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wanting to learn basic south words


obagz88

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hi all 

names Owen

i have a girlfriend from Nakhon Si Thammarat and i am trying to learn some of the words they use in replace of central thai words ie ( very much = jung hoo in stead of mak mak  ) she try to teach me but i forget if not able to read the words . not great at remembering things i'm just told .

can any one help me with some study cards 

( english = central =southern ) something like this style i find easy to learn 

( ie --- very delicious = aroi mak mak ( อร่อยมาก ) = rhøi jung hoo ( หร้อยจังฮู้ )

my girlfriend try's so hard and i would love to show here how much i'm really trying to learn her and her culture of the south, and  love  if some one could help 

mans please try not get to side tracked on  differences between words and north south  east i'm worried all that will do is confuse me more 

thanks heaps 

owen from australia 

 

ขอขอบคุณครับ

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6 minutes ago, lemonjelly said:

Mai plerrr..... never mind
Gin kao ler yang ?..... eaten yet?
Mai gin tee..... not eaten yet
Lob baan...... go home
Bia... (sounds like beer).... cash


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thank you so much 

as much as you can give will expand my  vocabulary  thank you

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..... and herein is where the problems begin

 

Genuine Southern Thai is a diverse mixture of bastardized Thai, slang Thai, Northern Malay, and local regional dialect. Mix in a little bit of Indian as well and you are on your way to learning. There are also differing versions of Southern Thai, Ligor and Chayai being two. I think there are 4 or 5 in total. For example some eastern provinces, NST, Trang and Phattalung have slightly different vocabulary than say Phangnga or Ranong. Same again once you get down to the very deep south of Thailand and the northern Malayan states. Then there are the tones to think about, the situations and then to the age of the person you are talking to and then ................................... I tried and tried and tried to learn but failed miserably. Gave up in the end.

 

 

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I have been wanting to learn more southern Thai for a while now.  When I first began learning Thai in Trang (a kazillion years ago), the exchange company asked that everyone in the village speak central Thai to me.  This was immensely helpful at the beginning, but I am ready to dive deeper into southern Thai now.

 

At a bookshop in Trang, I did find one dictionary that is central Thai to southern Thai.  It is somewhat helpful with written language, but I would like to develop more of my spoken language skills.

 

I'm wondering if it is worth moving this (mods?) to the Thai language forum and pin it so we could keep this going.  

 

I am also interested in learning this with written Thai so I can understand the pronunciation better than decoding everyone's phonetic attempt:    ไม่เป็นไร = ไม่พรื่อ (as someone wrote Mai plerrr)

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..... and herein is where the problems begin
 
Genuine Southern Thai is a diverse mixture of bastardized Thai, slang Thai, Northern Malay, and local regional dialect. Mix in a little bit of Indian as well and you are on your way to learning. There are also differing versions of Southern Thai, Ligor and Chayai being two. I think there are 4 or 5 in total. For example some eastern provinces, NST, Trang and Phattalung have slightly different vocabulary than say Phangnga or Ranong. Same again once you get down to the very deep south of Thailand and the northern Malayan states. Then there are the tones to think about, the situations and then to the age of the person you are talking to and then ................................... I tried and tried and tried to learn but failed miserably. Gave up in the end.
 
 
Wife is a Nakhon native, and we live in Ranong, La-Un. From what she tells me there is a lot of NST blood here, but she always pucks it out. She generally will ask where they are from. It gets to be a long chat if its Pak Phanang.

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On 8/11/2017 at 8:12 AM, cornishcarlos said:

PM me a list of what you want and I'll ask my wife to translate into Southern Thai for you...

It seems to me they just cut a huge chunk of words off, lazy buggers :)

Yep... That about sums it up.  My other half is also from the South.. :laugh:

 

Sabai dee -  bai dee

Talaat - laat

Sanook - nook

Aroi - roi

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I'm just outside Sichon for a month or so around December. Best way is to talk and listen to the family and not bother with other dialects at all. A few southern directional tips when driving (which follow the same theory as shortening stuff):

 

go straight - drong  ( or if excited, drong, drong. They drop the pai)

 

Turn Right - quaw ( no need for leaw)

 

Turn left - sai (ditto)

 

Stop - top, top, top (strangely not just the one "top", or maybe that's just my over exuberant driving)

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hi all 

names Owen

i have a girlfriend from Nakhon Si Thammarat and i am trying to learn some of the words they use in replace of central thai words ie ( very much = jung hoo in stead of mak mak  ) she try to teach me but i forget if not able to read the words . not great at remembering things i'm just told .

can any one help me with some study cards 

( english = central =southern ) something like this style i find easy to learn 

( ie --- very delicious = aroi mak mak ( อร่อยมาก ) = rhøi jung hoo ( หร้อยจังฮู้ )

my girlfriend try's so hard and i would love to show here how much i'm really trying to learn her and her culture of the south, and  love  if some one could help 

mans please try not get to side tracked on  differences between words and north south  east i'm worried all that will do is confuse me more 

thanks heaps 

owen from australia 

 

ขอขอบคุณครับ

 

Ranong folks say roi hang, they laugh and say Nakhon if I say roi jang hoo.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Absolutely key to wrapping your head around the mish-mash of dialects is the way southerners replace  ฟ with ค (khor khwaay) or ข (khor kai) a even a คว (khw) dipthong.

