I was taught that 'nice to meet you' is something like 'yindi tee dai lukja' but am unsure about the last word. Also I know 'yindi' means pleasure. 'tee' is, i think 'place of', 'dai' is 'can'. altough this doesn't seem correct maybe enlightenment on the last word will make it all make sense.

can anyone help

B

I was taught that 'nice to meet you' is something like 'yindi tee dai lukja' but am unsure about the last word. Also I know 'yindi' means pleasure. 'tee' is, i think 'place of', 'dai' is 'can'. altough this doesn't seem correct maybe enlightenment on the last word will make it all make sense.

can anyone help

B

The phrase you have been taught is "yin[M] dii[M] thii[F] dai[F] ruu[H]jak[L]"

"ruujak" means 'to be acquainted (with)". You are correct that 'thii[F]' sometimes means 'place', but in this case it functions as a relative pronoun that can be translated as 'that', 'which', 'who', 'whom' depending on the context.

'Yin[M] dii[M]' means "delighted" or "glad", it is also the standard reply to a "khawb[LL] khun[M]" (thank you) - in that case, "yin dii" can be loosely translated as "You're welcome"/"My pleasure".

'Pleasure' as a noun can in some contexts be translated as "khwaam yindii". The word "khwaam[M]" is a word which can be added to a verb in order to form abstract nouns. It has an equivalent in "gaan" which forms concrete nouns out of verbs, cf. 'wing'[F] = 'run' but "gaan[M] wing[F]" = 'running' as an activity.

Thais in general have a hard time separating word classes since Thai is much more liberal in some aspects of everyday speech sentence construction.

This is probably why somebody has told you that "yin dii" means "pleasure", when in reality it is not a noun but a stative verb (an adjective in English) = "glad" or "delighted".

I was taught that 'nice to meet you' is something like 'yindi tee dai lukja' but am unsure about the last word. Also I know 'yindi' means pleasure. 'tee' is, i think 'place of', 'dai' is 'can'. altough this doesn't seem correct maybe enlightenment on the last word will make it all make sense.

can anyone help

B

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The phrase you have been taught is "yin[M] dii[M] thii[F] dai[F] ruu[H]jak[L]"

"ruujak" means 'to be acquainted (with)". You are correct that 'thii[F]' sometimes means 'place', but in this case it functions as a relative pronoun that can be translated as 'that', 'which', 'who', 'whom' depending on the context.

'Yin[M] dii[M]' means "delighted" or "glad", it is also the standard reply to a "khawb[LL] khun[M]" (thank you) - in that case, "yin dii" can be loosely translated as "You're welcome"/"My pleasure".

'Pleasure' as a noun can in some contexts be translated as "khwaam yindii". The word "khwaam[M]" is a word which can be added to a verb in order to form abstract nouns. It has an equivalent in "gaan" which forms concrete nouns out of verbs, cf. 'wing'[F] = 'run' but "gaan[M] wing[F]" = 'running' as an activity.

Thais in general have a hard time separating word classes since Thai is much more liberal in some aspects of everyday speech sentence construction.

This is probably why somebody has told you that "yin dii" means "pleasure", when in reality it is not a noun but a stative verb (an adjective in English) = "glad" or "delighted".

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Ta mucho

This language seems to be getting harder to learn, the more I learn the more complex it becomes, hey ho, I'll just keep at it.

B

This language seems to be getting harder to learn, the more I learn the more complex it becomes, hey ho, I'll just keep at it.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Don't worry, it's only got three cases and about a hundred genders.