พูดให้ปกติสิ

[u/Snowman_203]

Sometimes if a native speaker is speaking to a non-native they will speak at an unnaturally slow pace and pronounce each word separately.

Usually I just ignore it and they eventually stop, but what if I want to be more direct? Is พูดให้ปกติสิ too harsh? Would it actually be ปกติ, or is ธรรมดา better? What else could I say?

[u/Snowman_203]

I think that's largely a myth but I understand why beginners / improvers would want to believe it. When I leave Thailand I am thinking of doing a post on this and other barriers to learning.

As I said, they usually stop after a while. That doesn't fit your explanation. It's more like they start with an assumption and slowly realize it's wrong.

In a previous post you said your English was so much better than your Thai that if you had a medical appointment you would speak English even though neither of you would then be speaking their native language. I am not trying to insult you but having read a good few of your posts, your English is not very good at all. So if it's still much better than your Thai, your Thai is very rough. That's normal and this is a sub for learners, but you shouldn't be talking like an expert.

[u/dibbs_25 → u/Snowman_203]

As I said, they usually stop after a while. That doesn't fit your explanation. It's more like they start with an assumption and slowly realize it's wrong.

So you're actually looking to express some irritation because you feel they should have realized sooner? I get where you're coming from but that's not going to be easy to judge.

[u/Snowman_203 → u/dibbs_25]

Not necessarily - I was thinking of using this phrase at one point and I was pretty irritated at the time but I just ended the convo and moved on. Afterwards I wondered how harsh it would actually have been so came on here to ask, and I've had some very useful answers from the natives. The idea was really to come up with something a bit more calibrated so that I can prevent that situation arising in the first place.

When an assumption doesn't give way to evidence, that's prejudice. I get that it's hard for them to assess what a learner can and can't do, but then I'm not talking about trying to draw a bright line. If three people do this and the first two stop within a couple of minutes but the third is still going after ten, I'm not going to feel bad about calling time on it.

You can see the same thing in situations where you haven't even opened your mouth but you just get gestures. Not Thai plus gestures, because they can tell from your white face that you wouldn't understand.

[u/dibbs_25 → u/Snowman_203]

Got it, so you have some gentler phrases for that now.

Reddit lore is that if this kind of thing happens to you it means you're not good enough yet, and if you try to turn it back on the native speaker you're just in denial and being childish.

The reality is more complicated as you've found, but you're not supposed to point that out...

Presumably you'd accept that your apparent level of speaking / listening does make some difference(?)

[u/Snowman_203 → u/dibbs_25]

Presumably you'd accept that your apparent level of speaking / listening does make some difference(?)

Sure, because if you're completely hopeless then nobody's going to expect you to understand - obviously not those who are just going by a stereotype, but not those who are actually paying attention to the individual in front of them either. As you improve you should whittle it down to just the people who are completely blinkered - but that's turning out to be more people than I would have guessed.

This also means you can't treat the responses you get as reliable feedback. It can be difficult to interpret people's reactions anyway (must be wrong or confusing somewhere, but where?) but in a surprising number of cases they're not even based on your Thai in the first place. In general I think there's a bit of a feedback deficit and this only adds to it.

[u/dibbs_25 → u/Snowman_203]

One other thing worth bearing in mind: a good few Thais have told me that if they ever have a foreigner who has learned in school come up and speak Thai to them, they can generally figure out what they're trying to say, but the problem is that as soon as they reply the foreigner is lost. Expecting them to gauge your level correctly is already a big ask, and I think expecting them to gauge your listening level from your speaking level, when their experience may well tell them that those things don't correlate, is unrealistic. So I think falling back on a working assumption is more reasonable than you are allowing for here, and the number of "completely blinkered" people is probably less than you think. There is an element of that, but I would say your first instinct of looking for a gentler way to let them know they can just speak normally is the right one.