mangkorn

ภาษาอังกฤษ paa-săa ang-grìt (this ends with s so why does it have an an ending sounding with a t/d )?

Thai syllables cannot end with an "s" sound. It is just not the way that Thai speech works. The same is true of other sounds, which one can readily consult in a beginners' book or any decent Thai-English dictionary.

Thus, the sound of some Thai consonants at the start of a syllable change when they come at the end of a syllable.

Case in point: the ridiculous"Sawasdee." No Thai person has ever pronounced the word like that; it simply boggles the mind as to why it is so often transcribed that way.

โทรศัพท์ toh-rá-sàp (this ends with t so why does it have an an ending sounding with a p)?

It's rather like English psyche and tmesis, except that it's final clusters that Thai deals with by dropping a consonant is speech. (It's a bit more complicated, because the final consonant was followed by a now-dropped vowel in the source language.)

Another answer is that the symbol above the final consonant in โทรศัพท์" means: "This letter is silent." Therefore, the word does not end with a "t," at least not in terms of Thai pronunciation.

Such is the case with the beer so commonly mispronounced as "Sing-HA." In Thai, the consonant equivalent to the English "h" in the Indic loanword for "lion" is clearly marked as silent by that same symbol, and there is certainly no equivalent to "a" at the end of the word, neither in writing nor in pronunciation.

To be fair to unsuspecting farangs, however, the Thai beer company itself chose the unfortunate transcription "Singha" for its brand label - which is just plain ridiculous, and essentially demands mispronunciation.

The word "singh" is also known the world over, being the name of India's premier (in addition to just about every other religious Sikh male). I'm not absolutely certain how Sikhs pronounce it, but internationally nobody has ever said: Prime Minister Manmohan Sing-HA.

And surely no Thai person has ever said "bia Sing-HA" to another Thai - at least when no foreigners are around - unless they were just acting silly...

There are handbooks of nouns/classifiers on sale at Thai-language bookstores (especially Chula). Presumably, similar lists might be found on the internet, but the hard copy versions are compact and cheap, at about 40 baht. As Peppy says, there are a many nouns for which the classifier is the same word.

Whenever she refers to gold, she uses the word บาท - presumably, a weight/value measure. How much does 1 บาท correspond to in other terms?

Thanks.

For you few fans of this extraordinary storytelling, and lovely plain-style prose, she has just published the second installment of her memoirs. It carries the same title, with the subtitle: กับประสบการณ์ท้องคุก The cover photo is different, too. SE-ED now has both displayed together (store clerks say they're flying off the shelves...) Enjoy.

Words that she employs with great frequency throughout the book are: ค่อนข้าง and หนำซ้ำ. The first is generally used when describing someone's character or personality, the second usually when narrating someone's actions.

I'm just wondering how common those are in everyday speech (particularly the second one)? Thanks.

Do you keep a little notebook of Thai idioms to hand so you have an appropriate one for every situation you may encounter, or do you just commit them to memory?

Of course. Don't you?

Thai has such a rich trove of lovely idioms and proverbs that there is nearly always an appropriate one for just about any situation.

As Tod says, you can get a lot of mileage out of them (and they're fun). I also find that most Thai people appreciate the fact that one has dedicated the time and effort to learn them.

mangkorn,

How common is that rhyme?

It seems to give no hits on Google.

I think it's an old saying - but most people do know it. (It's probably not the kind of thing that would be written on the internet; maybe teenagers today don't say it...)

Anyway, as khun anchan alludes to, very many two-part proverbs only need the first part to be uttered. Quite often, people will jump in and finish them even before you can. That's one of the delightful things about proverbs.

One day, I was riding a bike in the countryside and stopped for a rest and a drink of water. A bunch of peasant kids were playing, and they came running to say "farang, farang!" (as always). I surveyed the scene on their property, and said: รักวัวให้ผูก... to which they immediately and gleefully chimed in: รักลูกให้ตี!

That was very funny: their response was so automatic that they didn't even have time to think that it might not be the kind of sentiment that they would necessarily embrace...

Cheers.

The non-standard spelling might have been ยาซี่ฟัน, which has a different literal meaning. However, I got very few Google hits on it.

This is the same spelling in MY dictionary! I Looked up "toothpaste" and I got the same thing that you have given here. What is the "literal" meaning, by the way?

ซี่ is the classifier for teeth. Maybe ยาซี่ฟัน was an old way for some people to say it, when the act of brushing teeth was not quite obsessed with whitening them...

Like any other language, Thai people don't all necessarily agree on everything, or hear everything the same way. (The discussion on another thread about กินตับ has produced several different opinions from native speakers.)

