Peppy

Sa-mun is "common", as in plain, ordinary, without a feudal or royal title, but that's not the word you're looking for. I wouldn't even use "common" in English for the examples you gave.

Chuut-chaat is "gaudy" or "garish", which is a much better fit, I think. You could also try kee-oh, which is something like "showy", or "flashy".

If you're not keen on gaudy, though, I don't think Thailand's the place for you...

(Sorry for no Thai script--the forum software's acting up right now, and I can't be bothered putting up a picture.)

For me typing speed in any language is really just a case of practice makes perfect, and anyhow my current speed in both Thai and English is perfectly sufficient for the amount of typing I do, and anyways I find my brain is more of a limiting factor to how fast I can type in both languages. I'm a fast typer but a slow thinker. Or is it fast typist and slow thinkist?

Based on the "suitable for non-Thais" wording of the topic post, though, I'd guess this new layout isn't so much designed specifically to improve typing speed, but rather to make it easier for people used to the qwerty keyboard layout to type in Thai. Put por pla and phor phaan on the P, tor tao and thor thahaan on the T, sara i and sara ii on the I, sara oh and or aang on the O, nor nuu and nor nen on the N, khor khwai and khor khai on the K, etc.... keep the tone marks somewhere easily accessible, and put all the rarely used junk off in the far corners.

It's actually a pretty neat idea--assuming that is the idea--but I'd still rather stick to the standard layout. Guess I'm really a conformist at heart.

If you aren't fluent in a particular language, how on earth are you able to pass judgement on whether a translation into that language conveys the nuances of the original or not? Show me a translation that doesn't quite capture everything, and I'll show you a bad translation.

For the record, I think "ao mai" is a perfectly acceptable rendering of "Hey, would you like some of this?"

Edit: Changed Thai script to Roman letters. It seems Thai script isn't working for my posts...

Assuming that you are referring to my post, yes I am fluent in several languages, one of them being French. Why do these initially interesting and edifying postings inevitably have to turn into slanging matches? (Don't answer, I know). Mr. Parvis your posts are intelligible AND intelligent but hardly susceptible of being taken seriously. Try to avoid telling people that they are stupid or uneducated and maybe we could have a civilised discourse...?

It may be that the "loss of nuance" you found in the French version of the American gangster movie you saw was more related self-referential language forms than to meaning.

Translating meaning between languages of any reasonably developed society--"non-primitive languages", if you will, which have ready-made vocabulary for everything we encounter in the modern world--is fairly straightforward: you know what the person saying the original intended to say, and you say that in the language you're translating into. (Of course this gets difficult when the intended message of the original seems unclear.)

However, people often use rhetorical styles that reference, or are dependent on, the original language itself in some way, like alliteration, rhyme, puns, twists on well-known phrases, repetition, double entendres, grouping, spoonerisms, and various other kinds of wordplay. We find these flourishes entertaining, and they seem to heighten or intensify the meaning for most people, despite that fact that they actually don't add anything to what is being said. An English-language article on whether to give up watching television might be titled, "TV or not TV?", and we find the Shakespeare reference amusing, though it doesn't actually change the core meaning of "Should one watch TV or not?", which could be the title of the article in its translation to another language. "The Big Bang" is much snazzier than "The Large Explosion", as is "The Cat in the Hat" over "The Headgear-Bedecked Feline", or "Go ahead, make my day" versus "If you move, I will shoot you in the face and that would make me happy".

Since people of all cultures appreciate rhetorical wordplay, and language without it can seem stilted and boring, good translators don't just render the meaning, but try to find ways to make what's being said equally snappy and memorable in the language they're translating into. When translation is done well--the English version of the Asterix series comes to mind as a stellar example--readers/listeners are often quite unaware they're experiencing a translation. When it's done poorly, people may feel they're missing something, as with your gangster movie, even if they're still getting all of the original meaning.

They only like white people as much as they do because they're from so far away. Opinions on blacks, Arabs, Indians, and other East Asians are middling, as are the distances to their countries of origin. Immediate neighbors are despised. The closer they are, the more they hate them.

hmmm se your point and were will that put us white that living her?cant getting any closer than that I think its all love

No, no, it's not where you live that matters, it's where your race is originally from.

