How Many Thai Words Do You Know?

[steveromagnino]

Dear Mr Farang

Please bear in mind that some of the posters in this thread are either

- 100% Thai

- part Thai

- foreigners (mostly farang) who have spent equally long times in Thailand to your good self

- interested learners from a variety of backgrounds

- total losers

- partial losers

- more than one of the above

That is quite a variety, and while you may not share the same goals and dreams regarding what you want in Thai language of all these groups, you should understand that making comments implying that knowing words like too ret and the like are not things to be learned is kind of strange; one of the most satisfying parts of learning a language is to then be able to understand what goes on; and in a lot of conversations with various people, you will hear:

- too ret

- lamok

- dtor lair (or as is currently said, strawberry)

Hmm... I seem to hear all 3 of these words on a fairly regular basis, maybe the people I hang out with are perhaps too common for you who use these words...hmm let's see - senior police, major Thai-Chinese business families, senior civil servants, senior entertainment industry figures - nope, that group don't seem too "common" to me

On the other hand, I do have other groups that I know who would be extremely annoyed to any one of these words...and perhaps these are the type of people you associate with? Certainly no more "common", no better educated, just a different attitude and upbringing.

So...this is a webboard, and while the "majority" that you have decided don't want to learn about profanity may be offended by this thread, well, they don't have to read it do they. For those who do; for whatever reason; this thread is aimed at increasing their knowledge of the Thai language.

Furthermore, regarding transliteration; I am guessing you are a North American - you therefore may be perhaps unaware that the way you speak english is not the same as countries like England, New Zealand, Australia or Singapore.

air in Commonwealth english is pronounced with no R sound. Americans pronounce all the letters, including the R. As I am sure you are well aware, many of the first Thai-english translators had studied in the better universities and schools many moons ago, which were mostly english/british; so they created a transliteration system which reflects that - many of the books on transliteration will translate as follows:

dtor dtao (turtle) = DT (to explain that it is neither a D or a T sound)

Bpor Bplar (fish) = BP (to explain that it is neither a B or a P sound)

or ang = or sound (without the R being pronounced as would be understood by people from NZ, Australia, UK - but would be then mispronounced by people from USA, Canada)

etc

Transliteration does a terrible job and butchers the Thai language because there are sounds in one language that cannot be communicated via transliteration to the other - vowel length for instance, or the sounds like Dt, and Bp.... And the tones are yet another complication.

I respect that you have your own transliteration system, but you should be careful in your negative appraisal of other systems if it is only based on your own personal experience; being that as (I am guessing) a North American, your knowledge of the english language reflects your accent already; and other accents are not the same as yours. There is no "right" transliteration method, and there are ample threads debating this already.

I am delighted to hear that your accent sounds "like music" and have little doubt that you probably have a great understanding of Thai and Thai culture. I too have little doubt from the times I have been honoured to discuss matters with monks that they also would be very interested to hear views on translation from a 17 year old Thai girl - if I learned little else from the short time I have spent in learning about Buddhism; the art of listening is indeed something very important to one's self development.

[tuky]

I think we all agreed when I say this thread has run it's race.

closed