I also recall a spirited discussion I once had with a few Isaan people who had insisted that I was wrong in my rendering of the proverb: เมียทหารนับขวดเมียตำรวจนับแบ๊งค์

They insisted it was: เมียทหารนับกรวด...

Flustered, I turned to an educated person in the room, who politely whispered: "You're right. But it could be understood the other way, too..."

Indeed, it can. They had always heard ขวด as กรวด because that made sense: empty bottles and pebbles are equally worthless. Their version was incorrect as far as the proverb goes, but the message was basically the same. (The one thing that their version missed is the suggestion that army men blow all their money on drink; cops also drink - but they've got many more ways to get money - and thus always have plenty left over...)

I think its referring to oral sex, thats the explanation I got. Since "gin" is more or less to put something in your mouth and "dtap" is as someone described earlier the sound.

Could of course also mean different things depending on who u talking to etc etc but I think this is correct...

กิน does not necessarily mean to put something in your mouth. There are several uses of the word that have nothing to do with the mouth. "Lottery ticket," for example: สลากกินแบ่ง

A friend was recently lamenting her single status, and said: อยากมีผู้ชายกิน. She meant that she wanted to have boyfriend. She was not saying that she wanted somebody to fellate.

As for sexual usages, even the crude but common rhyme กินหอยแรงดีกินหีแรงถอย refers to fornication, not oral sex.

Thai nationals names represented in English are another nightmare in figuring out how to say them correctly....

The all-time winner in this category has to be: "Ple."

It would almost take a team of genius, code-breaking mathematicians to figure out that "Ple" is "Bun."

The Thai name is เปิ้ล, a diminutive of แอ็ปเปิ้ล ("apple," pronounced "ap-bun" in Thai)

I'd say it's just a jocular, faux-elaborate idiom, perhaps akin to เรียบร้อยโรงเรียนจีน, where even Thai people tend to puzzle over why the idiom is said the way it is. The part tacked on either rhymes or alliterates with the main phrase, but has only a tenuous semantic connection. It mimics the rhyming / alliterative style of real idioms, but in a silly way.

รักเขาข้างเดียวข้าวเหนียวนึ่ง - เดียว and เหนียว rhyme, and the semantic connection seems to be with the one person stuck to the other like sticky rice.

That is compared to เรียบร้อยโรงเรียนจีน, where the ร sounds alliterate, with the apparent implication that Chinese schools are somehow tidy in an exemplary way. Another rather silly idiom.

Just a guess.

While it is true that most Thai people these days may puzzle over why เรียบร้อยโรงเรียนจีน is said the way that it is, and it's now taken to be a jocular, faux-elaborate (or even silly) idiom, it apparently does have an origin that was very contemporary in its relevance. To wit: down here in เยาวราช, some old-timers relate that it dates to the edict from the dictator แปลก พิบูลสงคราม outlawing the teaching of Chinese language. When the government inspectors would show up to see if the edict was being followed - which, of course, it wasn't - the owners and/or principals of the schools would bribe the officials to look the other way. When they returned to report back to the supervisors, those good government officials would duly inform them that เรียบร้อยโรงเรียนจีน ("Everything is in proper order at the Chinese school.")

According to some of the old Chinese in the neighbourhood, the idiom became a euphemism for bribing officials, in general.

Today, of course, it does not carry that meaning. But this is what is related by some people who were around when the phrase first entered the popular lexicon.

Cheers.

I'm not sure what assumptions people made about schoopinit's reference to "culture," but the only example she gave was this one:

"...I think that it is quite important to you if you would like to speak Thai, because I have some foreigner friends and sometimes I found that they know the words but they have some kind of face expressions that are not polite for Thai people..."

That kind of advice is invaluable. Certainly worth the modest fee that she is asking.

"Culture" is much more than folkloric dances. (In one country I know, standing with your hands on your hips may provoke a fight.)

Interesting....

Anyone know the term/saying for 'Jobsworth'

ข้าราชการ ...

My favourite confusions are ทร (ทราย) which is pronounced as an 's' (Sai = sand) - followed by -รร , -รร- or -รรณ pronounced -an , -a- and -an - examples: กรร (gun) กรรม (kam) and วรรณ (wan). Good one is: บรรจุ (Ban Ju - contain)

Levels 2 and 3 in the Thai school books hit this pretty hard...they go over and clearly explain both รร and แท้/ไม่แท้ clusters

So canyou tell me the reason for it? I asked my old teacher, and she just shrugged and said 'from history' whjich as distinctly vague. I understand the rules, but had decided it was 'just becasue' like a lot of English language rule exceptions.

The รร construction is borrowed into Thai from the Khmer way of writing some Pali/Sanskrit words. The rule of thumb is that when the syllable ends in รร, it is pronounced as "an"; when another consonant ends the syllable, that is pronounced as the final (กรรม - gam).

