Another one I realized today, again inspired by my in-laws, is that you have to use the word ตาย (dtaay!, which sounds a lot like the English equivalent in meaning: die) multiple times in succession as an expletive if a current situation is not going in the most desirable fashion. I am not sure if this is just a southern thing, but I don't remember hearing it that much, if at all,  when I lived in Bangkok.

Given the similarity, I have often wondered if this is actually a loan word from English.

However, yelling 'Die!, Die, Die' in English would conjure up images of witch-hunts and KKK lynchings, whereas here any mildly frustrating situation seems enough to set it off...

I almost screwed up big time in this regard. I had to go back to Massachusetts to see my dad, who was dying from cancer. I booked and paid for  two tickets for me and my daughter, aged 12.

My wife had to stay behind to care for her own parents, who are also elderly.

But at the last minute I realized my daughter's Thai passport had expired. An expat friend of mine who used to be an Immigration Volunteer informed me that it would be impossible for her to fly out on her American passport, which was a shocking surprise to me.

It took a completely stress-filled day to get her an 'emergency' passport applied for here in Songkhla Town, then a great friend in Bangkok picked it up at the Foreign Ministry in Bangkok for me and let us crash at his place for a few hours before the nightmare flight back to Boston. (with a 12-hour layover in HK)

One of the most hectic experiences I have ever been through...We did make it back and got to spend time with my dad before he passed away. RIP to the best person I have ever known.

So I guess the lesson I learned is that  you need to keep two valid passports at all costs to take advantage of all the considerable privileges these kids have by having dual citizenship.

On 2/14/2018 at 10:16 AM, CaptainKiiNiaw said:

I'm new to the South, but I just heard this one today: สูบบุหรี่ (suup buri - to smoke) is duup buri or dtuup buri in the southern dialect.  I told the mae ban I wanted a non-smoking room ไม่สูบบุหรี่.  She didn't understand at first but finally got it and radioed the office staff to inform them I wanted 'mai duup buri.'

 

This is my first time to the far south, I had no idea the southern thai was so different from central thai.  Good on you for trying to learn the local dialect.

My wife said this can be heard all over Thailand, though I don't readily recall hearing it much myself.

12 hours ago, 4evermaat said:

I think the ETS train you can book (assigned seating); but only 1 per day that goes through Butterworth (07:05) . the other ETS trains bypass Butterworth.  So they seem to be designed for longer commutes cross country (to KL, Gemas, etc).  But the free seater (Komuter) I'm not sure; doesn't look like it from the website.   Maybe the app allows it.

 

Here is the Komuter schedule.  From memory, it is 11.40RM to Butterworth.

 

 

If you are adventurous, you could take the ETS to SUNGAI PETANI and then take the RapidPenang shuttle bus to Butterworth. 

Interesting. I'd actually like to go back to visit Penang. I went there every three months for over a decade when I lived in BKK. Now I am much closer, but no longer need to do visa runs so it has been almost 15 years....

1 hour ago, 4evermaat said:

 

Bangkok to Butterworth service ended in early 2016.  Now it stops at Padang Besar border.  Instead of getting back on that train same, you just buy a new ticket (Malaysian ticket booth upstairs) and then take the rest of the trip to Butterworth.  It's the same price if not slightly cheaper.   

 

A minor inconvenience to have to buy the separate ticket; sometimes there is a bottleneck line.

oh, thanks for that and sorry for spreading false info; I was unaware of it. Is there any way to book the Malaysian ticket in advance, though? Is there always room. This would seem an obvious solution for the OP, providing he/she doesn't mind jumping on the train in the middle of the night.

It's hard to believe that the Bangkok>Butterworth service ended over a decade ago. Such a no-brainer, but bureaucracy/international relations/cheap airfares/Patani separatists have all played a role on this retarded situation.

Maybe Asean should get involved (joke).

On 2/7/2018 at 9:42 PM, surfdog said:

There is another southern slang I really don’t understand at all. Mix of Hakka and southern Thai, I know some Mandarin, but not any help there, Hakka speakers know Mandarin, but prefer Hakka, they’ve been here so long, that there main language is southern Thai but mixed with a lot of Hakka vocabulary.

So if your not understanding one word they are saying, and the people are merchants/store owners, could be Hakka.



