Speak Thai


15th May 2007

  Months in Thai

From Pattaya Secret

Not that the last word in the Thai version of the month indicates how many days in the month

English Thai Thai abbreviation
January ma ga-ra kom ม.ค.
February goom pa pun ก.พ.
March mee na kom มี.ค.
April may sa yon เม.ย.
May preut sa pa kom พ.ค.
June mi too na yon มิ.ย.
July ga-ra-ga dar kom ก.ค.
August sing ha kom ส.ค.
September gun yar yon ก.ย.
October dtoo lar kom ต.ค.
November preu sa ji gar yon พ.ย.
December tun wa kom ธ.ค.

 

3rd July 2006

  Not Enough Hours in the Day to Learn Thai

From Jil in Pattaya

12:00 a.m. thiang kuhn "Midnight"
1:00 a.m. tee neung "Nighttime 1"
2:00 a.m. tee song "Nighttime 2"
3:00 a.m. tee sam "Nighttime 3"
4:00 a.m. tee see "Nighttime 4"
5:00 a.m. tee hah "Nighttime 5"
6:00 a.m. hok mohng chao "6 hour morning"
7:00 a.m. jet mohng chao "7 hour morning"
8:00 a.m. song mohng chao "2 hour morning"
9:00 a.m. sam mohng chao "3 hour morning"
10:00 a.m. see mohng chao "4 hour morning"
11:00 a.m. hah mohng chao "5 hour morning"
12:00 p.m. thiang wan "Midday"
1:00 p.m. bai mohng "Afternoon"
2:00 p.m. bai song mohng "Afternoon 2 hour"
3:00 p.m. bai sam mohng "Afternoon 3 hour"
4:00 p.m. bai see mohng "Afternoon 4 hour"
5:00 p.m. hah mohng yen "5 hour cool"
6:00 p.m. hok mohng yen "6 hour cool"
7:00 p.m. neung thum "1 Evening"
8:00 p.m. song thum "2 Evening"
9:00 p.m. sam thum "3 Evening"
10:00 p.m. see thum "4 Evening"
11:00 p.m. hah thum "5 Evening"

 

21st March 2006

Learn Online

From Pattaya Secrets

Some good web sites:

www.thai-language.com/

www.seasite.niu.edu/thai/

 

15th January 2006

 

Sex & Slanging

Thanks to David

koewai water buffalo (used as a derogatory remark for fat, old, stupid rich farang). Actually pronounced "Kwai," with one syllable, it means stupid. Off-color Thais love to make foreigners say this word, because when slightly mispronounced as "Kui," it means penis.
kui penis
pom pom have sex
eub eub have sex: nicer than pom pom
tam gan have sex: do it
fahwee bullshit. I have NEVER heard this, and I thought I knew them all. Maybe I just can't make out the pronunciation...
meng da boyfriend (usually Thai boyfriend who leeches money from the bargirl to sustain his lifestyle). This term actually means approximately "pimp," so don't ask to be someone's "maeng da." Instead, be her "faen" or "fan"(as in fan club)
faen, fan boyfriend (as in fan club)
shan shob khun I like you. Pronounce with a soft "ch" instead of "sh". "Chan chob khun." To be more intimate, use an intimate pronoun: "Chan chob tuh."
Baa! crazy
baa! klang certifiably nuts (the exclamation mark creates the right tone)
ting tong silly
baa baa bo bo crazy (it's the sound a crazy person makes)
Khee in the following literally means "shit," as in "khee muk" (nose shit, snot), "khee hu?" (ear shit, ear wax), and "khee ta" (eye shit, sleep in your eye). Also used to talk about a habitual action.
khee mao habitually drunk
mao drunk
khon khee mao drunkard
khee choo Chuu means to cheat (on someone, not at something), so it doesn't mean butterfly, though "butterfly" is used by the girls because "Pi? Seua!" (butterfly) has the same meaning.
Pi? Seua! butterfly
khee ghohok Literally you dropped a syllable: to lie habitually
khon khee gohok a liar
Gong To take advantage or cheat someone else (long o)
Khee gong to cheat habitually
Khon Khee gong a cheater
Lor handsome (don't believe them!)
Suay? beautiful
Rak love (R generally pronounced L in Pattaya)
Na! rak Literally worthy of love. Approximately, it means "cute" as in the personality trait.
Na! gliet Worthy of hate, but really "disgusting." Often used teasingly when something impolite is done.
Ka! Taxi taurai (literally. How much is the taxi fare?) how much do you want for a tip AFTER I've paid your bar fine.
Ji? the pussy (politely, Ji, very short and high)
Ju? the penis
Jub jub kiss
Hom? The Thai version of a kiss, really more of a sniff-kiss on the cheek (or a long slow smell near the nape of the neck if you're hot).
ja set I'm coming
set yang are you finished? Have you come yet?
sai luy put it in!
sai see I said, put it in, already
sai laew yang Have you put it in yet?
mai aow thoot Not in the ass!
mai aow I don't want

 

12th October 2005 Learn to Speak Thai in 1 Easy Lesson

...and then ten years of summer school

By Eneukman on Pattaya Pages

OK, you've visited LOS a few times and feel that the time is right to be able to communicate better with your bar fine for the night in her own language. So in a drunken stupour one night after a really good shag you promise her that you are going to make the effort to learn to speak, read and write the language. Being a woman, she holds you to that promise.

Learning the language can't be that hard, - or can it?

Well, as you all know (or if you don't know you shouldn't be coming here on holiday ), Thai is a tonal language with 5 different tones - mid, low, high, falling and rising. Get the tone wrong and instead of saying "I want to fuck your brains out" - you could actually be saying something like "I want to eat your buffalo's arse" You get the picture.

