Just finished my Thai pocket romance book (B12 at Central).... now going back through it again to get more vocabulary out of it. (By the way, looking up words in Thai dictionary was pretty laborious at first, but you pick up speed quickly, it's not the problem i thought it might be.)

I see the term "ramphai" or perhaps "ram-phai" a lot. "ram" alone gets "traditional dance"...

example, sorry no thai fonts:

"Khun Ying ramphai reuh kha?" (the "ph" is the phoo phaan "ph")

Thanks much!

Just finished my Thai pocket romance book (B12 at Central).... now going back through it again to get more vocabulary out of it. (By the way, looking up words in Thai dictionary was pretty laborious at first, but you pick up speed quickly, it's not the problem i thought it might be.)

I see the term "ramphai" or perhaps "ram-phai" a lot. "ram" alone gets "traditional dance"...

example, sorry no thai fonts:

"Khun Ying ramphai reuh kha?" (the "ph" is the phoo phaan "ph")

Thanks much!

Ramphai (รำไพ) used in your example is a name. The word has nothing to do with the word Ram (รำ) at all - see the meanings below:

รำไพ

1. รำไพ [ADJ] ; beautiful; pretty

Syn. งาม

Def. งามผุดผ่อง

2. รำไพ [N] ; the sun

Syn. พระอาทิตย์, รพิ, รพี, รวิ, รวี

Ramphai (รำไพ) used in your example is a name. The word has nothing to do with the word Ram (รำ) at all - see the meanings below:

รำไพ

1. รำไพ [ADJ] ; beautiful; pretty

Syn. งาม

Def. งามผุดผ่อง

2. รำไพ [N] ; the sun

Syn. พระอาทิตย์, รพิ, รพี, รวิ, รวี

thanks for the response! i think the meaning "beautiful; pretty" is the one i want in my book, not a name. the synonym "ngaam" also appears in the book a lot...

In the example you gave it sounds almost certainly like a name.. คุณหญิง is a title, so it should be followed by a name.

Can you give some other examples of its use in the book?

In the example you gave it sounds almost certainly like a name.. คุณหญิง is a title, so it should be followed by a name.

Can you give some other examples of its use in the book?

I'm looking through the book, and it seems every instance of "ramphai" has "khun ying" before it, so i think you're right. i didn't know that "khun ying" is a title, i only knew that "ying" referred generally to "female", and that "khun" is polite preceeding particle...

now that i've looked up "khun ying" in my Becker dictionary, I see how it is used: "you, she, her, higher caste person, title placed before first name..."

Thanks a lot! It's wonderful to have this forum for support.