I'm well up for a meet - will probably get a membership for this season and try to get along to a game or two (whatever scraps are left, if any!)

Pattaya - that's a long time mate, you're in for a bit of a shock I was in Asia for six years but made it back every year, even that was a shock every time. The country's changed massively - some good, but mostly (sadly) bad imo.

its a deal Pattaya .

Kimchi where in Asia did you spend 6 years?

Japan, by the sound of his username Chet

lol pattaya, I'll see myself out.

I lived in Japan Chet and travelled a fair bit, you been out that way?

Japan's a very safe and incredibly orderly country, so the UK felt like utter chaos coming back, took some real getting used to. I don't know if Thailand's the same now as I haven't been for years, but it was much more 'wild west' out there when I visited so maybe Pattaya won't have quite the same shock I did. Still, 14 years is a hell of a long time!!

Ha, Pattaya's on it

Must have been the bratwurst that gave it away

I like your new username Kimchi......I had to do a 'Thai copy'

didn't work

In Thai my username translates to 'Spindle City'

Great stuff mate, same same but different

What's it mean?!

Does the membership application have a closing date?

Spindle (verb) - to grow tall and slender, often disproportionately so.

Wonder how google translated 'Pattaya' into that

Good question AVB - can't see that info on the site, however I notice there's a 'bronze dribbler' membership which sounds like what I need

เดือยพัทยา - 14 years in Thailand and you still can't write Pattaya in Thai Fair play that man / lazy git You had me googling what it was and all I came up with was this:

http://www.kradumthong.com/images/fbfiles/images/16032010_003_.jpg

Poor Chet's done a from his own thread!!

Speak it fluently Kimchi, but I can only read about 20% of those squiggly lines !!

I won't have the money for a membership till the end of September so I hope it doesn't close

Fair enough Pattaya - I started with the basics in Japanese, with counting:

'one' is 一

'two' is 二

'three' is 三

So far so good, I was really getting the hang of this stuff, and was so far fluent in numbers one to three after only a couple of minutes - total mastery of the language was surely only a day or two away!! Then they threw me a curveball I never recovered from:

'four' is 四

And I thought, 'feck this' and went down the 'pub' (izakaya) instead and had some yakitori and Asahi instead

CHINESE, U4197.
Dem Japanese will copy anything and everything.

Teaching Chinese numbers written usually goes :

1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 9, 10.

4/5/6 require 4+ strokes.

RDBD san, do you speak/read Chinese? It's no more them copying the Chinese than our alphabet, vocabulary and grammar is 'copied' from elsewhere. In fact it's quite similar (apart from the fact our influences are more diverse).

"do you speak/read Chinese?"

I can read and write Chinese (not basic newspaper std anymore ) .
Spoken : Guandongwah (Cantonese) badly.

The "Kanji" script in Japan.
Just imported due to the proximity of China.
No doubt things like the spread of Buddhist scripture played their part in that.

That is very impressive indeed RDBD How/why so?

I was always under the impression (but am not really sure anymore - been a long time since I came back and have forgotten a lot) that due to the obvious proximity Kanji (is it hanzi or something in Chinese?) became crucial mainly because of trade and diplomacy, and religion was a much slower and less pressing 'need' (?)

"How/why so?"

Have friends in HK. Wanted to work there if I could.


"religion was a much slower and less pressing 'need'"

Religion is a handy way to spread language.
Think about Arabic going wherever Islam went (the Koran being written in Arabic etc) .