Thirty words that change the trip: Thai, Tagalog, Khmer and Vietnamese for men who are dating

Learning thirty words of her language is the cheapest, fastest and most reliable way to be treated differently in Southeast Asia — not because your Thai will be any good, but because almost no Western man bothers, and she will notice inside the first minute. This is the working vocabulary for a man who is dating rather than sightseeing: greetings, the politeness word that makes everything else land, compliments that are not about her body, food, numbers and the check.

Set your expectations correctly. You are not going to hold a conversation. You are going to open one, close one, order two beers, tell her the food is good, tell her she looks nice, count to twenty and ask for the bill. That is the whole ambition, it takes about two weeks at fifteen minutes a day, and it changes how you are received in every bar, market, taxi and kitchen you walk into.

Why does a little of her language matter so much?

Because it is the only currency in this whole business that costs you nothing and cannot be faked by anyone with a bigger pension.

Three things happen when you use her language badly. She relaxes, because you have just made yourself the one at a disadvantage and that is a generous thing to do. She upgrades you from "tourist" to "guest", which are different categories in every country in this guide. And her friends and family hear about it — in Thailand her friends at the bar, in the Philippines her mother on video call within the hour. A man of sixty who says masarap about the adobo has done more for himself in that kitchen than a man of forty who says nothing.

There is a practical dividend too. English gets thin fast once you step off the bar street: the Soi 6 bar staff will understand you and the noodle stall two streets back will not. Thirty words of Thai are the difference between eating what you meant to order and eating what you pointed at.

And there is a warning inside the same fact. Do not mistake simple English for a simple woman. A nurse from Nakhon Ratchasima typing careful short sentences in her fourth language is not less intelligent than you; she is doing something you are not.

How do you actually learn thirty words?

Not from an app that gamifies it. From a list on your phone and a person who likes you.

Pick twenty-five to forty phrases from the table for your country below — greetings, politeness, three compliments, food, numbers, the check, and two or three that are about her rather than the transaction. Write them into your notes app in your own phonetic spelling, the way you hear them, not the way a textbook writes them. Read them out loud on the plane. Then use them badly, in public, from day one.

The fastest teacher you will find is the woman you are talking to. "How do you say this?" is a good message, a good first-date question and a good way to spend a taxi ride, and it flips the roles in a way that most women in the region enjoy — she gets to be the expert and you get to be the student, which is a much better dynamic than the one she is used to having with foreign men. Voice notes work brilliantly here: get her to record ten phrases and play them back until you stop hearing them as noise.

Thai: the working list

Thai is tonal, unforgiving about vowel length and completely worth the trouble. Men end polite sentences with khrap (say it short and clipped, closer to "kup"). Women say kha. Phom means "I" for a man; khun means "you" and is also the polite title before a name.

The one to be careful with: suay said with a rising tone means beautiful; said with a falling tone it means unlucky or ruined. Pitch your voice up at the end like you are asking a question and you will be understood. If in doubt, use naa rak — cute — which has no dangerous neighbors.

The one that does the most work: mai pen rai. It covers "never mind", "no problem", "don't worry about it" and "it doesn't matter", and using it correctly when something goes slightly wrong marks you as a man who understands the country.

Tagalog: the working list

You do not need Tagalog to be understood in the Philippines; you need it to be liked. English is an official language, television is in English, and the woman on the next stool in Angeles City will out-argue you in it. So this list is not survival vocabulary — it is affection vocabulary, aimed squarely at her, her mother and her ate.

The magic word is po, a particle of respect you drop into sentences addressed to anyone older or senior. Salamat is thanks; salamat po is thanks from a man with manners. Address an older woman as ate (AH-teh) and an older man as kuya (KOO-ya) and you will be halfway home.

The one that does the most work: ingat. It means "take care" and Filipinos say it constantly — leaving a room, ending a call, putting someone in a taxi. Say it every time she leaves and you will sound like someone who lives there.

The one to be careful with: stress. Tagalog has no tones, but moving the stress moves the meaning, so listen and copy rather than reading off the page. And the mother-insult everybody hears in traffic is not a joke word for a foreigner to try, however casually the men around you use it.

Khmer: the working list

Khmer has no tones, which makes it kinder than Thai, and a lot of vowels, which makes it harder than it looks. Men end polite sentences and answer "yes" with baat (women say jaa). Khnhom is "I"; neak is a polite "you". Around Phnom Penh you will hear bong — literally "older sibling" — used constantly, including between couples.