The first thing you need to do is to learn the Thai alphabet - piece of cake really - there are 40 odd consonants, many of which have exactly the same sound, plus 30 or so vowels. Vowels are split into 2 quite distinct categories - long and short. A number of the 30 or so vowels are simply the short version of a long vowel so that should help make life a little easier, shouldn't it? 

You've now learned the Thai alphabet, but now you need to learn which consonant class each consonant belongs to. There are three such classes, low, mid and high. It is vital that you can recognise which consonant class a particular consonant belongs to as it has an effect on the tone.

Low class consonants: ค ฆ ง ช ซ ฌ ญ ณ ฑ ฒ ท ธ น พ ฟ ม ย ร ล ว ภ ฬ ฮ

Middle class consonants: ก จ ด ฎ ฏ ด ต บ ป อ

High class consonants: ข ฉ ฐ ถ ผ ฝ ศ ษ ส ห

However, before we can look at how the tone is decided, it is also necessary to look at syllable endings. Syllables in spoken Thai can only end in a limited number of sounds. Written Thai can end in just about any character so a number of consonants change their sound when they appear at the end of a syllable.

The word for food is, as many of you will know is pronounced aahaan - but look at the written script - อๅหๅร and you see the "r" sound appearing. Whenever the character appears at the end of a syllable it is pronounced "N".

Syllable endings can be either "live" or "dead" and again, it is important to distinguish between the two as they determine the correct tone. A syllable that ends with a long vowel or a sonorant final consonant is called a live syllable. A syllable that ends with a short vowel or a stop final consonant is called a dead syllable.

Turning now to tones, the rules are really quite straightforward:

  • Low class consonant + short vowel ending - high tone
  • Low class consonant + long vowel ending - mid tone
  • Low class consonant + live syllable ending - mid tone
  • Low class consonant + short vowel + dead syllable ending - high tone
  • Low class consonant + long vowel + dead syllable ending - falling tone
  • Mid class consonant + short vowel ending - low tone
  • Mid class consonant + live syllable ending - mid tone
  • Mid class consonant + long vowel ending - mid tone
  • Mid class consonant + dead syllable ending - low tone
  • High class consonant + short vowel ending - low tone
  • High class consonant + long vowel ending - rising tone
  • High class consonant + live syllable ending - rising tone
  • High class consonant + dead syllable ending - low tone

Next, there are 4 tone marks:

  • This changes syllables starting with a low class consonant to a falling tone and those starting with a mid or high class consonant to a low tone.
  •  ้ This changes the tone to high or falling respectively per the above tone.
  •  ๊ This changes the tone in all cases to a high tone
  •  ็ This changes the tone in all cases to a rising tone.

Some words begin with the letter which isn't pronounced. However, it is important for the purposes of tone and it changes a low or mid class consonant to a high class one.

This symbol means that the character above which it appears isn't pronounced.

็ The symbol above the consonant here shortens the adjoining vowel as does the symbol.

Got all that? Good!

Now, many Thai words appear to be written as though they have three successive consonants, which is not possible. There are a very small number of "double consonants" permitted in Thai and it is vital that these are learned. So, how come a word can have 3 successive consonants? Easy - the written script in Thai frequently omits the short vowels "a" and "o". Generally speaking (though as always there are exceptions) in a one syllable word the missing letter will be "o". In 2 syllable words, the first will be "a" and the second "o"

Vowels! This is yet another area where the Thai script is determined to confuse all but those with an IQ that qualifies for membership for Mensa. Vowel symbols can come before, after, above, below, on 2 sides, or even on 3 sides on the preceding consonant. As if that wasn't bad enough many of the symbols used are the same as for other individual consonants. Then just when you think you've mastered the vowels successfully, you discover that in certain circumstances the top part of the vowel symbol is dropped. . Not only that but for one vowel, the symbol อ is added (but not pronounced).

The symbol also behaves in a number of different ways and as well as being pronounced "r", or "n" can also be pronounced "a" or "an". And not to forget - สร is pronounced "s".

I'm not going to attempt to go into how the tone is determined in words of 2 or 3 syllables as I haven't a bloody clue. other than to say Thai logic defies all comprehension. One thing I do know here is that the same character can be pronounced twice - say once as a "t" and the second time as "s". (See above for an explanation)

Finally, just to really confuse you, Thai script does not leave spaces between words so how the hell do you know where one word ends and another ends when you don't know what any of the words mean?

 

8th July 2005 Use of the Word Farang (ie Westerner)

From Pattaya Pages

Even if you can speak no other words of Thai, most European and American visitors to Thailand will quickly become familiar with the Thai word farang (often mispronounced (even by Thais) as falang - farang with a slightly trilled 'r' is the correct pronunciation.) It's basically used to describe caucasians, though African-Americans will sometimes also be known as farang or as farang dam ('black farang'). Farang is also the Thai word for the guava fruit, so you can expect to hear farang eating farang 'jokes' if you happen to purchase any.

Other Asians are generally known by their country of origin (e.g. kon jeen - "Chinese people", kon yee-bpun - "Japanese people"), while people from the Indian Subcontinent are often known as kairk (which translates as "guest"). Kairk is used to describe even fluent Thai speakers of Indian descent who have been living in Thailand for generations and consider themselves as Thai - obviously being referred to as a 'guest' in these circumstances, while not particularly offensive, is not exactly complimentary either.

Some people get very offended at being called farang, but whether it's an insult should or not really depends on the context. A few Thais who are uncomfortable with using it will say kon dtahng bpra-tayt ('people from other countries') instead, but this is still pretty rare. Farang is basically a neutral word, but people who respect you (or who should respect you) will not use it - if you hear a work colleague, for example, refer to you as farang they probably mean it as an insult while a taxi driver or market vendor doing the same is unlikely to mean any offense at all.



old Walking Street sign
 
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