Thick-skinned In Thai?

[fire69water]

Read somewhere thick-skinned in Thai is yangna. ยางหนา or ยางหน้า? Or something else?

 

Can it be used both positively, as an encouragement, or negatively, as in meaning shameless?

[tgeezer]

It will be หนังหนา skin thick. Whether it means anything to a Thai I don’t know. 

[poanoi]

thick skin is an english speaking analogy, you are better off looking at shameless

and find out analogy for the word shameless

[tgeezer]

Chatting in the park now. หน้าหนา seems popular. หน้าด้าน describes some golfers I know, brazenly cheating, they don’t care what anyone thinks. That is thick skinned to me.


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[lannarebirth]

39 minutes ago, tgeezer said:

Chatting in the park now. หน้าหนา seems popular. หน้าด้าน describes some golfers I know, brazenly cheating, they don’t care what anyone thinks. That is thick skinned to me.


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I've never heard the term "thick skinned" to mean "shameless". It's normal usage depicts a person who can suffer a lot of abuse, usually verbal, and carry on as normal.  Your golfers I would describe as being brazen, or with a lot of gall, or having an excess of chutzpah.

[cmsally]

There is a word similar but I think its Northern Thai = leuk

means something between thick skinned/unaware/stupid!

[poanoi]

speaking of northern thai: i know the meaning of lom lai lai, -broke mf !

but what does it mean more specifically ?

issit "just a fart" or ?

 

[eric67]

ล้มละลาย lom la-laai = bankrupt

 

It’s standard Central Thai btw.

 

[tgeezer]

Poanoi. It is ลัม to faint, fall down or similar, not ลม wind. 

ละลาย is to melt. So an interesting combination meaning to lose everything in your life, to have nothing left. 

 

[lannarebirth]

16 hours ago, cmsally said:

There is a word similar but I think its Northern Thai = leuk

means something between thick skinned/unaware/stupid!

Wouldn't that be someone who is thick headed? This is what thick skinned means in English:

 

Quote

thick-skinned. adjective. The definition of thick skinned is someone who is not easily upset or insulted and who can take criticism well. An example of thick skinned is a person who is insulted and simply says "whatever, I don't care."

 

[Monomial]

19 hours ago, tgeezer said:

Chatting in the park now. หน้าหนา seems popular. หน้าด้าน describes some golfers I know, brazenly cheating, they don’t care what anyone thinks. That is thick skinned to me.


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หน้าหนา  definitely means shameless, but it has a negative connotation. As you said, it implies acting brazenly. That is not thick skinned.

 

Thick skinned is actually a positive character attribute in the West, as explained above, meaning one can take a lot of verbal abuse and just let it roll off.  I can not think of an exact translation. This is probably a cultural issue, because in Thailand, where saving face is everything, nobody would ever need to develop a thick skin.  In fact, if you have a thick skin there is probably something seriously wrong with you, because you must be pretty awful for people to publicly ridicule you in order to develop that thick skin.

 

I think something more along the lines of "able to accept criticism" might be the closest culturally appropriate way to phrase it. Something like:

 

สามารถยอมรับคำวิจารณ์ได้

 

Of course, that doesn't convey the complete context either, as thick-skinned usually includes the ability to calmly ignore unreasonable criticism and slander as well, something a Thai would never historically do because it would result in a loss of face and status.

 

What about just:  ใจเย็น

 

Quote

Read somewhere thick-skinned in Thai is yangna

 

"Rubber face?"  Interesting if true. I've never heard this before.

 

 

 

Edited March 4, 2018 by Monomial

[Damrongsak]

Then there's "hard headed", but that's a bit different. Though it goes along nicely with thick skinned.  I'll have to ask the wife later on.  I'm thinking it's more like "tough face" or thereabouts, but no direct translation.

[Air Smiles]

ไม่ยินดียินร้าย

maiF yinM deeM yinM raaiH

 

Edited March 4, 2018 by Air Smiles

[fire69water]

9 hours ago, Monomial said:

"Rubber face?"  Interesting if true. I've never heard this before.

Shameless is ไร้ยางอาย. Donno what the ‘rubber’ is doing in here.

 

[tgeezer]

I am glad that you have come back because often people don't.  To find a Thai word one needs some context. We don't all see thick skinned in the same way. 

 My E-T dictionary says หน้าด้าน หน้าหนา for thck skinned which is probably 'official' because that is what I was told.

ไรยางอาย ไม่อับอาย are definitions of หน้าด้าน I think. 

