“Thinglish” is a portmanteau of “Thai” and “English”, describing the odd mixture of languages that you encounter as an expat here. One of the words that keeps catching my ear is “level up” which, the more I think about it, is quite an elegant word.
The meaning, as you might expect, is the same as the cumbersome “increase the level of” as in, “We need to increase the level of skill in their leadership capability.” But that is an awkward phrasing. My colleagues will instead say something like, “We need to level up their leadership capability skills.”
Before writing this post, I did some research and learned that “level up” is actually a gaming term, meaning “To progress to the next level of player character abilities, often by acquiring experience points in role-playing games.” Which, come to think of it, does sound a bit like the leadership development we do!
There is no shortage of opportunities to re-learn the English language when you live in a country where it isn’t the primary language. But that’s a good thing: it keeps your mind elastic!
christao408 
What happens when Thinglish meets Singlish?
Or Chinglish…
Thingsingchinglish, of course.
I heard the term “hi so” for the first time by a Thai friend and I seem have picked up its usage every so often.
Yes, I didn’t recognize it as Thinglish but I guess we don’t refer to it in North American English, do we?
I grew up hearing “level up” a lot because some of my friends were gamers and used this term a lot. For me, it makes me think of Mario, for some reason. I also immediately thought of a song called “level up” when I saw your post. Check it out here if you want to listen to a uplifting song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4n_8R5lKnw
Wow, that’s a lot of new information for me! =D
Is this Lvl up Picture Copyright ? I really like it and I want to use it if its ok 😀
It was from Google image search. I imagine it might be copyrighted.