บรรจุ is two syllables: บรร; จุ.

One exception (among possible others?) is: กรรตุ / กะ-ตุ

One rule which is immutable is that if the closing sylable is ร then the missing vowel is 'อ' กร is pronounced กอน

วร: /วะ-ระ-; วอ-ระ-/

Supercilious sort.

No need to travel at all, really. Just listen to the way people speak, when referring to cooking (with or without rice).

Or sit at stay home, and read some books (or a computer screen):

Thai-English Dictionary (Paiboon Publishing)

- ทำกับข้าว - cook (v.)

thai-language.com:

ทำกับข้าว verb - to cook food

Lexitron:

• ทำกับข้าว(V) : cook ; Syn: ทำอาหาร, ทำครัว, ปรุงอาหาร ; Samp: แม่ครัวที่จ้างมาใหม่ทำกับข้าวฝีมือเยี่ยมยอดมา
  

It did read suspiciously as something penned by a non-native speaker.

"Making something to eat" (i.e., anything, that you prepare) is referred to by many people in the shorthand ทำกับข้าว. I have heard it said in Laos, Isan, the central plains, Bangkok, the west, and the south - and yes, even for boiling a packet of instant noodles. As you said, it's an idiom...

Sorry to rain on the OP's epiphany, but the writing in question seems to be quite deliberate - rather than bad spelling.

But I do wonder if it was penned by a Thai person, or a foreigner. Not sure if it is idiomatic, even with the apparent intended irony.

think wot a load of crap!

Oh my, another drunken troll has wandered into the wrong forum, but couldn't resist spewing inane bile and displaying his graceless ignorance...

Anyway, the passage: คนไทยที่เป็นข้าราชการเข้าใจผิดเขานึกว่าเขามีหน้าที่ค้าราชการเพราะว่าเขาได้เสียค่าราชการแพงมาก เนื่องจากเหตุนี้เองเขารับใช้ประชาชน แบบ "รับ (เงิน, ทอง, เกียรติ)แล้วใช้ประชาชนเป็นขี้ข้า" - appears to be an obvious attempt at clever wordplay, with ข้า and ค้า.

The gist of the rant is that government employees are all corrupt.

ข้าราชการ means government officials/bureaucrats.

The deliberate misuse of ค้าราชการ suggests that they use their authority for lucre (ค้า is "trade, commerce, etc."), and/or to make people bow down to them.

The use of รับใช้ here is also ironic: it means "to serve," (but they are serving themselves, for money, and respect); thus, ใช้ประชาชนเป็นขี้ข้า means "they treat the people as their servants/slaves" - instead of they themselves acting as genuine "civil servants."

In broad strokes, it seems like a fairly valid criticism of government employees, the world over (especially cops).

กับข้าว basically means "food."

ทำกับข้าว means "to cook/prepare food."

Boiling an egg, or a packet of instant noodles, can be called ทำกับข้าว

ยอมแพ้ is perhaps best translated as "to surrender."

The song title could be rendered as: "Don't surrender without a fight." (Don't give up without trying)

It's a pretty common term. Ex: you're having a discussion/debate with someone who keeps besting you with his/her rhetoric - or is merely obstinate - and finally you want to say "oh, I give up..." ยอมแพ้แล้ว

But there are often two acceptable pronunciations of compound words from Indic roots, as even the RID notes, e.g.: ประวัติศาสตร์ /ปฺระ-หฺวัด-ติ-สาด; ปฺระ-หฺวัด-สาด/

In my continuing informal poll of scores of Thai people re: the above example word, it comes out to roughly 50-50.

And ฝรัง don't even merit the word คน, somewhere between the beasts and people,well below มนุษย์ !

Unfortunately yes, I too have on occasion heard the pronoun มัน and classifier ตัว used when referring to ฝรัง. Not often though, these words are usually used by angry bus and taxi drivers or shop owners and the like. Most polite Thai people wouldn't use them.

Bannork was not referring to those words, but rather to the fact that a ฝรัง is not referred to as คน. The fact is that ฝรัง is noun, pronoun and classifier - in the real world. If you walk into a shop to buy something, you are never called a ลูกค้า - as any Thai person would be - but just a ฝรัง. If you walk down the sidewalk and trying to pass, someone will invariably say "move aside because a ฝรัง is trying to pass by." It is the most curious thing about Thailand, really. (There are a few million Thais living in Europe and North America; imagine what would happen if there if the shop clerks regularly said, "hey, there's an Asian here" - or other cruder racial characterisations, that would be truer equivalents of ฝรัง. Heavy lawsuits, no doubt...)