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There was a really unique dialect in Phuket that was a Hokkien/South Thai mash, but it has been largely displaced by the tourism tsunami there...there were some efforts to keep it going, but nowadays even more standard versions of Southern Thai are hard to find on the island. I guess its demise started when they build the bridge to the mainland.

26 minutes ago, Stocky said:

Wife's suggested the "organic" shop in Hat Yai Nai, she's bought coconut oil from there before.

It's on the left hand side of Thanon Phetkasem as you're heading out of town.

 

Coordinates:  6.999929, 100.451539

Thanks for the photo and coordinates. Unfortunately I read the post too late and drove cluelessly past it today; but I will pick it up next time I'm in town.

I have to go to Hat Yai tomorrow and was wondering if anyone knows of a place that sells good-quality, reasonably priced coconut oil...any help much appreciated.

There used to be an 'agent' company that ran a van shuttle from Hat Yai to Penang, and they had offices in both cities. I used it a few times and they have (or had) good contacts with Thai embassy staff. Unfortunately it has been a long time and I don't know if they are still in operation. I don't even remember their name! Maybe some other poster can help out.

On 2/6/2018 at 7:57 PM, surfdog said:

yes Ai Yah.. is this only southern?  Sometimes hard for me to know what is really southern or not. 

My wife said it is a southern Thai thing, but I can't say definitively that it isn't used elsewhere. I don't ever remember hearing it so much when I lived in Bangkok or Phuket.

This has indeed been a useful thread. In the past I would kind of turn my brain off when the locals started going  at each other in Southern Thai, but now I am listening more and asking more questions...not that I really want to speak it myself, just want to understand what is being said and going on around me.

I had a root canal today and the cleaning staff outside the treatment room were in high gear with it, so it gave me something to focus on other than the drill hitting the pulp or the fact that I always felt on the verge of drowning in my own saliva. [sorry if that's TMI]

Anyway, I totally agree that it is hard to know what really is exclusively Southern Thai and what is not. I have just started to work a few Southern Thai expressions into my interactions with the locals and they really get a kick out of it.

Another one that seems to have somehow not been brought up yet is the hugely popular exclamation AIYA! อัยย๊า. I know we aren't supposed to write in all caps, but I think it is merited for this word, which is used to express frustration and dismay.  I am sure most followers of this thread are familiar with it by now...

13 hours ago, lemonjelly said:

you’ll hear “mung” (you) and “goo” (me) a lot in the south, especially amongst the muslims and all of the teens. In the past, it was considered polite but is now considered impolite, having been replaced by “khun, pom, chan”.... best avoid using unless you’re really sure of the situation, and never use it in a formal situation.


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Good advice. I teach here and I have a lot of trouble with students picking up vulgar expressions in English, the most popular of which lately happens to be 'what the *uck?'...I think it should be a golden rule not to start using vulgar words unless you have truly mastered the lingo.

Good stuff...keep 'em coming.

On 1/14/2018 at 8:58 AM, surfdog said:

if you can read Thai, so many websites have writeups, here is one https://gingkanyarat.wordpress.com/คำภาษาถิ่นภาคใต้/

Some of them on the list inmediately made me think “yeah, thats what they say here.”

Such as “lay แล” to look/see (ดู)
กัด gat bite = ขบ cope
นิดหน่อย little nidnoy = hit หิด
มะนาว lime manao = ส้มนาว
เมื่อไร mua rai when - ตอได tor dai
เอิด eurt = kind of kid act spoiled or stubborn i think...
รองเท้า rongtao = gu-eck เกือก
tanon road = non
หมด mot = เหม็ด e.g. medtlaow = no more of something
พูด speak = แหลง (website says L ล) แรง raeng I think more of an R

Soon enough you learn these everyone will be asking you:

Raeng Tai Mai - Can you understand or speak south

Also like lemonjelly says dont underestimate the Tee/Tii

Everything is a “yet” down here

ยังไม่ทำที yung mai tam tii
ยังไม่กินที yung mai gin tii
ไม่ไปที mai pai tii

But really true southern accent is just lazy slurred Thai spoken with an up and down cadence to volume. The vocab helps, but understanding what the hell people are slurring about is the hardest part.

Just loook at the examples like tanon=non, malagor = lagor, nidnoy = hid





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That was a very useful link and set of examples...thanks.

