Exhaust Pipe Need Repair

[george]

How do you write a little note in Thai language telling the service guys that there is a leak in the exhaust pipe near the motor?

[withnail]

How do you write a little note in Thai language telling the service guys that there is a leak in the exhaust pipe near the motor?

Haven't been able to check, but I'm pretty sure this will work.

ท่อไอเสียแตกใกล้เครื่องยนต์

The exhaust is broken near the motor

[Barabbas]

How do you write a little note in Thai language telling the service guys that there is a leak in the exhaust pipe near the motor?

Haven't been able to check, but I'm pretty sure this will work.

ท่อไอเสียแตกใกล้เครื่องยนต์

The exhaust is broken near the motor

I wonder if รั่ว can be applied to the gas pipes/lines, like with water pipes?

Edited April 20, 2009 by Barabbas

[withnail]

How do you write a little note in Thai language telling the service guys that there is a leak in the exhaust pipe near the motor?

Haven't been able to check, but I'm pretty sure this will work.

ท่อไอเสียแตกใกล้เครื่องยนต์

The exhaust is broken near the motor

I wonder if รั่ว can be applied to the gas pipes/lines, like with water pipes?

You're right it could. I chose this one because I thought about using รั่ว but forgot it could be used as a verb and thought it would therefore need extra words. I also did a quick google at the time and used แตก because I'd seen someone else do so. Still we're splitting hairs slightly here, I think either would work fine.

[Barabbas]

How do you write a little note in Thai language telling the service guys that there is a leak in the exhaust pipe near the motor?

Haven't been able to check, but I'm pretty sure this will work.

ท่อไอเสียแตกใกล้เครื่องยนต์

The exhaust is broken near the motor

I wonder if รั่ว can be applied to the gas pipes/lines, like with water pipes?

You're right it could. I chose this one because I thought about using รั่ว but forgot it could be used as a verb and thought it would therefore need extra words. I also did a quick google at the time and used แตก because I'd seen someone else do so. Still we're splitting hairs slightly here, I think either would work fine.

Sure it would.

BTW my professor in college did once give us a theory regarding grammatical functions of some types words in Thai - he said that there's an opinion regarding existance of adjectives per se in Thai (and some other SEA languages) - in a nutshell, Thai adjectives act like verbs (i.e. เขียว not "green", but "to be green", "ฉลาด" not just "smart".but "to be smart" etc.).

I wonder if anyone is of the same opinion on the subject?

[withnail]

I agree totally, this came up here once before I remember. I just forgot it applied to this particular example.

[mangkorn]

BTW my professor in college did once give us a theory regarding grammatical functions of some types words in Thai - he said that there's an opinion regarding existance of adjectives per se in Thai (and some other SEA languages) - in a nutshell, Thai adjectives act like verbs (i.e. เขียว not "green", but "to be green", "ฉลาด" not just "smart".but "to be smart" etc.).

I wonder if anyone is of the same opinion on the subject?

Agreed. We had a circular debate on this subject awhile ago, which deteriorated in large part because people insisted on different grammatical terms to describe the same thing. I suggested "predicate adjective," which speaks clearly to both functions of verb and description. But other terms are fine as well. Adjectives in English and other languages have those same properties, too, depending on sentence construction, whence the relevant grammatical terms. It also depends on the context: "yellow house" and บ้านเหลือง are quite the same - when the intent is purely to add a descriptive word, to distinguish it from the other houses. In such case, เหลือง is simply an adjective. (For those who disagree, such as one self-described native Thai speaker in that debate, the logic would have to follow that English, Spanish, etc. have no adjectives, either.) To wit: if you say, "look at that house," and your friend asks: บ้านไหน - to which you reply, บ้านเหลืองนั่น - you would not be saying "the house IS yellow," but rather "the YELLOW house (as opposed to the other houses of different colours)" simply to distinguish it. I don't see any syntactical verb function in this example. Of course, one may argue that the sentence means "the house THAT IS yellow," in which case we'd be back down that winding yellow-brick road with the aforementioned alleged Thai interlocutor who argued vehemently that "Thai language has NO adjectives, ONLY verbs!" If that were true, it would follow that no language has adjectives, a preposterous notion - even in Thai - where all dictionaries and grammarians use the word คำคุณศัพท์, which does not translate as "verb" (คำกริยา).

