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	---> MORE Thai Proverbs: _________________________________ Keeping your head down Standing the World on its Head Beware of Appearances Keeping Your Head Down When the Cat's Away You've Got to be Stupid Before You Get Wise Measuring Someone's Footprint Be compliant! Snake Snake Fish Fish Bid Tong Lang Phra - To do good by stealth The Menacing Tiger Little birds nest according to their size Keeping Your Head Down The Chameleon That Lost Its Head Out of Pride Wisdom come from Stupidity Follow the old, and the dogs won't bite you LOOKING AT THE TSUNAMI DISASTER Measuring Someone's Footprint One drop of honey Keeping Your Head Down Avoiding Victory Blame and Responsibility Beware of Appearances When the cat’s away, the mice play Water, water everywhere…

Snake Snake Fish Fish

It's a well-established fact that while many Thais are proficient in English, few approach - and a great many are very distant from - perfection. Not surprisingly, then, some pretty odd locutions are offered that not only don't achieve their objective - meaningful communication - but leave you totally in the dark, and groping. "Err, could you say that again?"

One that you could well come across is the answer you get from one of the ‘less than perfection' crowd, when you ask if s/he can speak English. While it's a commonplace in Thai parlance, it's not likely to ring a bell with your average foreign visitor. Well now, what would you make of, “Snake-snake, fish-fish”?

Put back into its native element, what it comes out as is, ngu-ngu pla-pla. And to the Thai-speaker, it means, ‘Not much, mate, just a little'. So now you know: the speaker is answering your question by saying that his/her knowledge of English is very minimal indeed. But where do the ‘snake' and the ‘fish' of the original come in? One theory is that the fish referred to is the eel, supposedly a bad swimmer, while snakes are hardly the most agile of movers on dry land. Since both are less than impressive dealers with their own elements, they stand as good examples of inefficiency, or at least, insufficiency. So, "I speak English like a an eel swims, and a snake walks. Not very well."

Still, don't be too dismissive of snake-snake fish-fish Eng- lish. If you're a recent arrival, just remember how your Thai is likely to sound to the native speaker. For example, how many poor waitresses have you already confused by ordering (in your beautiful Thai) an iron (lek - low tone) beer, when what you wanted was a small (lek - high tone) one.

Oh! You don't know about tones yet? Well, until you do, you'll be speaking snake-snake fish-fish Thai.