The one that does the most work: aw kun with a small bow of the head, or the sampeah — palms together, the Cambodian version of the Thai wai. Cambodians notice politeness from foreigners more than most, partly because they get so little of it.

The one to be careful with: the price haggle. Thlai pek is normal in a market and rude in a restaurant, and Cambodia runs on US dollars with riel as small change, so a "one dollar" difference you are arguing about is worth more to her than to you.

Vietnamese: the working list

Vietnamese is the hardest language here and the most rewarding to try, because Saigon expects nothing from foreigners and lights up when it gets something. Six tones, written with the accent marks that look decorative and are not.

The thing to understand before any vocabulary is that Vietnamese has no neutral "I" and "you". You pick pronouns based on relative age, and in a romance the pair is anh (the older man — you) and em (the younger woman — her). "Anh yêu em" is literally "older-brother loves younger-sister". Use anh for yourself and em for her and you have already got the grammar of the relationship right. In the south, da (yah) is the softener that goes in front of a polite answer.

The one that does the most work: em ăn cơm chưa? — "have you eaten rice yet?" It is the Vietnamese equivalent of "how are you", it is what her mother would ask, and it lands far better than any compliment.

The one to be careful with: everything, tonally. A word said flat instead of falling is a different word, sometimes an embarrassing one. Ask her to correct you and mean it; Vietnamese women will correct you cheerfully and repeatedly, and that is a good sign, not impatience.

What are the pronunciation traps?

Four habits fix most of it. Say fewer words and say them slower. Listen to her, not to a textbook, because regional accents are the ones you will actually meet. Record her saying the phrase and play it back. And say it at normal volume — men who are embarrassed mumble, and mumbling in a tonal language is indistinguishable from nonsense.

What should you not say?

Some of this is manners and some of it is self-preservation.

• The swear words you learned in a bar. They are funny for one night in the bar and unusable everywhere else, especially in front of a mother. This applies double to the mother-insult in Tagalog and to anything you were taught while laughing.
• "I love you" in week one. All four languages have a form of it and it gets used fast in the region. That does not make it real, in either direction. I miss you — khit thueng, namimiss kita, khnhom nuk neak, anh nhớ em — carries the warmth without writing a check you cannot cash. See Red flags and romance scams: the sick buffalo, the hospital bill and how to say no kindly for the version of this that costs money.
• Anything about her body in her own language. Compliment her cooking, her province, her family, her singing, her English. She has heard the other thing from every man on the street.
• Mimicking her accent in English. It is the fastest way to turn a good evening bad, and it reads exactly as it is.
• Politics, religion and the monarchy. Thailand has serious laws about the last of those and enforces them; Vietnam and Cambodia are not places for a foreigner's political opinions. Culture and respect: the small things that make a trip to Southeast Asia go well covers the ground properly.
• Bar-jargon in front of civilians. The vocabulary you pick up on Walking Street (Angeles City) is not the vocabulary for a mall date with a nurse, and the difference is obvious to her instantly.

How do you use a translation app without sounding like a robot?

Assume you will need one, and use it as a dictionary rather than a ghostwriter.

The mainstream apps handle Tagalog well, Vietnamese and Thai adequately and Khmer poorly, and all of them fall apart on idiom, sarcasm and long sentences. So write like a telegram: one idea per sentence, subject-verb-object, no jokes, no "I reckon", no "no worries". If a message comes back strange, assume translation before you assume rudeness — a woman typing through an app cannot control her own tone, and a great many arguments between couples in this region are entirely the app's fault.

Practical setup, worth ten minutes before you fly: download the offline language pack, learn where the camera-translate button is for menus and signs, and turn on conversation mode so you can hand her the phone. Then set the app down as often as you can. The phrases in the tables above exist so that the first ninety seconds of every encounter — the hello, the thanks, the compliment, the goodbye — come out of your own mouth rather than a speaker.

If you are chatting with someone for a few weeks before a trip, which is what most of the men who come back a second time do, the language question sorts itself out early: you will know within a week whether you are talking to her or to a translation engine. Online dating before you fly: how the smart guys land with a date already booked covers how to set that up, and asking her to teach you ten words of Thai or Vietnamese is one of the better opening moves there is — it gives her something to be good at, and it gives you something to practice for.