How to ask in Thai "Are you open?"

[Tahnil]

In my last post we have made it rather plain that เปิดไหม pbertd mai "open, no?" is not only used, it is popularly experienced as can be seen even on this forum.

Now we will turn our attention to the แล้ว laew form of many phrases that Mole and her clique ignorantly claim are never ever used by native Thai speakers.

While Mole is gathering her wit, or perhaps finally seeking help from Thai speakers with language skills above the level of chat rooms, we can similarly establish through examples, the laew phrases as correct, used, and useful:

นอนหรือยัง norn (don't pronounce the r) rue young, "sleeping?," "sleep now?"

นอนแล้วยัง norn laew young, "already sleeping?," "slept yet?"

Can you plainly see that the above หรือ rue is more the query of the present while แล้ว laew may emphasize the aspect that it has already occurred?

Thai would be inexplicably poor and spotty to offer one form and not the other for varied meanings.

While Mole's followers are not native Thai speakers, Mole herself claims to be a natural born Thai, but clearly has a rather limited experience with the language.

Her suggestions heretofore betray where she hones her Thai, online and in chat rooms of the less educated, where linguists and teachers bemoan the poor and incorrect use of grammar and spellings.

[tgeezer]

All I can say Tahnil is that your approach is even more esoteric than mine.

It may be helpful to to say that ไหม is 'no?' but it could equally well be described as 'or not' which is what I think people mean when they say it and can be justified by the Dictionary of the Royal Institute.

นอนแล้วยัง is an abomination. If someone were assigned to sleep the question is นอนแล้วหรือยัง where แล้ว as a verb meaning จบ สิ้น เสร็จ naturally it is intransitive. The example in the RID is งานแล้วหรือยัง and every word is annunciated as it is spelled; clearly!

แล้ว as a วิเศษณ์ means ลักษณะอาการกระทำใด ๆ เสร็จ สิ้น จบ ล่วงไป หรือ สุดสิ้นลง ่ช่น กินแล้ว นอนแล้ว it is the situation after ยังกินอยู่ ยังนอนอยู่ so "already sleeping ? " is wrong. As you say it would be "inexplicably poor and spotty to offer one form and not the other" maybe but if you can't tell the difference, what does it matter?

You could be a little more flexible and allow that not all of the population speak as you do, I doubt that you will see แล้วยัง written in any textbook, but I would be interested to see it if you have one.

Also your observations of mole appear vexatious to me, because of that would you think it unreasonable of me to ask for proof that you are a "linguist and teacher"?

Where did you learn to teach Thai specifically, was it to teach Thai to foreigners or to teach in a state school?

[farang95]

99% of the girls a talk to say

มีแฟนยัง?

กินข้าวแล้วหรือ

วันนี้คุณไปทํางานไหม?

Any one is a thai(e) native around here?

[tgeezer]

One problem I see with มีแฟนยัง is the translation Have you a friend yet? ยัง is said to be : yet? but 'yet' is an adverb. A question doesn't always need an adverb. eg. Have you a girlfriend? Doesn't have the adverb, how do you ask that?

มีแฟนไหม perhaps, ไหม is the question word.

So if you want the adverb you should be asking มีแฟนยังไหม (The actual question is มีแฟนแล้วหรือ)

This is why I am waiting for a grammar.

Edited February 4, 2016 by tgeezer

[GarryP]

Pbert pao?

[GarryP]

99% of the girls a talk to say

มีแฟนยัง?

วันนี้คุณไปทํางานไหม?

Any one is a thai(e) native around here?

กินข้าวแล้วหรือ would be used when they understand you have already eaten, as opposed to กินข้าวหรือยัง when they have no idea (very little emphasis would be put on หรือ - so little that you may not even notice it).

Edited February 4, 2016 by GarryP

[Richard W]

Any one is a thai(e) native around here?

I've not noticed any Thai girls on this thread. I'm not sure if Mole counts himself as a native speaker of Central Thai.

[phuketsub]

Is the difference between "เปิดแล้วหรือยัง" and "เปิดแล้วยัง" in Thai reflective of the use of "ellipsis"? ("el·lip·sis" = "the omission from speech or writing of a word or words that are superfluous or able to be understood from contextual clues."}

The Southern Thais often drop the หรือ in เปิดแล้วหรือยัง most of the time.

