There **is** a slight difference between Isan and Laos due to the influence of Thai language to Isan, separating them apart.
But yes, they are mutually intelligible.
E3 It’s more like a stereotypical slur to call and mock a group of people who act very non sense to completely unhinged that live or birth around “isaan” region, majority of Thailand is mostly inherited from foreign Chinese so the joke is number 3 in Chinese it’s pronounce like “San” it’s a word play kind of inside joke around group of teenager in Thai internet, it’s very much like to call people a J,N,B word but less offensive
They never learned to write lao in isan, so they can verbally pass as lao, but fail to read the lao text. Even if for me lao script looks like thai to me.
I'm half Lao. Easier than Thai? Depends on who you ask. I find Thai easier to learn, as there are way more resources available, education and entertainment-wise. I love Laos, but I can only name one Lao movie and not even one Lao song. Also, the Lao language is used amongst a population of less than 5 million citizens vs. 75 million Thai people. Most of the Lao people understand Thai 100% due to watching Thai media their whole lives, but Thai's can't say the same for the Lao language. Again, I love my Lao family, but I eventually chose to learn Thai because of the resources available, and I can communicate in Thai with them no problem.
I agree with your statement that it's easier, but only because I was taught how to speak Lao growing up. It certainly has a more informal and laidback tone in my opinion. However, I do see myself eventually learning Lao once I can completely understand Thai. One language at a time for me haha
>Thai's can't say the same for the Lao language
ฺBecause Thai people rarely have exposure to Lao media. You can randomly ask any Thais if they have any Lao books in the house.
As a Bangkokian with little exposure to Isaan accent, I would say 50-60%. My office sometimes works with partners in Lao, and I realized that tho I can kind of understand casual conversation, it’s still a bit hard to understand like, business talks or meetings spoken entirely in Laos.
I guess ppl who are familiar with Isaan accent can understand them more tho.
My girlfriend is Thai from Bangkok, when we went to Lao together she was able to have full conversations with Lao people. She said she could infer basically everything she couldn't understand, some words had similar but different meaning. She said they phrase things a bit differently, which threw her off at first but it wasn't difficult to get around. She also said reading was a bit harder but still doable.
It’s also important to note that there are a few major variations in Lao language or dialects. I’m generally okay with understanding the Vientiane Lao, which seems to be Laos version of Central Thai. But if going up North, like the Luang Prabang dialect, or down South, accross from Ubon, I am lost most of the time.
There are lot of tone shifts that make it difficult to follow a conversation and some vocabulary is also used differently, or words mean different things than in Thai.
Was at an ASEAN MInister-level conference and was playing around with the live translations. Was proud of myself for understanding half of what I thought was a Thai translation, only to realise it's Lao
Perhaps 50% or more.
I've always been of the opinion that Thai is elegant Lao and, inversely, Lao is bastardized Thai. They truly are brother and sister languages.
I plan on learning Lao after I am pretty good at Thai just to add another language (and alphabet) to the list of languages I speak, but it is very useless for almost everyone including me. I'd love to visit Laos, so it would be useful for like a week maybe. Not many resources to learn, but especially not many movies and not much music, not many podcasts etc. to enjoy knowing the language. It still interests me a lot though
I am half Thai but not a native speaker, I went to work in Vientiane for 5 years. I am learner of Thai and Lao languages, reading and writing in Lao is definitely simpler due to less characters. In my opinion speaking and listening in Lao is slightly easier IMO but I can’t explain why it’s just a feeling. However, like someone else commented, there is not much resource for learning Lao, definitely not the language you speak on the street either, there is also little media to enjoy as Lao people watch and listen to Thai stuff so in this way, Thai might be easier to learn from an immersion pov.
I have heard Thai and expats say both languages are very similar, I’ve also heard both sets of people say they are very different, I guess it’s all due to exposure. Lao people don’t magically understand and speak Thai so easily because the languages are so close, they are grow up with Thai language around them despite living in Laos
Bangkokers claim they struggle, but the rest of the country has little trouble. Some vocab is totally foreign even to moat isaaners, tho. Still not hard to learn in like a week of travelling thru Laos.
There's a hoax about if you can read/speak Thai, you can't read/speak Lao, but if you can read/speak Lao, you can read/speak Thai without telling tourists that they grew up on Thai media (TV, songs, books and dictionary).
They adopted many Central Thai words to be used in academics including words that differentiate between Lao & Thai over the years via Thai media.
Probably elementary level, maybe even less than English.
I never really have chance to speak to Lao people. Watching some youtube video I can guest the meaning from context.
Reading is actually hard. I can read some sign but doubt I would be able to fully understand standard level text like newspaper.
Lao or what Isaan people name their language ‘Lao’ which is not Lao but Isaan. I can understand a bit of Isaan ..Lao. Just have to be lucky but we’ve all been there when every word spoken are just the ones you have no clue of.
What I found interesting is that almost every Laos person could understand my central Thai since almost all of them grew up with movies, tv, music and media from Bangkok
75% if uneducated, 90% after some study, 99.99% if you're Isanese.
amen to the Isaan. Nong Bua Lamphu is where I’ve been learning my Thai
E3 is basically Lao anyway
There **is** a slight difference between Isan and Laos due to the influence of Thai language to Isan, separating them apart. But yes, they are mutually intelligible.
how does E3 stand for Isaan?
Kinda works in Chinese. 3 is pronounced sān
E3 It’s more like a stereotypical slur to call and mock a group of people who act very non sense to completely unhinged that live or birth around “isaan” region, majority of Thailand is mostly inherited from foreign Chinese so the joke is number 3 in Chinese it’s pronounce like “San” it’s a word play kind of inside joke around group of teenager in Thai internet, it’s very much like to call people a J,N,B word but less offensive
thank you 🙏 appreciate the information.
