ColeBOzbourne

Thank you for your replies so far. They are helpful. My Thai friend is patient with me and tries to explain, but finally says, "You will understand after you've been here a while." The entire paragraph is below in case it adds some context.

นี่คือเด็กผู้ชายที่อยากได้ของเล่น

จะไปหาที่ไหนดีถึงจะมีของเล่น

ที่ร้านขายของเล่นไงไม่ไกลหรอกนะ

นั่งรถไฟไปกับแม่แย่แล้วฝนตก!

ถึงร้านของเล่นตื่นเต้นได้ของเล่นใหม

ฝนหยุดตกแล้วนะพระอาทิตย์สาดส่องเล่นของเล่นใหม่สุขใจจริงเอย

1 hour ago, Oldie said:

I begin to understand the stray dog lovers better now...

Good. I'm glad that increased your understanding. You've undoubtedly also figured out that we not only feed stray dogs but TROLLS as well. But most prefer the former to the latter.

I'm looking for some clarification on this sentence, mainly related to how the word ไง is used. 

ที่ร้านขายของเล่นไงไม่ไกลหรอกนะ

The boy in the story wants a new toy and needs to go to the toy store. I believe the sentence says the store is not far. However the English version says it is far. It is not uncommon in these stories to find spelling errors or variations between the Thai and English.

Regarding the word ไง, I'm not sure if it is the shortened version of 'how', as in how would he get to the store. My Thai friend tried to explain it is a word used when discussing the location of something, or used to create emphasis when discussing the location of something.

Any help would be appreciated.

On 8/1/2020 at 4:23 AM, Beowolf said:

I still have to met up at the police station (emigration) as a common criminal.

So at immigration they handcuffed you and locked you in a cell? I never had that experience. I just go in and fill out some paperwork and am free to come and go as I please. I'm not treated like a criminal at all, just a visitor in a foreign country.

According to thai-language.com dictionary it refers to wit, mental agility, quickness of mind. Also can be nickname for a boy. Spoken with mid-tone.

21 hours ago, RichardColeman said:

way below the intelligence of most of the TV readers I would think.

Oh come on! That's just not possible!

16 hours ago, BananaBandit said:

How did his abs go from a 6-pack to an 8-pack ?

Implants. Sure looks fake to me.

After a meal with a friend in Mexico I asked him if he was 'full' (lleno). He told me that is not the way they prefer to phrase it, instead they ask are you 'satisfied' (satisfecho). Because stuffing yourself until you are full on a regular basis is not healthy, and might even be a sign of gluttony. In the past I had that mindset that I would eat until my gut was stuffed because it felt good. Now I might do that 1-2 times per year. Eat slow drink a lot of water with your meal, and stop when you are 'satisfied', not when you are stuffed. It only takes a few days to get used to it. After that, if you stuff yourself it's actually painful and a great deterrent to being a glutton.

Improving listening skills is important, but not always the only problem based on my experiences. It can also be the sound quality of your audio equipment. I have many audio tracks that I listen to and sometimes while listening on my laptop plugged into the TV there are minute parts of words/phrases that I cannot hear at all. Putting that same audio into a CD player and listening with earbuds, I hear it perfectly fine. Quality audio, and blocking out external noise interference, can make a difference.

Discussing subjects such as this with my Thai friend often leads to even more confusion, but I may have got the gist of what she was saying.  นินทา and อย่าเม้าท์  both can refer to gossip and are very much the same. But อย่าเม้าท์  can also refer to simply talking about other people in a non-gossipy way, or in this case, 'don't talk about other people.'

For example, if we were in a restaurant and people at another table were loud, drunk and obnoxious, I might make an observation of that and say something to my companion. She might respond, อย่าเม้าท์ถึงคนอื่น, 'don't talk about other people'. To me that isn't like spreading a juicy tidbit of gossip, it's just talking about people doing something. Some consider that to be rude. Rude like one step below actually pointing your finger at someone. I just point at which doughnut I want and my friend smacks my hand.

My friend also said เม้าท์ several times as it might relate to 'mouth to mouth', as in two people leaning close together to talk quietly about someone else, swapping information mouth to mouth. Also as in kissing mouth to mouth.