ไม่ยินดียินร้าย > not pleased, dissatisfied, I can't see that fitting. 

 

[bannork]

18 hours ago, lannarebirth said:

Wouldn't that be someone who is thick headed? This is what thick skinned means in English:

 

 

lannarebirth is right, thick-skinned in English means to be able to take criticism- to learn another language like Thai you have to be a bit thick-skinned because you're going to make mistakes which can cause laughter.. The opposite is thin-skinned which means hurt too easily, too sensitive, It's an attribute, can handle derision or criticism.

A couple of possibilities perhapsfor thick-skinned -ไม่อ่อนไหวง่าย,  ไม่แยแส

 

[Sweet memory 80s]

If the poster want to refer to shameless as "Yang Na อย่างหนา" it's almost correct but may be too hard to understand for anyone who doesn't know how it came. There is already an idiom "หน้าหนา"  but this is considered too old words and not so cool for the teens so they borrowed a copywriting from a TV commercial which saying "อย่างหนา ตราช้าง  Yang nha Tra Chaang"  for a durability/toughness of a brand of roof tile, then shortened to just อย่างหนา This TV ads was quite long ago might be 15 years up. This new teen idiom/slang has been hit since then.

[Air Smiles]

8 hours ago, tgeezer said:

ไม่ยินดียินร้าย > not pleased, dissatisfied, I can't see that fitting.

 

I translated to something different:

 

verb phrase

ไม่ยินดียินร้าย

maiF yinM deeM yinM raaiH

to appear indifferent to; appear unmoved; impassive; apathetic

 

or maybe:

 

noun

ความไม่ยินดียินร้าย  khwaamM

maiF yinM deeM yinM raaiH 

Stoicism

 

 

[Air Smiles]

or rather:

 

noun

ความไม่ยินดียินร้าย 

khwaamM maiF yinM deeM yinM raaiH

Stoicism

[tgeezer]

The best thing is to try to be fluent in Thai and you won’t get there by mixing the languages, which effectively gives English definitions to Thai words via ‘equivalent words’. 

Take thick skinned for example; we know that it is not to be taken literally, but the literal state would mean that you were impervious to injury which, in the abstract sense,  means that your mentality will not be affected. Naturally this can be considered a good thing; A politician whom you support is thick skinned, or negative, a politician whom you do not support is thick skinned.   

We have many more words in English than has Thai and many of them mean the same thing, so Thai often can’t supply a word. 

Take stoicism as an example; I think that it describes a mentally strong person, someone who can take what life hands out.  ไม่ยินดี is not happy, ยินร้าย is not satisfied so putting the two together do we get stoicism?  However somebody has decreed ไม่ยินดียินร้าย as the definition of stoicism, in some contexts that may well be true.  

Now I shall look up stoicism. 

A person who can endure pain or hardship without showing their feelings. Well I was close enough but my understanding has less physicality about it.  

Now from my E-T dictionary: 

คนที่ไม่แสดงอารมณ์ A person who does not show his feelings.  That would be true of someone who is thick skinned as well wouldn’t it?    

Thai people know what ไม่ยินดียินร้าย means but does it describe a stoic to a Thai? 

 

To the point of listening to unlettered people in the street; you will always be understood with a smile there but whether you are actually understood is debatable. 

There is only one way to communicate and that is to use words with their meaning and role as defined in a scholarly dictionary. I find the RID sufficient but there are others more up to date than that. The difference is not large.   . 

 Difficulty in learning a language is caused almost entirely in ignorance of the native speakers and their desire for originality so that many words change their meaning over time and it is impossible to deduce meaning other than from context. When the misunderstanding of individual words is so widespread that it can not be ignored it will be incorporated in the dictionary

I have noticed that when I use a word incorrectly The error is identified from context and I am corrected with คนไทยพูดว่า, no English is required. 

So, for those people who don’t have a vocabulary of thousands of ‘equivalent words’, stick to the words you do know and expand from there.  

Bannork will agree with me I think,  ไม่อ่อนไหวง่าย not easily swayed> your politician , อ่อนไหวง่าย their politician. แยแส not interested> their politician, (all politicians?)

[tgeezer]

On 01/03/2018 at 10:03 AM, tgeezer said:

This programme (or me)added an irrelevant post! 

 

On 05/03/2018 at 2:44 AM, Monomial said:

 

หน้าหนา  definitely means shameless, but it has a negative connotation. As you said, it implies acting brazenly. That is not thick skinned.