They also drop the แล้ว sometimes too!

No wonder I am finding it so hard to grasp my parents-in-laws' lingo.

They strip all meat off the bone before throwing anything my way...

But maybe that's not such a bad thing

[Tahnil]

Pbert pao?

เปิดป่าว bpeutd bpao is a highly contracted เปิดหรือเปล่า bpeutd rue bplao = open or no?

pb or bp for ป, the consonant sound of each syllable in the phrase above is the same ป.

There is no beginning and ending p sound in Thai, only the p sound in the middle of a word.

That is to say, pop doesn't exist in Thai. But topsy, that p in the middle is ป.

[Tahnil]

Is the difference between "เปิดแล้วหรือยัง" and "เปิดแล้วยัง" in Thai reflective of the use of "ellipsis"? ("el·lip·sis" = "the omission from speech or writing of a word or words that are superfluous or able to be understood from contextual clues."}

The Southern Thais often drop the หรือ in เปิดแล้วหรือยัง most of the time.

They also drop the แล้ว sometimes too!

No wonder I am finding it so hard to grasp my parents-in-laws' lingo.

They strip all meat off the bone before throwing anything my way...

But maybe that's not such a bad thing

Not just southerners.

All Thais do.

แล้วยัง is very much standard language among Isaan Thais.

Not surprisingly posters on this forum hear it often from their girlfriends.

A popular hit:

http://tinyurl.com/zaaq6js

Servants came from Isaan and so did my nanny.

ทานข้าวแล้วยังคะ

I've heard this from my earliest childhood memory, it's as Thai as can be.

To have the Mole suggest that no authentic Thai person would say this is enough cause for a riot.

[Tahnil]

NO NO NO!

We NEVER say กินข้าวแล้วยัง!!!

It's กินข้าวหรือยัง you moron!!

You've been hearing it wrong and thought you've heard แล้ว when it's actually หรือ.

ASK A THAI!!! And anyone will confirm what I've told you!!

What a stubborn idiot!

I'm telling you, seriously! There is NO SUCH THING AS แล้วยัง in Thai!

Do some freaking research on your own!

The reason this thread runs to six pages and 131 posts so far on a simple query, is because there are farangs who think they know more about everything than any Thais, including the Thais' own language.

In the case of Mole, the street English and chat rooms Thai betray time spent abroad and online away from the actual daily spectrum of Thai culture.

To think nothing of calling a total stranger an idiot, a moron, in the face, is definitely not Thai upbringing, พ่อแม่ไม่สั่งสอน.

กินข้าวแล้วยัง gkin khao laew young, have you eaten?, just like เปิดไหม bpeutd mai, are you open?, is not only spoken by real Thais but both happen to be golden standards:

You can see that in the above, it's either กินข้าวแล้วยัง gkin khao laew young, or กินข้าวยัง gkin khao young.

กินข้าวแล้วหรือยัง gkin khao laew rue young is not used in actual speech, and nobody says this in the above, the full phrase is only spelled out and enunciated in the lyric of the song.

What we would say in English, have you eaten or had breakfast/lunch/dinner?

Native English speakers don't casually say, "have you eaten or not yet?"

It's redundant and verbose in everyday speech.

Last but not least, note that there isn't a single กินข้าวหรือยัง gkin khao rue young in the above video exposé.

As I indicated in post #121, หรือยัง rue young makes it more a query of the present, "eat/sleep or not?," i.e., "is it time to eat/sleep?"

Thereby I proceeded to conclude, regarding Mole and her followers, that in the land of the blinds the one-eyed girl is queen:

While Mole's followers are not native Thai speakers, Mole herself claims to be a natural born Thai, but clearly has a rather limited experience with the language.

Her suggestions heretofore betray where she hones her Thai, online and in chat rooms of the less educated, where linguists and teachers bemoan the poor and incorrect use of grammar and spellings.

Epilogue: This is why foreign speakers of a language and lacking native sense are particularly worse off, they are rarely taught by the masters but by teachers with average skills, which implies the transfer of the teachers' problems and limitations.

[Richard W]

Pbert pao?