How well integrated you are is factor too, though. If you're Burmese or Cambodian and speak very little to no Thai, you're definitely at the bottom. If you were born here and know the language and culture as a native, it still depends on your race, but instead being a case of "the closer your country of origin, the more they hate you", it's more like, "the closer your country of origin, the more they accept you", because the closer you are, the more you look like them. Of course if you speak to them as a native, they'll accept you as a native on an individual basis, but from afar, if you don't look like them, even if you were born here, they'll still assume you're a foreigner and judge you on that before they meet you.

They only like white people as much as they do because they're from so far away. Opinions on blacks, Arabs, Indians, and other East Asians are middling, as are the distances to their countries of origin. Immediate neighbors are despised. The closer they are, the more they hate them.

Thanks Tywais.

I should add that I can see Thai-script messages from other posters just fine, which leads me to believe that the problem may be on my end. I just have no idea how it started or how to fix it.

Like the title says--the Thai script in my posts in the Thai language forum has been showing up as nothing but ampersands, pound signs, and numbers since Thursday, like this:

ถ้าคุณอ่าน

ข้อความนี้ได้ แสดงว่าไม่

มีปัญหาแล้ว

I hadn't changed anything with my computer prior to having this problem, and playing with the encoding settings right now doesn't seem to help anything. Does anyone have any idea what the problem could be?

If you aren't fluent in a particular language, how on earth are you able to pass judgement on whether a translation into that language conveys the nuances of the original or not? Show me a translation that doesn't quite capture everything, and I'll show you a bad translation.

For the record, I think "ao mai" is a perfectly acceptable rendering of "Hey, would you like some of this?"

Edit: Changed Thai script to Roman letters. It seems Thai script isn't working for my posts...

I would assume that anything of benefit to those interested in the Thai language is fine, as long as it isn't commercial. But why don't you ask a moderator just to be on the safe side?

I personally wouldn't be interested in a rearranged keyboard layout--if you're going to learn to type Thai, you ought to learn to really type like a native, with the keyboard layout the natives use, if only to be able to type on any computers anywhere in Thailand. But maybe that's just me.

This is kind of long, but I think it's interesting and very relevant to the topic at hand here. It's an attempt to list everything that is universal to human nature and living conditions, and is interesting for the fact that all languages, however "primitive", have native words for, or ways to describe all of these things.

One of the most oft-quoted references in Evolutionary Psychology (EP) is the study made by anthropologist, Donald E. Brown that tries to locate ethnographic patterns and tendencies underlying the behaviour of all documented human cultures.

Inspired by Chomsky's Universal Grammar (UG), Brown tries to characterise the Universal People (UP). As Steven Pinker says (in The Language Instinct), according to Brown, Universal People exhibit the following traits:

Value placed on articulateness. Gossip. Lying. Misleading. Verbal humour. Humorous insults. Poetic and rhetorical speech forms. Narrative and storytelling. Metaphor. Poetry with repetition of linguistic elements and three-second lines separated by pauses.

Words for days, months, seasons, years, past, present, future, body parts, inner states (emotions, sensations, thoughts), behavioural propensities, flora, fauna, weather, tools, space, motion, speed, location, spatial dimensions, physical properties, giving, lending, affecting things and people, numbers (at least one, two and more than two), proper names, possession.

Distinctions between mother and father. Kinship categories, defined in terms of mother, father son, daughter, and age sequence. Binary distinctions, including male and female, black and white, natural and cultural, good and bad. Measures. Logical relations including "not", "and", "same", "equivalent", "opposite", general versus particular, part versus whole. Conjectural reasoning (inferring the presence of absent and invisible entities from their perceptible traces).

Non-linguistic vocal communication such as cries and squeals. Interpreting intention from behaviour. Recognised facial expressions of happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, disgust, and contempt. Use of smiles as a friendly greeting. Crying. Coy flirtation with the eyes. Masking, modifying, and mimicking facial expressions. Displays of affection.

Sense of self versus other, responsibility, voluntary versus involuntary behaviour, intention, private inner life, normal versus abnormal mental states. Empathy. Sexual attraction. Powerful sexual jealousy. Childhood fears, especially of loud noises, and, at the end of the first year, strangers. Fear of snakes. "Oedipal" feelings (possessiveness of mother, coldness towards her consort). Face recognition. Adornment of bodies and arrangement of hair. Sexual attractiveness, based in signs of health, and in women, youth. Hygiene. Dance. Music. Play, including play fighting.