Oops, sorry about the ranting deviation from your own point, about the dual properties of adjectives - "acting like verbs" - which is a good way to put it, I'd say.

This was just a nagging remnant from an old argument (the other guy declared the infallibility of his own dubious assertion, and then chose to depart the forum, without considering any other position or nuance). Never mind.

[Barabbas]

This was just a nagging remnant from an old argument (the other guy declared the infallibility of his own dubious assertion, and then chose to depart the forum, without considering any other position or nuance). Never mind.

From my purely practical point of view it's quite useless to break lances upon any theory, if it will not have any visible effect on something. And I'm sure there is no such thing as "infallible assertion" in this world or any place close

On the subject - "predicate adjective" sounds clear and quite logical to me.

[mangkorn]

Of course, there is nothing more maddeningly complex than English-language grammar...

But if anyone is interested, Webster's Dictionary of English offers this simple definition:

Entry: predicate adjective

Part of Speech: noun

Definition: an adjective following a linking verb that describes the subject, such as 'roses are red'

Okay, that much is clear. One main difference between English and Thai is that the latter does not use a "to be" verb to link the subject to the adjective; in the latter, the translation would be "roses red" - but the "to be" verb is understood. If that is not understood, then people may argue that the adjective is also the verb, if they need to think of it that way. Fair enough...

Yet, in English poetry, one might also find the construction "roses red," in which the poet simply chose to omit the word "are" - which makes the phrase construction sound nicer for his intent, but does nothing to change the meaning from "roses (are) red." In such case, is "red" a verb, or an adjective? Quite clearly, it is still an adjective; he merely reversed the typical order of adjective-noun, for poetic effect.

And that poet's choice is comparable to the way that Thai language uses adjectives, it seems to me.

I think this is the sticking point of such an esoteric and probably time-wasting semantic effort as this one (but I have some time at the moment): in English, the "to be" verb is used for both temporal and permanent conditions; in Thai, the temporal/descriptive usage does not require a principal "to be" verb - which is why the adjective is considered by some to actually be a verb - or as Barrabas put it so well, "to act like a verb." In either case, the meaning is same: "red roses/roses red/roses are red" = กุหลาบแดง

As I come from Spanish language, which has a very strict and clear grammatical structure, I have a certain perspective on this mundane point. There are two distinct "to be" verbs in Spanish, which eliminate any possible confusion: "ser" refers to the essential or permanent nature of things; "estar" refers to the temporal or descriptive nature - there is a clearly delineated difference between "the rose is a flower," and "that rose is red." But English uses "to be" for both. A good student can comprehend that, in both languages.

That Thai language developed without any need at all for the temporal/descriptive "to be" verb, does not mean that the predicate is not there; it is clearly implied within. Perhaps that is just a simpler grammatical construct. แล้วแต่ใครจะคิด ฯลฯ

Yet adjectives, including predicate adjectives, still belong to the "noun" part of speech, because they modify the noun, essentially. The fact that Thai adjectives may also be considered to incorporate the implied verb function, may (or may not) be a linguistically superior method. It does certainly make them decidedly more versatile...

But, it's just a different method. In the end, everybody is communicating the exact same ideas, in all languages.

That said, some serious students do need to have certain comparative concepts to help them comprehend the particular grammatical structures of new languages - which is the only reason why I brought it up in the first place.

Cheers.

Edited April 24, 2009 by mangkorn

[Barabbas]

ีDumbfounded. Enough said. มอบกราบ.

Edited April 24, 2009 by Barabbas

[pitcha]

It's best to use "ท่อไอเสียรั่วใกล้เครื่องยนต์" .Use "รั่ว" (a leak) instead.