Could use: ตอนเป็นเด็ก or สมัยเป็นเด็ก

I also think it could depend on whether you want to refer to an incident that happened during your youth at a specific point in time, or if you want to refer to the overall time period of youth in general (non-specific point in time). I believe ตอน refers to a specific point in time, while เวลา and สมัย refer to general time periods (non-specific point in time). Somebody please set me straight if I'm confused here. Thanks

"Some people have an aversion to silence, as if a moment uncluttered by words is an opportunity lost forever." Matt Braun, El Paso

Nearly nothing worse than some fart sitting down next to me and starting off with something like, "Last night I watched a five hour documentary on the winter-time war strategies of Napoleon. Now, let me back up 200 years and give you the history behind that so you'll understand better as I talk for the next two hours."

Just as bad: I'm reading a good book and someone sits down and starts talking to me as if to say, "Today's your lucky day boy, you can put down that boring book and hear me talk about myself for an hour."

12 hours ago, josephbloggs said:

See?  That's called answering a direct question - some of you guys should try it sometimes instead of just replying with an insult and not backing up anything you say or replying to questions or offering anything factual.   So I'll try again, what evidence is there that the contact tracing numbers get sold to telemarketers?  Even some anecdotal evidence - even a rumour - that you have heard of someone getting telemarketing calls since using the app to check in somewhere.  One story?  Anything?  Please don't come back with "Joseph Bloggs is a sheep" or something, try answering an actual question.

My best reply would be that it is premature to be demanding specific evidence on this issue at this time. Information is often stolen, hacked or sold months or even years later. One can see stories on the news frequently about information from a variety of sources being hacked or sold. So many people are cautious about giving information because one never knows what may happen in the future. In this case, there are a multitude of computer banks full of people's names and phone numbers being accumulated. It is not inconceivable that there is a potential in the future for someone to want that information. Maybe. Maybe not. Some people are bothered by that, some people are not. To each his own.

10 hours ago, Tony125 said:

That really makes no difference. 15 year old girl in USA died today from complications from Covid 19. Youngest person in US to die with no underlying problems. Your like all those young kids who went to spring break and Mardi Gra in New Orleans because they heard the virus only affected adults. many got seriously sick. 10 members of 1 family came down sick but only the father died.

I'm not a 15 year old girl and I've never in my life been to any type of Spring Break party. You're clueless when it comes to understanding anything about me based on a few anonymous posts written on an internet forum. You have a right to your opinions and I have a right to mine.

21 minutes ago, robblok said:

Then please don't come in shops anymore. Its now a prerequisite because of corvid. If you don't want it then just don't go shopping. Why should the rules not apply to you. This is to protect people and to allow the economy to function again.

 

I get tired of all those tinfoil hat people who want the economy to open but at the same time are against registration like this that could confine the spread of an outbreak.

 

Then again Thailand is full of farang oddballs.  

In your excitement to reply you failed to read carefully. I never said I would refuse to give the information, I said I didn't like it. There's a difference. My reply was to somebody who said people who don't want to give personal information must be afraid because they have committed a crime or something. I said some people simply prefer not to spread their personal information without a bit of caution.

I went to Terminal-21 Sunday and I filled out the card, but didn't like it. Are you happy? You are correct, Thailand is full of oddballs. Many of them hang out on TV spewing diatribe without bothering to read information carefully first.

1 hour ago, steven100 said:

so if someone in the store has the COVID-19 virus and has infected others that same day your there, and they have been identified,  you don't want to know about it right !. You'll be fine as when your sick the gf can look after you and diagnose what wrong.

Correct. I don't want to know about it. I have a strong immune system, exercise, eat healthy, am not overweight, am comparatively young, and have no underlying health issues. I stick mostly to myself or practice social distancing and good hygiene, so I'm not overly concerned about passing it off to others. Your original point was that people not wanting to give their personal information must be scared or have something to hide from. My point was that many people simply show some caution and common sense about giving out personal information here, there, and everywhere.

15 hours ago, BeccsLovesThailand said:

And then to take things further, there are words such as à-rai (what?) which have a low tone according to the english spelling and how I have heard people say them but in the thai script, the word is mid tone.

à-rai has two syllables. The first syllable is low tone, the second is middle tone, just as you have written it. Listening to Thais speak in order to identify tone is not always easy. They speak quickly and sometimes they change the tone in such a subtle way that the farang ear cannot pick up on it accurately, but the Thai ear can.

15 hours ago, BeccsLovesThailand said:

I am really confused because if you look at the words nôon, châi and mâi, they are all falling tone but on the thai script, it uses the low tone symbol ่ i.e. โน่น ใช่ ไม่ . Yet whenever they are voiced, they are always voiced falling tone.

That symbol is low tone for middle and high consonants only. However, for low consonants that symbol does mean falling tone. The words in your three examples all start with low consonants, so falling tone would be correct.