Manufacture of, and dependence upon, many kinds of tools, many of them permanent, made according to culturally transmitted motifs, including cutters, pounders, containers, string, leavers, spears. Use of fire to cook food and for other purposes. Drugs, both medical and recreational. Shelter. Decoration of artefacts.

A standard pattern for time and weaning. Living in groups, which claim a territory and have a sense of being a distinct people. Families built around mother and children, usually the biological mother, and one or more men. Institutionalised marriage, in the sense of publicly recognised right of sexual access to a woman eligible for childbearing. Socialisation of children (including toilet training) by senior kin. Children copying their elders. Distinguishing of close kin from distant kin, and favouring close kin. Avoidance of incest between mothers and sons. Great interest in the topic of sex.

Status and prestige, both assigned (by kinship, age, sex) and achieved. Some degree of economic inequality. Division of labor by sex and age. More child care by women. More aggression and violence by men. Acknowledgement of differences between male and female natures. Domination by men in the public political sphere. Exchange of labor, goods and services. Reciprocity, including retaliation. Gifts. Social Reasoning. Coalitions. Government, in the sense of binding collective decisions about public affairs. Leaders, almost always non-dictatorial, perhaps ephemeral. Laws, rights, and obligations, including laws against violence, rape and murder. Punishment. Conflict, which is deplored. Rape. Seeking of redress for wrongs. Mediation. In-group/out-group conflicts. Property. Inheritance of property. Sense of right and wrong. Envy.

Etiquette. Hospitality. Feasting. Diurnality. Standards of sexual modesty. Sex generally in private. Fondness for sweets. Food taboos. Discreteness in elimination of body wastes. Supernatural beliefs. Magic to sustain and increase life, and to attract the opposite sex. Theories of fortune and misfortune. Explanations of disease and death. Medicine. Rituals, including rites of passage. Mourning the dead. Dreaming, interpreting dreams.

Obviously, this is not a list of instincts or innate psychological propensities; it is a list of complex interactions between a universal human nature and the conditions of living in a human body on this planet.

Source: http://www.csse.mona...rsalPeople.html

All of the ideas in "modern" languages and civilizations, whether it's a writing system, centralized government across large areas, organized and centralized religion, scientific inquiry and philosophy, technology, mass communication, large business organizations, etc. etc., begin with the ideas from the list above, and are referenced through them. As soon as a group of people is exposed to a new concept or thing, they'll modify the word for an existing concept or thing in their language, take a word from another language, or (rarely) think up a whole new word for it.

The languages that haven't been exposed to anything outside this list are of course at a disadvantage, because they have to start finding words to describe things like parliamentary committees, bicycles, ice-cream, cell theory, multinational corporations, bank accounts, particle physics, and so on. Many speakers of languages like this find it easier to simply learn another language that has already done all the vocabulary creation work for them. However, as I stated in an earlier post, Thai isn't in this situation. Thailand does have parliamentary committees, bicycles, ice-cream, cell theory, multinational corporations, bank accounts, particle physics, and many more things, in addition to a robust tradition of taking words from other languages as may be necessary to describe new things. Anything you can say in English, you can say in Thai, and vice versa. Anyone who says you can't is probably less than proficient at one or both, and has a superiority complex to boot.

I do hope this doesn't come across as apologistic or defensive. I don't feel that way at all. Rather, this is reality as I see it. These facts aren't going anywhere, so there's nothing to apologize for or defend against. I'm actually very critical of the culture in Thailand, or at least what passes for culture amid all the kowtowing and censorship. To me, though, language as the things people say, and language as a thing itself, the thing that enables them to say things, are very different things. People in Thailand, as in many other places, may say and believe a lot of dumb things, but this has everything to do with lack of freedom of speech and exposure to challenging ideas. It's nothing to do with language.

Hmm... anyone else seeing the Thai script in my above post? All I'm getting is ampersands, pound signs, and four-digit numbers. Obviously there's something wrong with the encoding, but I've played with my browser settings and nothing changes. And I can see the the Thai script in all the other posts on this page just fine.

เบื่อที่สุดคืออีพวกผู้ชายขี้โอ่ อยากจะบอกว่า ไอ แอม นอท สะ ออน ยู โนวว์

I'm so bored of show-off guys... I just wanna tell them, "I'm not impressed, you know."