 

Thick skinned is actually a positive character attribute in the West, as explained above, meaning one can take a lot of verbal abuse and just let it roll off.  I can not think of an exact translation. This is probably a cultural issue, because in Thailand, where saving face is everything, nobody would ever need to develop a thick skin.  In fact, if you have a thick skin there is probably something seriously wrong with you, because you must be pretty awful for people to publicly ridicule you in order to develop that thick skin.

 

I think something more along the lines of "able to accept criticism" might be the closest culturally appropriate way to phrase it. Something like:

 

สามารถยอมรับคำวิจารณ์ได้

 

Of course, that doesn't convey the complete context either, as thick-skinned usually includes the ability to calmly ignore unreasonable criticism and slander as well, something a Thai would never historically do because it would result in a loss of face and status.

 

What about just:  ใจเย็น

 

 

"Rubber face?"  Interesting if true. I've never heard this before.

 

 

 

I agree that thick skinned doesn’t describe behaviour, it describes a person who is able to behave in a certain way because he has been criticised for it and is able to ignore the criticism.  There is no point in describing someone as หน้าหนา just like that with no context at all, it comes during a discussion along the lines of: 

ก. ดูสิเขาได้เคลื้อนลูกแล้ว ๆ เขาก็การโกงเลย

ข. ใช่สิทุกคนรู้จักเขา คนหน้าหนา 

Whether thick skinned is is positive or not seems to depend on your age, I was born in the forties when being impervious to criticism was negative as it is or was in Thai. This is a good example of how even in English we misunderstand one another.  As you have said ใจเย็น is positive, if you admired someone who was brazen enough not to be shamed into desisting, someone who is หน้าหนา, you might call him ใจเย็น but the issue is culture, would it be confusing in that context? 

 

Edited March 6, 2018 by tgeezer

[tgeezer]

On 06/03/2018 at 9:04 AM, tgeezer said:

Edit:

เคลื่อน is a spelling mistake, also maybe เคลื่อนที่ says ‘moved position” better.

ก. ดูสิเขาได้เคลื่อนที่ลูกแล้ว ๆ เขาก็การโกงเลย

ข. ใช่สิทุกคนรู้จักเขา คนหน้าหนา 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Apiwan2]

 

As I know it's "Nang nar nar dan"

Or just short "Nar dan"



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[fire69water]

So can I conclude that อย่างหนา, หน้าหนา, หน้าด้าน, ไร้ยางอาย are generally used negatively as in ‘shameless’? To use thick skinned positively in Thai, use ใจเย็น ใจกล้า etc?

 

[tgeezer]

A good question, I don't know where อย่างหนา comes from, I can't think of any verb that can be done in a หนา way. 

Provided that you have set the scene, I don't think that it matters much what you say, the listener knows what you mean even of you use the wrong word. Do you see what I mean?  

The หน้า words are หน้าต้าน หน้าทน and หน้าหนา they all mean the same thing ไม่มีความรู้สึกอายในสิ่งที่ควรอาย

It would be interesting to see if there is a pattern whereby ใจ is positive and หน้า is negative. 

หน้า means a person's face and many of the definitions of หน้า words start off with สีหน้า which is what your expression reveals about your feelings. The definition above is not the literal definition of หน้าต้าน หน้าหนาทน หน้าหนา which is มีสีหน้าไม่สลดทั้งที่ควรจะอายแต่ก็ไม่อาย 

[The manic]

On 04/03/2018 at 8:14 AM, lannarebirth said:

 

I've never heard the term "thick skinned" to mean "shameless". It's normal usage depicts a person who can suffer a lot of abuse, usually verbal, and carry on as normal.  Your golfers I would describe as being brazen, or with a lot of gall, or having an excess of chutzpah.

Thick skinned can mean Insensitive but not chutzpah thats more initative.  Brass necked is another phrase that comes to mind - brass necked cheek! 

[tgeezer]

Chatspa is a good illustration of a word which might turn up and which we mat not know, we can either ignore it or try to give it a meaning deduced from the comtext. This is the technique for understanding Thai  which I propose. We can either make up our own mind or take someone elses deduction which may come from a differnt context from the one at issue. 

In #20 I asked a question of Thai speakers about ไม่ยินดียินร้าย to which the 'equivalent word 'stoic' had been ascribed. There was no answer so I ask it again, if ไม่ยินดียินร้าย says anything to you does it say 'stoic' to you?