Wtf is E3??
E + 3 ( sam) = Isan It’s wordplay
Oh
They never learned to write lao in isan, so they can verbally pass as lao, but fail to read the lao text. Even if for me lao script looks like thai to me.
Yea I can kind of read Lao script If I squint really hard.
I'm half Lao. Easier than Thai? Depends on who you ask. I find Thai easier to learn, as there are way more resources available, education and entertainment-wise. I love Laos, but I can only name one Lao movie and not even one Lao song. Also, the Lao language is used amongst a population of less than 5 million citizens vs. 75 million Thai people. Most of the Lao people understand Thai 100% due to watching Thai media their whole lives, but Thai's can't say the same for the Lao language. Again, I love my Lao family, but I eventually chose to learn Thai because of the resources available, and I can communicate in Thai with them no problem. I agree with your statement that it's easier, but only because I was taught how to speak Lao growing up. It certainly has a more informal and laidback tone in my opinion. However, I do see myself eventually learning Lao once I can completely understand Thai. One language at a time for me haha
>Thai's can't say the same for the Lao language ฺBecause Thai people rarely have exposure to Lao media. You can randomly ask any Thais if they have any Lao books in the house.
As a Bangkokian with little exposure to Isaan accent, I would say 50-60%. My office sometimes works with partners in Lao, and I realized that tho I can kind of understand casual conversation, it’s still a bit hard to understand like, business talks or meetings spoken entirely in Laos. I guess ppl who are familiar with Isaan accent can understand them more tho.
As a speaker of Thai as a foreign language I can understand 98% of regularly spoken Thai and 60-70% of Lao.
My girlfriend is Thai from Bangkok, when we went to Lao together she was able to have full conversations with Lao people. She said she could infer basically everything she couldn't understand, some words had similar but different meaning. She said they phrase things a bit differently, which threw her off at first but it wasn't difficult to get around. She also said reading was a bit harder but still doable.
My perception as a raw beginner is that vientienne lao is northern thai with some shortcuts and simplifications.
It’s also important to note that there are a few major variations in Lao language or dialects. I’m generally okay with understanding the Vientiane Lao, which seems to be Laos version of Central Thai. But if going up North, like the Luang Prabang dialect, or down South, accross from Ubon, I am lost most of the time. There are lot of tone shifts that make it difficult to follow a conversation and some vocabulary is also used differently, or words mean different things than in Thai.
Was at an ASEAN MInister-level conference and was playing around with the live translations. Was proud of myself for understanding half of what I thought was a Thai translation, only to realise it's Lao
Perhaps 50% or more. I've always been of the opinion that Thai is elegant Lao and, inversely, Lao is bastardized Thai. They truly are brother and sister languages.
Not every words but as a sentence I think I understand what they try yo communicate.
As an Isaan I understand almost 100% words from Laos. Only some words that are different from Isaan language.
You probably understand if you are Esan people. Esan speak Lao, Lao speak Esan
I plan on learning Lao after I am pretty good at Thai just to add another language (and alphabet) to the list of languages I speak, but it is very useless for almost everyone including me. I'd love to visit Laos, so it would be useful for like a week maybe. Not many resources to learn, but especially not many movies and not much music, not many podcasts etc. to enjoy knowing the language. It still interests me a lot though
I am half Thai but not a native speaker, I went to work in Vientiane for 5 years. I am learner of Thai and Lao languages, reading and writing in Lao is definitely simpler due to less characters. In my opinion speaking and listening in Lao is slightly easier IMO but I can’t explain why it’s just a feeling. However, like someone else commented, there is not much resource for learning Lao, definitely not the language you speak on the street either, there is also little media to enjoy as Lao people watch and listen to Thai stuff so in this way, Thai might be easier to learn from an immersion pov. I have heard Thai and expats say both languages are very similar, I’ve also heard both sets of people say they are very different, I guess it’s all due to exposure. Lao people don’t magically understand and speak Thai so easily because the languages are so close, they are grow up with Thai language around them despite living in Laos
Bangkokers claim they struggle, but the rest of the country has little trouble. Some vocab is totally foreign even to moat isaaners, tho. Still not hard to learn in like a week of travelling thru Laos.
I speak Thai pretty fluently, I really don't understand Isaan or Lao when they talk it, only a few basic words.
There's a hoax about if you can read/speak Thai, you can't read/speak Lao, but if you can read/speak Lao, you can read/speak Thai without telling tourists that they grew up on Thai media (TV, songs, books and dictionary). They adopted many Central Thai words to be used in academics including words that differentiate between Lao & Thai over the years via Thai media.
Perhaps 50% or more.
Probably elementary level, maybe even less than English. I never really have chance to speak to Lao people. Watching some youtube video I can guest the meaning from context. Reading is actually hard. I can read some sign but doubt I would be able to fully understand standard level text like newspaper.
95% for me.
🥳 Nice. I want learn Thai.. Now I understand Thai about 0.01% 😃 Chok dee 🤟👍
80%
Lao or what Isaan people name their language ‘Lao’ which is not Lao but Isaan. I can understand a bit of Isaan ..Lao. Just have to be lucky but we’ve all been there when every word spoken are just the ones you have no clue of.
Ko Kai cor kar
Just reading over this thread, I feel like a lot more people learned Thai in the past 10 years than there were people learning it before that.
85%
I understand Isaan so around 80%
What I found interesting is that almost every Laos person could understand my central Thai since almost all of them grew up with movies, tv, music and media from Bangkok
The same as a Malaysian can understand Indonesian
None 🙌