ระเบิดเถิดเทิง - ( Rá-bèrt Tèrt-terng ) - Popular Thai Sitcom

[aanon]

Hi all,

My latest labour of love has been translating an episode of the popular sitcom ระเบิดเถิดเทิง ( rá-bèrt tèrt-terng ). This is one of my favourites, has been running for many years, and stars two of (arguably) the three best-loved tv comics in Thailand. This particular episode features a pregnant ghost looking for the person who melted oil from the chin of her corpse. What more do you need to know?!

In comparison to my other subtitled comedy videos, these subtitles stray further from a literal translation. This is because the show is peppered with exclamations, colloquialisms, idioms, puns and double entendres. Therefore, the subtitles themselves shouldn't be taken as a reference. On the other hand, I hope the possibility exists to use the videos as a starting point for questions and discussion, such as:

* what did they actually say when you gave such-and-such as the subtitle?

* why did such-and-such person say that?

* what's the pregnant ghost thing all about?

* etc.

I'd also be interested to hear whether the show is at all funny in translation. I find it funny, but then again I find it funny in Thai and chuckled my way through the translation. I won't take it personally either way, just wondering.

All the best.

[taxexile]

i was looking forward to watching that , but i get "video no longer available" message when i click "play"

could you provide a link to you tube ?

[aanon]

i was looking forward to watching that , but i get "video no longer available" message when i click "play"

could you provide a link to you tube ?

hey taxexile. i just tried clicking on the video boxes and it worked ok, so perhaps try again. otherwise, you can find the videos at:

www.youtube.com/aanon2550

please let me know if it's still not working.

all the best.

[meadish_sweetball]

[taxexile]

hi aanon , no they are not working , when i click , the you tube screen goes black and a "we're sorry, this video is no longer available" message come up on that black screen.

dont know if its to do with my internet settings or not , but i can watch video clips elsewhere and i have watched them on thai visa before.

i'll will watch them from the you tube site though.

[aanon]

thanks meadish. are you able to see the videos ok from my first post?

[meadish_sweetball]

Yep, they work fine from my end of the interwebbythingy. Looking forward to checking them out as soon as I have more time to spare.

[CSS]

i was looking forward to watching that , but i get "video no longer available" message when i click "play"

could you provide a link to you tube ?

hey taxexile. i just tried clicking on the video boxes and it worked ok, so perhaps try again. otherwise, you can find the videos at:

www.youtube.com/aanon2550

please let me know if it's still not working.

all the best.

Aanon, the videos played fine for me. I found it quite funny and the language natural and appropriate.

[CSS]

I didn't catch the Thai on the line about taking care of the boat, not taking care of the boat. What is that in Thai? The joke didn't transfer as well for me but I'm not sure what a better English pun would be to show damaging it instead of watching after it as I assume the punchline to be. "Taking care" works for me in a mafia setting related to people but doesn't seem to fit quite as well with boats. Then again maybe that's part of the joke.

[aanon]

i was looking forward to watching that , but i get "video no longer available" message when i click "play"

could you provide a link to you tube ?

hey taxexile. i just tried clicking on the video boxes and it worked ok, so perhaps try again. otherwise, you can find the videos at:

www.youtube.com/aanon2550

please let me know if it's still not working.

all the best.

Aanon, the videos played fine for me. I found it quite funny and the language natural and appropriate.

thanks for those thoughts, css. i was aiming for natural language - which took quite a bit of editing work - so i'm glad to hear that comment.

all the best.

[stevehaigh]

it plays fine for me but even with the subtitles, it's hard for me to understand 90% of it. they're talking too fast. i think i would do better with the news or a soap than a comedy.

that's for posting however, quite an effort.

steve

[aanon]

I didn't catch the Thai on the line about taking care of the boat, not taking care of the boat. What is that in Thai? The joke didn't transfer as well for me but I'm not sure what a better English pun would be to show damaging it instead of watching after it as I assume the punchline to be. "Taking care" works for me in a mafia setting related to people but doesn't seem to fit quite as well with boats. Then again maybe that's part of the joke.

hey CSS,

the pun in thai is based on two words: ลื้อ and รื้อ. the first is a word that thais of chinese descent often use for 'you'. รื้อ generally means to pull down, pull apart (a house, for example).

puns based on a mishearing between ร and ล are popular (as the two are often pronounced the same in spoken thai).

so, Song says "ฝากลื้อ" (can i leave this with you?)

the other guys interprets it as "ฝากรื้อ" (can i leave this for you to pull apart)

so, that's the pun. for the english version, i had to come up with something that could cover both 'look after' and 'destroy', and the dual meaning of "take care of it" was the best i could think of. i agree, though, it's not 100% satisfying. like you said, if The Godfather says "take care of it" then we consider the other meaning, but otherwise it might not naturally occur to us. perhaps i could have used "Yeah, I said "take care of it", but do I look like The Godfather?"

thanks for the comment.

all the best.

