I had the same problem myself when I lived in Bangkok. After about 50 cab rides to Central Plaza, I figured it out.ziggy1001 wrote:This is very useful info to know, for everyone. First time i went to BKK i could never work out why cabbies never seemed to understand "World Trade Centre" It's a big place, lots of farangs go there, it's central. I would have to repeat it 4-5 times taking great efforts to pronounce it perfectly (no i didn't say it increasingly slowly or at higher volume just clearly) Then someone told me just ask for "wurl trey" Bingo they understand
Thais pronounce the final L of any English word like an N. This is something that I think comes from the Thai language.
Therefore Center sounds something like "centen". Michael sounds like Miken.