Use Of "มัน" In This Sentence

[Golden Nugget]

From a Loso fan, "อยากย้ายไปอยู่ซอยนั้นจัง เพราะเรา มันรัก โลโซ". I believe it means, " (I) want to move to and live on that soi because we มัน love Loso. "มัน" means "it". Doesn't make sense. What's the purpose of "มัน" here?

[tgeezer]

I think that the only way to know is to ask the person who wrote it, it is meaningless to anyone else, but a guess maybe มันรัก instead of just รัก gives a 'lo-so' tone to the writing.

[momosan]

เพราะ เรามัน รัก: Because I love.

Here เรามัน is one word the มัน is just added for effect to become something like I am so in love with Loso.

Edited December 13, 2009 by momosan

[Rikker]

Sometimes in Thai grammar including an "extra" pronoun makes a sentence clearer. As in:

ชีวิตมันซับซ้อน "Life's complicated."

Without มัน, ชีวิตซับซ้อน isn't quite complete -- it might simply mean "complicated life". But adding มัน makes it a more clear, complete thought (at least in informal speech).

But this usage has apparently spread beyond that, though, and it's become common to insert มัน as an "extra" pronoun when not strictly necessary. Sometimes it emphasizes the adjective or verb that follows it. It needn't be translated literally. คำแบบนี้มันแปลตรงๆไม่ได้หรอก

งานมันหนักจริงๆ "man, the work is hard" literally something like "the work, it's really hard"

ช่วยไม่ได้ก็ใจมันรัก "I can't help it -- I'm in love with you." Literally, "I can't help it -- my heart, it loves (you)"

And one of those extensions people have made is to use this same structure with personal pronouns, like in the OP's example:

"อยากย้ายไปอยู่ซอยนั้นจัง เพราะเรา มันรัก โลโซ"

"I want to move to that soi, because I love Loso."

(เรา is first person singular here)

[withnail]

I guess it's like in English you might write "cos me, I love Loso ....or.... cos I love Loso, me" I guess the tendency to use man in this context is because it rolls off the tongue fairly easily, though all of Rikker's other examples sound a lot more familiar to me.

On a similar note I remember a friend once said หัวหินสวย and he was corrected by a Thai speaker who said he should have said หัวหินมันสวย I can see that it sounds more complete although I was suprised that he was corrected.

[Golden Nugget]

A belated thank you to everyone.

[Tod Daniels]

Good topic and great answers;

I knew it was appropriate to refer to inanimate objects, and animals, but didn’t realize a person could refer to himself as well with the word มัน. However since reading this thread and in listening closer to thais it is something I have heard.

Now in all probability it was being said all along and I just didn’t catch it.

For my own benefit I’ll ask around tonite when I have my get together with my thai friends, and see what their take is on it, when it is appropriate, if it is self deprecating in any way.

The intricacies of this language are befuddling at times, but ever so slowly making more sense than they did when I started studying a couple years ago.