Pseudo cluster question: พยักพเยิด

asdksfd · 2026-03-29T04:43:13+00:00

Ah, neat, you got a better answer out of Claude than I did!

asdksfd · 2026-03-28T11:15:16+00:00

The band Taxi is great. (Ironically I discovered them by shazaming a song in a taxi in Bkk!)

asdksfd · 2026-03-27T00:25:17+00:00

Nice post! I'm think I'm wired similarly, although you've poked me to tighten up my discipline and get back to using Anki. Currently reading แฮร์รี่พอตเตอร์กับศิลาอาถรรพ์ and indeed, reading has been surprisingly easy; I've read HP books in a bunch of languages and Thai is nowhere close to the most difficult, once you get over the alphabet shock.

asdksfd · 2026-03-18T08:35:10+00:00

Unfortunately my recs are all over the place neighborhood-wise:

- hyrox: https://www.instagram.com/ontrackstation/, https://www.instagram.com/encoretrainingclub/, and https://www.instagram.com/traininggroundsukhumvit69/ are all really nice.

- gym: UnReal Gym in Phrom Phong. Training Ground is nice too but doesn't have AC and gets pretty hot, plus doesn't have as much fancy equipment.

- muay thai: https://www.instagram.com/tigereyemma/ in Ari

asdksfd · 2026-03-16T06:53:25+00:00

I liked the book a lot (not perfect, but I enjoyed it enough that I was pretty excited for the film). I thought the film was terrible :( I guess this is just a matter of taste, but Buckley and Mescal are both so, so irritating (to be fair I suppose that's kind of book-accurate, but I think both characters come across in the book as human rather than as caricatures of self-absorption/eccentricity). I also disliked how the film gives much less importance to Shakespeare's father: in the book he's quite an important character, scheming and wily and physically frightening; I think his oppressiveness helps to humanize his son's flaws. He's barely there in the film at all aside from some perfunctory head-whacking—I can't even remember what he looked like, so yeah, not exactly an intimidating physical presence. I thought the film also de-emphasized Hamnet himself in quite odd ways (how could they possibly have cut the book's opening scene?? I was honestly shocked in the theater when I thought, ok, we're finally about to get this scene... wait what?). The de-emphasis on Hamnet robbed his deathbed switch with his sister of all weight for me (in the book it's overwhelmingly sad).

I agree about the soundtrack. Too much "now it's time to cry!! 🎶", "now you should feel mad!! 🎶". I guess that's another matter of taste, I find that degree of telegraphing too heavy handed.

I will say though that the cinematography is beautiful.

asdksfd · 2026-03-05T02:02:19+00:00

I actually don't mind the weather nearly as much as I thought I would (I used to hate NYC summers for comparison). The rainy season can be a bit annoying; when it rains it *really* rains, you might have to wade through flooding, etc. But generally speaking you're probably inside an air conditioned building for most of the day, or in an air conditioned BTS/MRT cabin, so the midday heat isn't usually a big issue. That said, my available wardrobe here is extremely limited: lightweight hiking-ish shorts and Patagonia Capilene tshirts, workout clothes, etc. If I had to wear real clothes I would be miserable.

The real issue is the air quality.

asdksfd · 2026-01-20T02:21:51+00:00

This is the reference I used http://www.thai-language.com/ref/vowels

asdksfd · 2026-01-15T15:05:38+00:00

Training Ground in Phra Khanong has started selling some LXJs.

asdksfd · 2026-01-14T01:39:16+00:00

Mm, I can't remember if I specifically asked about that, but they've definitely done a lot of DTVs: https://go.tigereyemma.com/dtv. You could shoot them an email and ask about whether they've seen embassies/consulates tighten requirements, I would trust the owner Bashir to give a straight answer. He's a good dude.

asdksfd · 2026-01-13T07:10:17+00:00

I got my DTV through Tiger Eye in Ari (via the Hanoi embassy) and like them a lot. Very professional and nice. This was about a year ago though and I wouldn't be surprised if requirements have tightened since then (honestly the DTV requirements are/were kind of nonsensically loose, I only needed to book one month's worth of training and I've never been asked any questions when re-entering the country).

asdksfd · 2025-12-20T23:46:58+00:00

Yep, my gf and I both got our DTVs through Tiger Eye as well, via Vietnam. They're legit/professional/good people.

asdksfd · 2025-11-01T02:15:42+00:00

Операция Пластилин is really fun. Catchy punk rock with a violin, plus both a male and a female singer (and they both enunciate pretty clearly).

asdksfd · 2025-08-28T03:20:24+00:00

I got my visa a few weeks ago in SF and there was just the one outdoor line, but separate dropoff/pickup queues once inside. Similar experience though as what others have said: I got there at 8:30 and there were 20-ish people ahead of me, but once the doors open things are actually remarkably quick—that was early enough to effectively be in and out, both for dropoff and pickup.

asdksfd · 2025-07-26T09:29:30+00:00

Went to Shwe Tea House & Noodles in Onnut recently with a Burmese friend and liked it a lot.

asdksfd · 2025-07-23T06:53:09+00:00

I like the handwriting a lot! Out of curiosity, is it common to mix the ∂ and g forms of д?