35 minutes ago, Mosha said:

I have to agree. My wife has family in Ranong, Surat, NST and Songkhla, I've never heard the F as in farang pronounced kw.

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Wow, this is getting like cosmology...the more we try to pin it down, the more complexity we are  confronted with.

2 minutes ago, surfdog said:

this is more to do with all Thai speakers in general, many consonants are ok as the first letter, but can't be the final consonant.  It's not just 'ft' like lift, left, craft, shaft, soft, etc.., but also a whole bunch more such as rl, md, nd, rld, rst, 's' plural, etc.. Thai language doesn't have these sounds, so a Thai speaker can learn them, it's just a more difficult part to master for them.

It's very true,,,when I moved here I had trouble with ngo ngu to start a syllable, and had to make up a bunch of tongue twisters to master it....Anyway, I have my teenage daughter here and she is fluent in English, South Thai (Songkhla version) and Central Thai....so if I can ever get her off her iPad I might to to get her as a source of useful new southern words.  For me, I think I hold a personal bias against South Thai because it is so damned loud and excitable, while I am more of a chill guy.

I got a good one at this  shop in Songkhla Town. Google coordinates:

7°10'41.4"N 100°36'43.8"E

I've cracked open two helmets in accidents already...I am a cheap charlie, but this is one area where I never skimp.

Here is one of the key sticking points for local drainage, the outlet to the sea at Pak Tre in Ranode. The built a new bridge (the vantage point for this photo) and had a huge project intended to do away with the old bridge and create a little harbor for longtail fishing boats. The sea, which is very sandy and shallow, had other ideas...If they maintained an ability to actually dredge it before and during the monsoon season it might make a difference. As can obviously be seen they chose to deploy pumps instead...

Good post; highly informative. I miss having one place in Phuket and one in Songkhla so I always had a place to run away from the monsoon.

19 hours ago, Rhys said:

Another storm  post Xmas weekend arriving this weekend?

 

It just petered out...no real effect down here, except that it turned the normal monsoonal flow into unusual northerly (then southerly) winds for a period. We are actually lucky that we don't get many real depressions passing through our land of smiles.

7 hours ago, Stocky said:

Last near miss we had a couple of years back, the water reached the wall below the small terrace area behind the kitchen overlooking the river. The kids and my mother-in-law were sat on the wall watching the water rise. The water came up quickly and with it a wave of creepy crawlies that swarmed up the wall and onto the terrace. Much shrieking and screaming ensued, followed by frantic brushing and spraying of Baygone.

That reminds me of a time I went on an English Language Summer Camp to Khao Yai with a bunch of hi-so kids from Bangkok. We went hiking and some leeches got on them and it was like a scene from one of those Hollywood B horror movies. ..

Anyway, I am happy to report that the flood waters are way down after two days of sun.

Fortunately the TMD's prediction of more heavy rain over the last few days was inaccurate.

Enlightenment.

One thing I will add is that the Thai spirit really comes through during tough times like these. It kind of reminds me of being in Phuket for the tsunami.

Most of my neighbors have been living in knee- to waist-deep, polluted water for already a week, yet they somehow remain in good spirits -- and never cease to get excited about seeing the token farang slogging through their now semi-aquatic community on a booze run, grumbling all the way.

This afternoon I walked through the canal-side community here to the shop where they sell imported spirits at a highly-reduced rate...business as usual, even though the transaction went through in knee-deep water.

The thing I am just starting to understand/appreciate is how these floods extinguish  life.

We had a period with centipedes, cockroaches, newts, salamanders, worms, cats, puppy dogs and & grasshoppers and even some birds trying to find refuge in our place. It's tough. We are all gods, in a way. I only went to (chemical) warfare with the ants. They are formidable.

And then the rains abated. \We had fish swimming around in our front yard, on our soi. It's just amazing how resilient life, in its myriad forms, can be.

At the same time, one can really feel the loss of energy. Maybe some of it just got sucked under the water. Whatever: Life prevails.

I hope I am not totally embarrassed by this tomorrow,

Absolutely correct...Here is a photo of a ditch they are digging directly perpendicular and across Route 408 in Pak Tre, just south of the Rap Praek junction....I don't know if the road will remain passable after the flowing water takes its inevitable, erosive effect.