 

They simply don't like to make the 'f' sound -- and trying to teach the English 'v' sound is definitely a bridge too far unless you are dealing with young kids.

 

so, by way of example:

ฝนตก (it is raining, as is often the case here) becomes นตก (khon tok)

 

ไฟแดง (red light) becomes ควแดง (khwai daeng).

 

The first time I heard these two, by my mother-in-law, it was pretty comical. When she excitedly said นตก (khon tok), I thought she said 'a person has fallen'. And when she said ไควแดง, I thought she was referring to a red ox.

 

Even the word for 'farang' sounds like 'khwalang'.

 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...
5 hours ago, The manic said:

Hhmmn....interesting....And I thought Issan Lao was a puzzle.

There are actually some small communities in the Deep South where they speak Issan/Laos. One of them in Narathiwat even has a rocket festival annually. I guess they were migrant workers in the past who chose to settle here. Also, like most of the country, there are many Issan people running restaurants here. That's a good thing IMHO, because a steady diet of gaeng som and gaeng tai bplaa gets old after a while.

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  • 3 months later...

great tips from all posters
l -> r is a great start ล -> ร
Try “roi WA” for ร้อยว้า for อร่อยกว่า
more delicious
delicious is also and adjective for skilled (เก่ง) in the south. like you see some guy do trick on bicycle and someone says “Roi Ah”
Many fruits that are acidic in nature have different names than standard Thai all starting with prefix “ส้ม” (orange) dont really remember off hand all those.

Some men tend to cuss alot so good to know those words because they could make up 50% of a sentence, such as maem, yet, poom, yip, hia, maeng. Women prefer cuss word Praet or Yi Praet.

:)


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Absolutely key to wrapping your head around the mish-mash of dialects is the way southerners replace  ฟ with ค (khor khwaay) or ข (khor kai) a even a คว (khw) dipthong.
 
They simply don't like to make the 'f' sound -- and trying to teach the English 'v' sound is definitely a bridge too far unless you are dealing with young kids.
 
so, by way of example:
ฝนตก (it is raining, as is often the case here) becomes ขนตก (khon tok)
 
ไฟแดง (red light) becomes ไควแดง (khwai daeng).
 
The first time I heard these two, by my mother-in-law, it was pretty comical. When she excitedly said ขนตก (khon tok), I thought she said 'a person has fallen'. And when she said ไควแดง, I thought she was referring to a red ox.
 
Even the word for 'farang' sounds like 'khwalang'.
 
 
My wife cannot pronounce our surname, the ft ending comes out pt.

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interesting.. but in Surat actually F is no problem and preferred over the KW sound, examples:

Liow Kwa -> Liow Fa ========Turn Right

KongKwan -> KongFun ======= Gift

 

Avoiding the F might be more of a Yawi language interference, more than a regional accent of southern Thai which favors the F in these two examples.

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19 hours ago, Mosha said:

My wife cannot pronounce our surname, the ft ending comes out pt.

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this is more to do with all Thai speakers in general, many consonants are ok as the first letter, but can't be the final consonant.  It's not just 'ft' like lift, left, craft, shaft, soft, etc.., but also a whole bunch more such as rl, md, nd, rld, rst, 's' plural, etc.. Thai language doesn't have these sounds, so a Thai speaker can learn them, it's just a more difficult part to master for them.

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2 minutes ago, surfdog said:

this is more to do with all Thai speakers in general, many consonants are ok as the first letter, but can't be the final consonant.  It's not just 'ft' like lift, left, craft, shaft, soft, etc.., but also a whole bunch more such as rl, md, nd, rld, rst, 's' plural, etc.. Thai language doesn't have these sounds, so a Thai speaker can learn them, it's just a more difficult part to master for them.

It's very true,,,when I moved here I had trouble with ngo ngu to start a syllable, and had to make up a bunch of tongue twisters to master it....Anyway, I have my teenage daughter here and she is fluent in English, South Thai (Songkhla version) and Central Thai....so if I can ever get her off her iPad I might to to get her as a source of useful new southern words.  For me, I think I hold a personal bias against South Thai because it is so damned loud and excitable, while I am more of a chill guy.

