Business Thai Digest: Feb 6, 2008

Here are the new terms in the business Thai cheat sheet.

English	Thai
Efficient	ประสิทธิภาพ
Propose	เสนอ
Responsible	รับผิดชอบ
Success	สำเร็จ

I don’t have much to say about this week’s words, except that I have a suspicious feeling that Thai speakers use the word ประสิทธิภาพ (efficient) a little more often than English speakers. I’ve heard Thai speakers use that word when I would have said “quality” (คุณภาพ). However, I suspect this may be a characteristic of the individuals I know, or even confirmation bias in myself.

Business Thai Digest: Jan 30, 2008

The business Thai page has been up since Sunday, and has its first three entries, mostly chosen at random:

English	Thai
Able	สามารถ
Experience	ประสบการณ์
Project	โครงการ

Edit 1 February, 2008: Added the list of words here since that is the point of a digest.

I’d like to discuss สามารถ (”capable,” or “able”). Informal Thai might use ทำได้ or ทำไม่ได้ (you can substitute ทำ for any other verb). In a more formal setting, you will hear ไม่สามารถทำได้. (Note, the words สามารถ and ได้ almost always come in pairs.)

There are already some things to notice:

• Business Thai, like business English, tends to be loquacious and elegant-sounding without actually contributing additional meaning. Sorry. I mean people talk more, but they say less. That seems like a problem, but it’s an advantage. Since the density of useful information is lower in business Thai, a foreigner can pick up the meaning even if he misses a word here or there.
• Business Thai, like business English, also uses a larger vocabulary than informal Thai—another advantage. More vocabulary means more precision, and so you can say what you mean with less ambiguity and misunderstanding. If I say ผมทำไม่ได้ then I can’t do it—maybe I lack the talent, or maybe it’s illegal—who knows? But if I say ผมไม่สามารถทำได้ then I am incapable of doing it. The latter statement is more precise and clear.

These two points seem contradictory, but they are not. Often in a professional setting, people make rambling statements with plenty of specificity to sugar-coat bad news or to conceal their ignorance. But specificity itself is not bad, just the dishonest rambling.

Another great use for สามารถ is that you can use it to say “competent” and “incompetent,” two crucial words when discussing staff, partners, managers, employees, distributors, or whomever. เขามีความสามารถมาก translates to, “he is very competent.” เขาไร้ความสามารถมาก translates to “he is very incompetent.”

New section: Business Thai

I added a new page on the blog: Business Thai. It will be a short cheat sheet with the most helpful vocabulary for a business or professional setting. You can bookmark, print, or even memorize it.

I’ve debated whether to include a plain old vocabulary component to this blog. There are already plenty online resources for looking words up. I am also uninterested in a word-a-day format for the blog.

On the other hand, much of my exposure to Thai is in a business setting, and I often feel liberated or empowered when I learn a new word or phrase. I want a way to share this feeling with others. Most recently, I felt frustrated at the latest BarCamp (a kind of software conference). I realized that an English-language presentation on business Thai would have gone over extremely well, but I was unprepared to deliver something like that on the spot.

Therefore, I will address the situation in this way: I set up a new page, Business Thai, where I will (for now) maintain a table of words, adding to the list as I think of them (or as readers suggest them). To help us through the Hell that is hump day, I will post to the blog a weekly digest summarizing the new additions every Wednesday.

I am not aiming for comprehensiveness, because that would be just a dictionary, and I don’t want a dictionary. Instead, I want the cheet sheet that you can print or memorize to get the most bang for your buck. Most foreign professionals operating in Thailand quickly realize that their speaking Thai is discouraged; however, Thai is still spoken all the time and you want to be prepared for that.