Another coincidental sound-alike (more or less) is ไฟ / fire.

Oy...oy...oy.. ( sometimes Thai women say that during sex )

.. i used to live in Belguim, and parents would say... Oy.. oy.. oy !!! to their children when they were angry..ok, not the same.. one is to express pleasure.. the other to express anger..

signed: homonym

There are many words that sound similar but the meanings are different.

Classic example ฟัก sound like fu_k in English but it means gourd in Thai, It is also many people's name.

Porn or พร: People name in Thai

cow pad - ข้าวผัด

Poo - ปู

Shit - ชิต again people name.

"Yet" is a very rude word in Thai means having sex.

Edited March 6, 201016 yr by anchan42

kcf

mcdonalds

whiskey

joke

airport

coke

MONEY

there are the obvious ones that have been 'transported' over like computer but then that's done in many languages too, modern devices often have the same or similar names in many tongues, 'remote' (leemote) for the remote control for the 'Tee Wee' has obviously come from English. OK seems universal

what did surprise me was CaaLott carrot, how did that happen?

Oy...oy...oy.. ( sometimes Thai women say that during sex )

.. i used to live in Belguim, and parents would say... Oy.. oy.. oy !!! to their children when they were angry..ok, not the same.. one is to express pleasure.. the other to express anger..

signed: homonym

you sure it's pleasure?

The coincidental sound-alikes are the more interesting I think. จด/jot (down) is kind of one, is "arcade" / อาเขต another one ? I'm not sure if it's derived from เขต in some way, or if it's just an unusual transliteration from English. The more standard transliterations อาร์เคด/อาเคด are also used sometimes.

Edited March 6, 201016 yr by mike_l

playboy

what I love about these loanwords is that lots of thai's don't relise they are english words to start with.

leo-leo

why didn't you say U-Turn?

I didn't think you'd understand that word.

Gay

Ladyboy

Sex

Short time

Pay

Money

555+

Has anybody mentioned "beer"?

I think "furniture" sounds about the same too.

There are many words in Thai which come from Hindi-Sanskrit,but apparently not at all from Chinese.

Another coincidental sound-alike; พก/pok to pocket something, carry in the pocket.

Tissue

Air

Shampoo

What did surprise me was CaaLott carrot, how did that happen?

A lot of foreign vegetables were introduced in the 19th century.

the list so far...

7-11 (normally abbreviated to just 7)

Air

airport

Album

amazing

apartment

apple

Arcade

autistic

avocado

bar

beer

brim

broccoli

broccoli

bus

cafe (coffee)

cake

cantaloupe

carbohydrate

carrot

CD

cheese

Cheeseburger

chocolate

cholesterol

classic

cock

coke

computer

condo

copy

cow pad

dangeri (dangerous)

Dinosaur

discoteque

DVD

email

FARANG (Thai word)

farm

fashion

fi (fire)

film

football

free

furniture

Gay (also means old in Thai)

guitar

Hamburger

hello

ice cream

idea

idiot

jacket

jeep

joke

jot (as in write down)

kcf

Ladyboy

lift

lipstick

lorry

lottery

Margarine

McDonalds

microwave

Money

monitor

motorcycle

ok

OT (over time)

pad Thai

Pay

Pickup truck

pizza

plan

plastic

Plastic Bag

Playboy

Poo

Porn

postcard

rim

romantic

Screwdriver

sensitive

serious

Sex

sexy

Shampoo

shirt

Shit

shopping

Short time

slope

snook (snooker)

Sofa

spaghetti

stamp

steak

strawberry

supermarket

Tampon

taxi

Technology

Thai

Tissue

tractor

TV

Video (VDO)

vitamin

Volley

web

whiskey

kilo

kilogram

Edited March 7, 201016 yr by gosompoi

How about thai words that sound like english but have different meanings than the english words. Just some examples.

Thai English

men = stinks (smells bad)

she = urinate ( to piss or pee)

by = go

bye bye = go go

my = no

my = burn

sue = buy

quart = bottle

song = two

see = four

sip = ten

met = meter

new = inch

kit = think

sing = fast

wing = run running

Edited March 7, 201016 yr by gosompoi

Is this a joke? Many of these 'Thai' words are not even legitimate loan-words, just 'farang talk.' 'Screwdriver, airport, sensitive, idiot, plan, joke, idea, cholesterol', etc. all have common and frequently used 'real Thai' counterparts. This may be somebody's idea of fun, but not for anybody who wants to really learn Thai. More interesting to me are Sanskrit-derived words which- via Greek or Latin- may retain a related meaning in English, such as 'pawn' or my favorite, 'eke.'

Legitimate words for the list would be those which have different etymologies but happen to sound similar & mean the same thing in both languages. Including a zillion loan words doesnt count..... obviously they will sound alike.

One that comes to mind for me is to die in english, or ตาย in thai

Hardie: This is not a joke! It's really sad...

Okay, S-F and Jimmu, no insult intended to you other guys or the bars you learn your 'Thai' from, but linguistics is no joke. Something more rewarding in the long run might be to actually open the book and learn the language! Then you can have some real fun when you study Khmer and notice the similarities and mutations.

cake, TV, broccoli

Very similar:

microwave, shirt, snooker, supermarket

Unsure:

OT (=overtime - not in my English, and in Thai I'm more acquainted with '[M]tham [M]oo' = 'do overtime')

How much you give me (bar Girl ) 10,000 baht not enuff

Is this a joke? Many of these 'Thai' words are not even legitimate loan-words, just 'farang talk.' 'Screwdriver, airport, sensitive, idiot, plan, joke, idea, cholesterol', etc. all have common and frequently used 'real Thai' counterparts. This may be somebody's idea of fun, but not for anybody who wants to really learn Thai. More interesting to me are Sanskrit-derived words which- via Greek or Latin- may retain a related meaning in English, such as 'pawn' or my favorite, 'eke.'

Hmmm.. show Thais a screwdriver and ask them what it called in Thai. You will be surprised.

What is Thai for "cholesterol"?

ok

kcf

mcdonalds

whiskey

joke

airport

coke

Different word in Thai for airport. Sanam bin

oxygen, hydrogen

someone wrote porn, it sounds the same, but in thai it means "dress", or "blessed" in Thai. I know this because my wife's name is Varaporn.. but when I look at her ass, I sometimes think porn in the farang way..

Ok

This is the most spoken word in the world - no surprise that Thailand is not an exception.

Ok

This is the most spoken word in the world - no surprise that Thailand is not an exception.

We got an expat here who most of Thai agreed that he has the most difficult accent. (Mind you, he's a standard British accent but people here might be more familiar with American accent.) When he started, many people walked off scratching their head after talking to him and asked "What the h_ll อะไข่ means?". He was saying "OK".

Thanks Hardie. saved me a lengthy post.

I almost cried when I read Dangeri - Dangerous.

One that took me a long time to work out.

Hint:spoken a lot on New Year's Eve:

Cowdow