ขี้โอ่ is like ขี้อวด or ขี้โม้ -- to be a show-off or a braggart.

ไอ แอม นอท ... ยู โนว์ is English written in Thai script -- "I am not ... you know.".

สะออน is Northeastern dialect (Laotian) -- it means "to be impressed" or "to admire".

Yes, บาน means "broad", or "wide". So หน้าบาน is "wide-faced", and depending on the context, can mean either the person literally has a wide face, or they're smiling so broadly their face appears to be wider than normal.

"ดูหน้านังกบสิ บานเป็นจานดาวเทียมเลย"

"Look at Kop's face! It's as wide as a satellite dish!"

or "Look at Kop, grinning like a satellite dish!"

(Note that นัง is not the same as นาง "Mrs.", even though they may have the same origin. นัง before a girl's name expresses familiarity or contempt, and is probably used most often by schoolgirls. It's similar to อี- but not nearly as vulgar.)

ใบเตือนต่ออายุประกันภัย

What are you majoring in? - คุณเรียนวิชาเอกอะไร

What did you major in? - คุณจบวิชาเอกอะไรมา

Ah... in that case try เอาเปรียบ = take advantage (of someone).

take the piss - แกล้งเล่น (i.e. tease, kid)

ฉันก็แค่แกล้งเธอเล่นๆ I was only taking the piss (out of you).

take for granted - ไม่เห็น(คุณ)ค่า (i.e. not see the value of something)

เธอไม่เห็นคุณค่าของฉันเลย You take me for granted. (=You don't appreciate me.)

take for granted - ทึกทัก, คิดไปเอง (i.e. assume something to be true without making any attempt to verify that it is in fact the case)

ฉันก็คิดไปเองว่าเขาจะมา I'd taken it for granted that he was going to come. (=I'd assumed that...)

I'm going to turn myself in - ไปมอบตัว

Yes, it doesn't exist in English, but it isn't difficult to teach someone how to say it. Just tell them to say "oo" as in moon, but DON'T round the lips like you're going to kiss somebody. Instead, clench your teeth and keep your lips wide, like a snarling dog, and the sound'll come out as "อือ".

Next you will be telling me tone rules are taught to children when they learn to speak.

Imagine a five year old Thai child having to learn tone rules!

Children don't need to be taught the rules because it comes naturally to them, just like English speakers know to raise their voice at the end of a yes/no question, and drop it at the end of a wh-question. Adults don't usually pick up on this kind of stuff naturally, and so it needs to be consciously practiced until it becomes second nature.

Kids do learn the tone rules when they learn to read, however--every primary level Thai language studies textbook is chock-full of drills practicing the various combinations of consonants from different classes, short and long vowels and tone marks, especially for the early grades.

Tones are trivial and I would suggest that nobody posting that they are important, can speak Thai to any competent level.

Sorry, but I think you've got that backwards.

80% of Thais will refuse to understand you, however good your pronunciation is.

Those who have got over the 'foreigners can't speak Thai' stage will understand you, even if wrong.

Better off learning to read and write Thai, then let the ^%$#kers try and pretend they don't understand.

Imagine a foreigner in an English speaking country who says "Fair car do flowing?" for "Where are you going?", "Bat pizz cha rice mouse" for "That is a nice house", "Blue car cha berry dutiful loomun" for "You are a very beautiful woman" etc. etc.

And then he bemoans the devious, racist ^%$#kers who pretend they can't understand him...

Bottom line: Speak Thai with the correct tones (in addition to correct grammar and vocabulary) and everybody will understand you, whether they want to or not.

Forget tones

Increase vocabulary

That's what I thought also until a few weeks ago. Now I know that I HAVE to master the tone rules in order to be able to figure out the right tone. Otherwise it just sounds like gibberish when I speak Thai.

Spot on Djayz. For anyone who says tones aren't important, think of the Thai tones as being like English consonants. Is it important to get the consonant sounds right when speaking English? Of course it is. Will somebody understand that you want, say, a bottle of water if you ask for "ga foshle love daughter"? Even when the context is clear, probably not. Without context, not a chance.

As Djayz says, Thai without tones is gibberish.

ลากลับ = ลา + กลับ i.e. to say goodbye and go back, or simply "to leave". (You were trying to read it as ลาก + ลับ, right? )