English In Thailand

[Tarragona]

I was looking at some of the words in the Macquarie Dictionary database for items of Thai English.

This consists of

1)Thai words and phrases that have been taken into English use in Thailand e.g farang, tuktuk, sanuk, lamyai;

2)English words and phrases that are specific to the context of Thailand e.g. minor wife, hill tribe.

This does not refer to words that are used in mixed English/Thai conversation between husband/wife, for example, but words that can be used in acceptable spoken or written English between Thai-foreigner or foreigner-foreigner in Thailand.

In addition to those above a few others from the database include:

acharn

longtail boat

pad thai

krengjai

A couple of my own suggestions:

mai pen rai as in a 'mai-pen-rai attitude'

somtam

What others can the board come up with?

(Could be a lot of food items but let's try to stick with ones that might commonly crop up for use in English)

Edited May 18, 2007 by Tarragona

[sbk]

Funny, once you try to think of words that you use, they just slip away

But, I do find myself refraining from answering "mai mee" when visiting my parents.

And I have found myself translating the literal "moht lao" to "its finished" in English. Also getting some funny looks from the family

[lazeeboy]

Funny, once you try to think of words that you use, they just slip away

But, I do find myself refraining from answering "mai mee" when visiting my parents.

And I have found myself translating the literal "moht lao" to "its finished" in English. Also getting some funny looks from the family

when listening to freinds i find myself saying er er instead of yes sum num na (not right spelling)an awful lot too