Duo Language

Yesterday when I was strolling back home from the Silom area (a business hub where there are lots of foreigners) I happen to stumble upon a very interesting exchange between a fruit vendor and a farang (slang for foreigner).

I'll transcribe the conversation here:

*The Farang walks towards the fruit vendor*

Fruit Vendor (in broken English): What do you want?
Farang (in Thai): เอา Papaya (I want papaya)


*The Fruit Vendor looks confused. The Farang then points at the papaya*

Farang (in Thai): เท่าไร? (How much?)
Fruit Vendor (in English): Ten Baht.

*Transaction takes place*

The funny part about this exchange is that if you didn't notice, the Thai fruit vendor was trying very hard to converse in the English language, but the Farang in the inverse was trying to speak the native tongue to the vendor which lead to a rather odd converstion I have to conclude ;)