เปิดป่าว bpeutd bpao is a highly contracted เปิดหรือเปล่า bpeutd rue bplao = open or no?

pb or bp for ป, the consonant sound of each syllable in the phrase above is the same ป.

There is no beginning and ending p sound in Thai, only the p sound in the middle of a word.

That is to say, pop doesn't exist in Thai. But topsy, that p in the middle is ป.

Those last two lines need quite a bit of commentary to understand, and even then they're not completely true. It requires narrow transcription, showing features such as aspiration, stops not being released, and co-articulation.

I think the explanation of what you intended to convey is:

-- Interpretation --

The sound of English initial <p>, the English [pʰ], does not occur in Thai, for the Thai /pʰ/, as in พบ, is more stronɡly aspirated, and may be transcribed as [pʰʰ].

The sound of English final <p>, the English [p], does not occur in Thai, for the syllable-final Thai sound is [p̚], or rather [ʔ͡p̚].

The sound of English 'topsy' is [ˈtʰɒpsɪ], and that [p] is sound of initial ป.

-- End of interpretation --

However, English final <p> can show up as final [ʔ͡p̚] (This might be more legible as [ʔ͜p̚] - it depends on your fonts.), and the glottal reinforcement is quite common. (There is a serious claim that it goes back over 5,000 years!) Australian is one of the few notable accents that lack it. The simplification of [ʔ͜t̚] to [ʔ] is one of the notable features of 'Estuarine English', the English of much of SE England, but it also happens up in other accents. ('Estuarine' refers to the Thames estuary - it should not be confused with 'Strine', an extreme Australian pronunciation of 'Australian'.)

The actual pronunciation of 'topsy' tends to be [ˈtʰɒʔ͡p̚sɪ] (though there is non-phonemic variation in the final vowel), so the English <p> has rather the sound of ป in บาป and, for that matter, บ in พบ. I don't think that is what Tahnil meant to convey.

[tgeezer]

At last we have the provenance of your Thai, Tahnil.

Ignore me if you like but I will address your points which interest me.

In the video of Thai people effectively saying "How do you do" I believe that I can hear a หรือ , but even if not, it is important to know that it is there.

There may be occasions where people actually want to ask the question, Have you eaten? , for them the words are important because it allows them to build on the grammar and form sentences in other situations.

"' Morning, what are you up to?" Could sound like "'Morning wattewupto". But you would have difficulty finding an English teacher or native speaker who could justify "...what you up to?" grammatically.

We now have the provenance of your Thai and can make an informed choice of what we will accept as our Thai parlance.

Being 'native born' is not an educational qualification; I know many native born English speakers who don't know the rudiments of English, I choose not to mimic them. Similarly, the provenance of your Thai; your nanny from Isaan, maids, and other migrant workers doesn't compare with school textbooks and the Royal Institute Dictionary which you were taught at school. I am not convinced that I should mimic you, in spite of the fact that you describe yourself as one of "the masters" .

The saying is: "In the land of the blind ... " 'blinds' is the plural of 'blind' the covering of a widow.

Would you describe your students of English as receiving instruction from a teacher of average skill.

You have every right to teach to those who want it, a non grammatical form of Thai, and English for that matter, but I would be happier if you would acknowledge that they cannot be justified grammatically and are thus derivations from more formal language.

This is my point of view, opposite to many other's view I know; the refusal to accept other points of view on both sides is the reason that this thread has run on.

It is not the less instructive for that and should continue for as long as people enjoy it.

[bearpolar]

he is basing himself on my comment that i hear leoyang constantly but i did confirm with her that it was ru yang just with leo's tone which sounds exactly the same to non-thai hears

[Denim]

Hmmm.....note to self. Should I have any simple question regarding the Thai language then don't ask it on this forum unless well armed with brickbats

[GarryP]

A thread dissolved into one-upmanship.

[bearpolar]

A thread dissolved into one-upmanship.

Just sounding dumb there buddy, its a thread with a bunch of people correcting a guy selling his service to students of the thai language.

[GarryP]

A thread dissolved into one-upmanship.

Just sounding dumb there buddy, its a thread with a bunch of people correcting a guy selling his service to students of the thai language.

I'll take your word for it.

[phuketsub]

I am locking this thread as it seems to have veered off-topic with too many personal attacks, etc. Please keep it civil in the future.