow.

And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. We all makes mistakes. Sometimes we hurt the feelings of other people and don’t even know it. In The Lord’s Prayer Jesus calls these things that we do wrong “trespasses”. When we trespass the most important thing is to understand what we’ve done. Then to ask for forgiveness. If you forgive other people, then they are more likely to forgive you. It is no good to stay angry at someone. It doesn’t feel good to be angry. When we get angry we just hurt ourselves. So, just forgive people, and you’ll feel a whole lot better. You will also feel a lot better when they forgive you, too.

Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. When we talk to God, sometimes we are tempted to ask him for things we don’t need. We pray to him for special favors. But with this line of The Lord’s Prayer, Jesus is telling us that God is not our private wish factory. God already knows what we need, so we shouldn’t be tempted to pray for stuff. We can though pray for him to protect us all from harm; to protect us from doing things that hurt ourselves and other people–that is what deliver us from evil means.

For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever and ever, amen. Jesus ends the prayer with some great news. He tells us that God, our Father, has a great kingdom, has great power, and has great glory. It must be great because it lasts forever and ever. Why is this such great news? Because God shares all of this with his children. That means us! We can share in his kingdom, his power, and his glory, if we pray a lot, forgive a lot, love a lot, and treat others like we want to be treated.

Adults can read more about The Lord’s Prayer by reading some excerpts from our book. Click here: Our Father who art in heaven..

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Talking of Eternal Things

In St. Pauls second Epistle to the Corinthians, he tells the community to remember that “the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.” When this idea is delivered from the pulpit of Christian churches today, preachers usually discuss how it refers to God’s grace, the Holy Spirit, or the kingdom of Heaven.

The problem is that we tend to think of all these things as God’s alone or God’s gifts to us. They come from the outside and thus we don’t consider ourselves as co-creators of eternal things, along with the Father.

But as Sons and Daughters of God, we are all inheritors and builders of His kingdom, grace, and spirit of eternal things that are more magical than Harry Potter’s wand. India’s Mahatma Gandhi once delivered an adage that is probably as well known as St. Paul’s, and that is: “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”

It is by living intensely and learning joyfully that we grab the reigns of our eternal natures in Christ. Human experience and knowledge are not temporal: we cannot truly see the feelings associated with a beautiful sunrise, a first kiss, or the birth of a child, any more than we can see the thoughts connected with learning a new language, tying a slip knot, or mastering differential equations–they are eternal.

This life will one day end. But the harvest of the heart and mind is with you always.

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The Living Hour’s motivational series combines history, literature, philosophy, psychology, religion, and popular culture to help bring about new perspectives for Progressive Christians and anyone who seeks a better understanding of “God” and life’s purpose. Sign up to have these progressive Motivationals delivered to your e-mail box three times a week.