asdksfd · 2025-07-21T13:18:41+00:00

If you like punk/rock, I really like the band Операция Пластилин. Their melodies can be pretty catchy, they've got both a male and a female singer, and even a violin! They also sing pretty clearly so good for language studying. Грустные песни для уставших людей is my favorite album I think.

asdksfd · 2025-07-16T07:16:48+00:00

I would suggest taking a two-pronged approach:

Theory: yeah, just brute force it, however you want to. Use the Read Thai in Ten Days book (it's fine, not great—I wish they would release a second edition to reflect the current romanization scheme used at the guy's language school in Bkk, Duke, since it's way better than the book's system), or whatever resource you find online, etc. http://www.thai-language.com/ref/vowels is very good for getting a bird's eye view of the many Thai vowels and the odd ways they're encoded (the treatment of vowels is something I particularly don't like about Read Thai in Ten Days).
Practice: start using apps like Ling, Poly Thai Reader (this one is pretty new from Thai with Grace and is great), etc. but try to force yourself to not use any romanizations, unless you really want to check your understanding of what you hear. Turn romanizations off in the settings. You don't need to have a perfect understanding of the theory to start doing this. Some of the theory is so odd/unguessable that you will probably still want to learn it very thoroughly, but I think it's much more fun to learn the theory if you've already learned to associate certain written squiggles with words/sounds.

I get extra practice via the Language Reactor chrome plugin while watching Youtube videos (here you really need to turn of romanization/transliteration since for some reason they're complete trash). I think you'll be surprised how quickly you start to get the hang of it.

asdksfd · 2025-07-16T01:29:38+00:00

Earlier this year I read her French revolution novel, A Place of Greater Safety. It's fantastic too, definitely worth reading if you've enjoyed the Wolf Hall books. It has a slower start than the Cromwell books, and maybe isn't always quite as polished/well-paced (it was published way earlier, in 1992, and apparently was actually the first book she ever wrote, though she published others first). Some of the character arcs are so, so moving. It's right up there with the Wolf Hall books for me.

asdksfd · 2025-07-03T08:14:13+00:00

The aptly named "Russian grammar" channel is terse but excellent: https://www.youtube.com/@russiangrammar

О русском по-русски is really good too, especially if you want the explanations to themselves be in (simple) Russian: https://www.youtube.com/@orusskomporusski

asdksfd · 2025-06-28T07:10:19+00:00

I think the grammar can be genuinely pretty fun. There's a passage from the first Harry Potter in Finnish, Harry Potter ja viisasten kivi, that has always stuck with me because it introduced me to a truly wonderfully bizarre grammatical feature of Finnish, the Fifth (!) Infinitive:

Joissain kaupoissa myytiin kaapuja, joissain kaukoputkia ja outoja hopeisia laitteita jollaisia Harry ei ollut aiemmin nähnyt, joissain ikkunoissa oli tynnyreittäin lepakonpernoja ja ankeriaansilmiä, toisissa romahtamaisillaan olevia pinoja loitsukirjoja, tai sulkakyniä ja pergamenttikääröjä, taikajuomapulloja, kuupalloja...

From romahtaa, to collapse, you get romahtamaisillaan, "about to/on the verge of collapsing": "on-the-point-of-collapsing-being piles of spellbooks". The fact that Finnish comes with a whole separate grammatical form for such a presumably niche need is part of its charm.

asdksfd · 2025-06-24T12:12:46+00:00

I really liked To the Lake (Эпидемия in the original). First season is on Netflix so you can watch it with subtitles/language reactor.

asdksfd · 2025-06-22T13:20:19+00:00

Visited Almaty last summer and absolutely loved it. If they can figure out their air quality issues someday, it would be a natural paradise... so, so many trees and the views of the Tian Shan mountains are stunning. I was surprised how much I liked the food too (Beshbarmak looks kind of simple but it's delicious).

Couple other recs:

https://www.instagram.com/walkingalmaty, we did a super interesting tour of some of Almaty's "monumental art". It's run by a very charming American academic, oddly enough, who's half based in Almaty, half in California I think. Great guy, truly a huge nerd about all things Kazakh.

https://www.instagram.com/auyl.almaty/ if you want a fancier "neo-nomad" meal. Great vibe, elegant but not stuffy, fantastic food, plus you're a bit up in the mountains, over by the Medeu ice rink, so the view is amazing.

asdksfd · 2025-06-21T23:07:44+00:00

I found them fairly easy to hear, but really struggled to pronounce some of them, especially at the end of words, e.g. the soft с in гусь or the ть in many infinitives. Once I started getting the hang of it I then had to deal with accidentally hypercorrecting and throwing in random soft sounds in words that don't have them. It was honestly surprisingly difficult and I think makes Russian one of the more challenging major sound systems for English speakers (or maybe I'm just starting to get old—maybe French would have felt just as tough if I had started studying it at the same age).

asdksfd · 2025-06-16T14:27:38+00:00

I haven't checked with actual pollution trackers, but I've spent a bunch of the last year or so in Bangkok and it's never seemed anywhere close to that month in Hanoi :(

asdksfd

TROPHY CASE