 

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interesting.. but in Surat actually F is no problem and preferred over the KW sound, examples:
Liow Kwa -> Liow Fa ========Turn Right
KongKwan -> KongFun ======= Gift
 
Avoiding the F might be more of a Yawi language interference, more than a regional accent of southern Thai which favors the F in these two examples.
I have to agree. My wife has family in Ranong, Surat, NST and Songkhla, I've never heard the F as in farang pronounced kw.

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35 minutes ago, Mosha said:

I have to agree. My wife has family in Ranong, Surat, NST and Songkhla, I've never heard the F as in farang pronounced kw.

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Wow, this is getting like cosmology...the more we try to pin it down, the more complexity we are  confronted with.

 

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Wow, this is getting like cosmology...the more we try to pin it down, the more complexity we are  confronted with.
 


it’s hard to pin down, heavy regional accents are often looked down upon. It’s the regional nationalists in their 50s and 60s with little formal education that still speak it purely without humor. Think of the old timers who can’t read.

Living in NST we just shout at each other in very slurred speech with volume quickly going up and down. Quite annoying but easy enough to copy. Hard to not talk like that after speaking so much with people here.

somw more south for you:

Raek wa - yesterday - แรกว้า
tor chao - tomorrow morning ต้อเช้า
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mai pleur= never mind/no problem
lob baan = go back home
gin kouw ler mai?= eat yet?
mai tii = not yet
neuai ( sound goes up) = hungry
yanat = pineapple
..... i’ll post more as they pop into my head


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if you can read Thai, so many websites have writeups, here is one https://gingkanyarat.wordpress.com/คำภาษาถิ่นภาคใต้/

Some of them on the list inmediately made me think “yeah, thats what they say here.”

Such as “lay แล” to look/see (ดู)
กัด gat bite = ขบ cope
นิดหน่อย little nidnoy = hit หิด
มะนาว lime manao = ส้มนาว
เมื่อไร mua rai when - ตอได tor dai
เอิด eurt = kind of kid act spoiled or stubborn i think...
รองเท้า rongtao = gu-eck เกือก
tanon road = non
หมด mot = เหม็ด e.g. medtlaow = no more of something
พูด speak = แหลง (website says L ล) แรง raeng I think more of an R

Soon enough you learn these everyone will be asking you:

Raeng Tai Mai - Can you understand or speak south

Also like lemonjelly says dont underestimate the Tee/Tii

Everything is a “yet” down here

ยังไม่ทำที yung mai tam tii
ยังไม่กินที yung mai gin tii
ไม่ไปที mai pai tii

But really true southern accent is just lazy slurred Thai spoken with an up and down cadence to volume. The vocab helps, but understanding what the hell people are slurring about is the hardest part.

Just loook at the examples like tanon=non, malagor = lagor, nidnoy = hid





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  • 3 weeks later...
On 1/14/2018 at 8:58 AM, surfdog said:

if you can read Thai, so many websites have writeups, here is one https://gingkanyarat.wordpress.com/คำภาษาถิ่นภาคใต้/

Some of them on the list inmediately made me think “yeah, thats what they say here.”

Such as “lay แล” to look/see (ดู)
กัด gat bite = ขบ cope
นิดหน่อย little nidnoy = hit หิด
มะนาว lime manao = ส้มนาว
เมื่อไร mua rai when - ตอได tor dai
เอิด eurt = kind of kid act spoiled or stubborn i think...
รองเท้า rongtao = gu-eck เกือก
tanon road = non
หมด mot = เหม็ด e.g. medtlaow = no more of something
พูด speak = แหลง (website says L ล) แรง raeng I think more of an R

Soon enough you learn these everyone will be asking you:

Raeng Tai Mai - Can you understand or speak south

Also like lemonjelly says dont underestimate the Tee/Tii

Everything is a “yet” down here

ยังไม่ทำที yung mai tam tii
ยังไม่กินที yung mai gin tii
ไม่ไปที mai pai tii

But really true southern accent is just lazy slurred Thai spoken with an up and down cadence to volume. The vocab helps, but understanding what the hell people are slurring about is the hardest part.

Just loook at the examples like tanon=non, malagor = lagor, nidnoy = hid





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That was a very useful link and set of examples...thanks.

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got some more, just picking out ones that are different words altogether, not slurred or shortened words

แขบ kaep = รีบ เร็ว hurry like Kaep Mai? in a rush?
ตะ/ด้า ta/Da = accentuation or one word emphasis, much like “na” . Can you cut the grass... Na?
ไตร/ไส sai? - used just like quick “tam mai” ทำไม, in my opinion Sai is used mostly in controversial or angrily, like / ไปเดินเมาไตร why you go walking drunk??? it is the emphasided annoying loud word of the sentence, so make sure your voice goes up and down. It is often used a bit condescendingly... ทำไตร, เดินไตร, maybe best way to explain is it is like idiom “som na” serves you right.

check this video, this is a southern speaker trying his best to speak ‘proper’ Thai while teaching southern Thai. He has to really try hard to accentuate and not slur.







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