[aanon]

it plays fine for me but even with the subtitles, it's hard for me to understand 90% of it. they're talking too fast. i think i would do better with the news or a soap than a comedy.

that's for posting however, quite an effort.

steve

fair enough, steve. if there are any lines that you nearly (but don't quite) get, or if any phrases catch your ear and you want to know them, feel free to ask.

all the best.

[Trevor]

What is the meaning of ระเบิดเถิดเทิง ? What is the spelling of 'huay' when used at the end of a sentence as a mild expletive?

Interesting to see that soap operas are as mind-numbingly moronic in the East as they are in the West. Only really worth watching with your subtitles so as to learn a few colloquialisms.

The slapstick stand-up variety shows before a live audience are worse. Please spare us a translation of those.

Confirmation, if any were needed, that the Thai's sense-of-humour is essentially childlike.

Edited April 14, 2008 by Trevor

[aanon]

What is the meaning of ระเบิดเถิดเทิง ? What is the spelling of 'huay' when used at the end of a sentence as a mild expletive?

Interesting to see that soap operas are as mind-numbingly moronic in the East as they are in the West. Only really worth watching with your subtitles so as to learn a few colloquialisms.

The slapstick stand-up variety shows before a live audience are worse. Please spare us a translation of those.

Confirmation, if any were needed, that the Thai's sense-of-humour is essentially childlike.

ระเบิด means to explode. เถิดเทิง is the name of a type of bottle shaped drum, but i think it appears here merely to form a rhyming expression. my belief (i'm happy to be corrected on this) is that the name of the show is intended to imply that it is an absolute blast, great fun, a riotous good time, etc. also, in the show, the soi that they all live on is called ซอยเถิดเทิง.

with the particle you asked about, do you mean like Song uses right at the end of the episode where i have used the subtitle "serves you bloody well right"? if so, i'd spell it เฮ่ย.

child-like humour has its place in all cultures. fart jokes, sight gags, terrible puns and so on never seem to go out of fashion [of course, never having been part of more than a couple of cultures myself, this is an assumption i'm making]. certainly these forms of humour are strongly represented in a sitcom like ระเบิดเถิดเทิง or in the kind of slapstick show you mention, but i think it's a mistake to conclude that this is all there is to thai humour.

all the best.

[mangkorn]

Excellent work, as always aanon. One question: when the son says "I have an idea..." he uses the word วิธี - right?

If that's the common way to say it, you will have solved a big mystery for me.

Thanks, and cheers.

[aanon]

Excellent work, as always aanon. One question: when the son says "I have an idea..." he uses the word วิธี - right?

If that's the common way to say it, you will have solved a big mystery for me.

Thanks, and cheers.

Thanks Mangkorn. You heard Teng correctly. What he says is:

ฉันมีวิธีละพ่อ

i have [thought of] a way

So I could have used:

Teng: 'I have a way.'

Maha: 'What's that?'

Maha: 'Well, what's this way of yours?'

Teng: 'This! Aaaaarrgh!'

But I thought it sounded a little unnatural. Thinking of how a moment like this is usually scripted in an English speaking setting, we usually hear either:

I have an idea.

or

I know how [we can get rid of him].

Keep in mind that ฉันมีวิธี could be used in other situations, but in a case where it's being used to signal that the speaker has thought of a solution to a problem, I'd say that "I have an idea" is a good equivalent. Hope that does help with your mystery.

all the best.

ps. Thinking about other ways to express the same thing in Thai, I'd say that ฉันคิดออกแล้ว (ว่าจะไล่เขาอย่างไร) or ฉันรู้แล้ว (ว่าจะต้องทำอย่างไรให้เขาออกจากซอยเรา) would both be ok, but ฉันมีความคิดแล้ว would sound quite strange.

Edited April 14, 2008 by aanon

[aanon]

[sorry, duplicate post]

Edited April 14, 2008 by aanon

[djayz]

Thanks Aanon! Just what I've been looking for to "train my ear" to Thai! Excellent!

[zzdocxx]

Cool, I watched the first one, funny!

[aanon]

Thanks Aanon! Just what I've been looking for to "train my ear" to Thai! Excellent!

you're welcome. the dialogue is pretty fast-paced, overall probably a little faster than average daily speech, but mixed in with other materials could be helpful. let me/us know if you're curious about any words, etc.

zzdocxx, glad you liked it.

[supranee39simon36]

excellent i found them to be goodand now english too

[Bangyai]

Great stuff from Teng and Nong. I sometimes catch this show by accident but don't know its scheduled time. Beats mediocre films in English on UBC. I used to prefer Mam but Teng has the edge now. Strangely, if I'd watched this sort of thing when I first got here I would have thought it a load of crap.