How To Translate Smart Ass

[raybkk]

looking for a quick answer towards titles question.

[realthaideal]

I'm a terrible speller in Thai, so I'm just gonna transliterate it. I do believe 'smart ass' can be a very contextual thing, from just kidding around, to really being irritating to someone.

I get called "khon 'Prachot Prachan'" by my girlfriend quite reguilarly. The usual sense of the phrase here is to be a person (khon) who says one thing and means another.'

So if my girlfriend is screwing around making silly faces and acting wierd, I'll tell her in Thai "Oh, you are so beautiful today. I like pretty and intelligent women like you." She will then hit me with a Thinglish sentence "I know you pen khon prachot prachan, Tilak." ie 'I know you are saying I'm so pretty and smart but you really mean I look like an idiot, honey.' In other words I'm being a smart ass and calling her pretty when she's walking around imitatiing a chicken - if I must be specific.

Anyway, someone else wants to spell it or add a better phrase, I'd be plenty happy to learn it. But for the subtle Thais, 'Prachot Prachan' goes very far to say alot for me.

It is one of those very important phrases to learn. Maybe time to start a Thai expression thread !! One already out there ??

[katana]

I think PRACHOT PRACHAN is more like to be sarcastic.

A couple of translations for smart ass I have seen are

(n) NOK ROO นกรู้ - a know-it-all

(v) OO-UT ROO อวดรู้ or SOO ROO สู่รู้ - to be a know-it-all.

[Red Lotus]

I've been in a couple situations in a Thai and English speaking environment where I wanted to call a person a "smart ass," but for reasons of professionalism, I didn't. However, my Thai colleagues often would not hesitate to voice their opinion with the word 'naa-man-sai' (น่าหมั่นไส้). 'Naa-man-sai' does not mean smart ass if you look it up in the dictionary, but the word seems to be used in similar ways.

Example: In a meeting scheduled to submit a report to a foreign client...

Colleague (to client): How are you today?

Client: Fine, thank you. Do you have the report ready?

Colleague: Yes, here you go (hands report to client).

Client: What is this?

Colleague: It's the report.

Client: Right. It looks kind of thin. Are you sure it's complete?

Colleague: Yes, I've spent 2 weeks on it.

Client: (reads a couple of pages, smiles and says) ...it looks ok, but you misspelled a word.

Colleague: (turns to me) Naa-man-sai!