What not to say in Thai - a Japanese textbook offends

[Baerboxer]

People always learn the bad words first! Best way to learn a foreign language haha

oh yes.. very funny.. Easiest way to get stabbed or shot also, Thai's don't take insults lightly.

totster

Bit like today's Brit, lack of sense of humour, can't handle the insults but love dishing it out.

And you are from where? Hard to tell with just a myopic bigoted post.

[recycled]

People always learn the bad words first! Best way to learn a foreign language haha

oh yes.. very funny.. Easiest way to get stabbed or shot also, Thai's don't take insults lightly.

totster

Bit like today's Brit, lack of sense of humour, can't handle the insults but love dishing it out.

And you are from where? Hard to tell with just a myopic bigoted post.

Here, there and everywhere, but with your comment, I only have the following to offer. I rest my case Your Honour.

[Gsxrnz]

Used to work for a company that dealt with Koreans based in NZ. We had four managers of four different companies, all called Mr. Kim.

To differentiate between them for operational purposes, we gave them titles as to how distant they were from our office. So we wound up with Mr. Near Kim, Mr. Middle Kim, Mr. Far Kim, and Mr. Very Far Kim.

They soon learned to name themselves accordingly because if they didn't, wrong companies would be billed or forklifts would wind up at the wrong place. They would call on the phone and identify themselves as "This Mr. Near Kim etc."

Funniest situation we had was when we had a slight glitch after one of the Mr. Kims got repatriated and replaced by you guessed it, another Mr. Kim.

It went something like "No, No, No, I Mr. New Far Kim, not Mr. Very Far Kim. Mr. Old Far Kim go back Kolea. Mr. Old Far Kim not tell you that Mr. New Far Kim the boss now? I speak Mr. Very Far Kim last week. He tell me he go home soon and also soon have new Mr. New Very Far Kim."

[krisb]

Just looked in an online dictionary under "ai" & most of the insults are translated literally wrong--but with what someone thinks is an equivalent level of scorn. That seems to be what happened with OP.

The dict. also has it that "ai" applies to boys, rather than to boys and girls, as I wrote above. However, I hear it used for girls too...

--S

"ai" is the impolite prefix for a male, "khun" being the polite equivalent.

"ee" is the impolite prefix for a female. (Unless you are Burmese, where "ee" is a polite prefix for a female)

"<deleted>" is the closest English replacement word for either.

I don't know where you are getting your translations from, but they are complete BS.

Oh, I see, just to let you know online dictionaries are often sanitized, if you regurgitate what they say, you are bound to look a twonk.

Well, I happen to be fluent in Thai and partially in Lao. Also read and write--I'm a professional translater,

As I said, the dictionary is literally wrong.

You are right about "ai" and "i", but as I said, I've heard "ai" used as a title for girls (and in insults for women). It's actually a polite title for children--so when you call an adult "ai" you're calling him/her a child.

"sat" is from Sanskrit "satva", "being", but in Thai it means "animal". The 'v' (and understood trailing "a") is written, but cancelled.

Responding to another post or two:

The etymology of "farang" is unclear but interesting. Maybe from farangset, "french", but more likely an older word meaning "foreign", thus the guava, farang, is the "foreign" fruit--it is not native to Thailand. Just serendipidy that it sounds like "french" and that made it stick. The first westies were actually Portugese.

"Baksida" is Lao for guava, so it's a bit of a joke to call westies "baksida".

Buksida and falang mean the same thing.

So being called either is them taking the piss at us.

Simple as that as jealous as they may be.

[krisb]

Used to work for a company that dealt with Koreans based in NZ. We had four managers of four different companies, all called Mr. Kim.

To differentiate between them for operational purposes, we gave them titles as to how distant they were from our office. So we wound up with Mr. Near Kim, Mr. Middle Kim, Mr. Far Kim, and Mr. Very Far Kim.

They soon learned to name themselves accordingly because if they didn't, wrong companies would be billed or forklifts would wind up at the wrong place. They would call on the phone and identify themselves as "This Mr. Near Kim etc."

Funniest situation we had was when we had a slight glitch after one of the Mr. Kims got repatriated and replaced by you guessed it, another Mr. Kim.

It went something like "No, No, No, I Mr. New Far Kim, not Mr. Very Far Kim. Mr. Old Far Kim go back Kolea. Mr. Old Far Kim not tell you that Mr. New Far Kim the boss now? I speak Mr. Very Far Kim last week. He tell me he go home soon and also soon have new Mr. New Very Far Kim."

Ever say Mr old kim fark kim?

[ableguy]

Not quite sure how you would translate "douchebag" or "you ahole " into Japanese, neither words exist as an insult..... You of course could literally translate ahole Or Ketsu no anna or kommon as it would be, but it would not really be an insult. Would be interested in seeing the translations.

Interesting to you no doubt.