How Do You Spell Farang?

[blackcab]

I've decided to start a thread that lists the various different ways of spelling the word "Farang". I've seen so many variations...

 

Here is the current list. Please reply below to add any additions, and I will add your inputs into this post when I revisit the thread:

 

Baxi Da (contributed by Spidey)

Falangie (contributed by Kwasaki)

Farengi

Farang

Farung

Frang

Maxi Da (contributed by Spidey)

[Just Weird]

There's only one way to spell "farang" and that is obviously "farang".

[KittenKong]

Too easy:

ATM

[KittenKong]

8 minutes ago, blackcab said:

Farengi

Crikey! None of them in my condo building ....... yet.

 

[Psimbo]

If I were you I'd consult one of the many, many, many, many, many, many threads about this.

 

At the end of the day NO ONE CARES- they know what you mean anyway!

 

(Errrrrrr- in case I get in trouble have you posted this as a Mod or a mere mortal? ????)

[mauGR1]

The English language has many good qualities, but transliteration of other languages is not one of those.

[Destiny1990]

Dead man walking.

[skatewash]

ฝรั่ง

Everything else is a transliteration into English.  The most common one would be that given by the official Royal Thai General System of Transcription: farang

[Aforek]

5 minutes ago, skatewash said:

ฝรั่ง

Everything else is a transliteration into English.  The most common one would be that given by the official Royal Thai General System of Transcription: farang

Right, the rest is only phonetics , for people who can't read or write Thai

every nationality has is own way to write it with it's own script ; how  do you spell it in Chinese ? 

[Pravda]

FKN

 

Falang K** Nok

[richard_smith237]

Oh... purleeese.... who cares ???

 

ok... for the record it’s Farang.... 

 

 ....damn-it, I’m invested now!!!....

 

If you want to appear as though you leaned Thai from.... 

...your Isaan Wife it’s Falang

...your expat mate in a bar it’s Farung

...your expat mate in a bar with an exhooker Wife... Farlung 

 

I could go on and insult the whole of the expat population who

refer to themselves as ’Farang’ instead of Westerner, Foreigner or by their nation....

[Pilotman]

I have not heard a Thai yet who calls us 'farangs', it's always 'falangs'.  Make of that what you will. 

[Denim]

First time I was called this I couldn't make out why they thought I was a Spanish Nationalist ? 

[Dmaxdan]

Well, according to Wikipedia and the Oxford English Dictionary (both reasonably reliable sources) the correct spelling is.....drum roll please....

Farang.

It originates from the Germanic word Franks.


Sent from my iPad using Thaivisa Connect

[Spidey]

16 hours ago, richard_smith237 said:

your Isaan Wife it’s Falang

Or baxi da or maxi da. My wife calls me a maxi da.

[puukao]

who are you spelling farang for?  you really only say it...... FaLang.  nobody uses the "r" anymore.....ok, maybe a few in BKK for show.  

 

tell them you have a big nose, hair on your arms, fat, can speak bad english, and like beer and potatoes.  they will figure it out...

 

bpen falang.....chai laow.  of course, please don't type Thai like this, it's really bad.  lol.  

 

and remember, 

หมากฝรั่ง is chewing gum.  "foreign".  not "foreigner"

 

anyhow

[mick220675]

Take the time to listen to Thais from different areas/dialects of Thailand talking. It becomes clear that Thais have trouble understanding Thais who were born in different parts of the country.

 

So it dose not matter how you spell or say any thing, some will under stand you, some wont.

 

I live in a village with Khmer speaking Thais, they say farang. The Lao speaking say falang. Both Think ATM.

[Spidey]

2 minutes ago, mick220675 said:

Take the time to listen to Thais from different areas/dialects of Thailand talking. It becomes clear that Thais have trouble understanding Thais who were born in different parts of the country.

 

So it dose not matter how you spell or say any thing, some will under stand you, some wont.

 

I live in a village with Khmer speaking Thais, they say farang. The Lao speaking say falang. Both Think ATM.

Lao say Maxi Da. Sometimes Baxi da. Depends, as you say, which part of issan they're from.

[skatewash]

10 minutes ago, Spidey said:

Or baxi da or maxi da. My wife calls me a maxi da.

In the Isaan dialect (which is essentially Lao) it basically means the same thing as in Thai.  It can refer to Westerners and to the guava fruit.

 

This is a pretty interesting explanation if you're into this sort of thing:

https://siamsmile.webs.com/isaan/isaan.html

[richard_smith237]

3 minutes ago, skatewash said:

In the Isaan dialect (which is essentially Lao) it basically means the same thing as in Thai.  It can refer to Westerners and to the guava fruit.

 

This is a pretty interesting explanation if you're into this sort of thing:

https://siamsmile.webs.com/isaan/isaan.html

 

.... this is where you usually get some half-pished, leather faced, toothless, old dear squalk out the golden droplet.... "hahahahahahah.... falang kin falang... hahahahaha".... 

 

[richard_smith237]

12 minutes ago, mick220675 said:

Take the time to listen to Thais from different areas/dialects of Thailand talking. It becomes clear that Thais have trouble understanding Thais who were born in different parts of the country.

 

So it dose not matter how you spell or say any thing, some will under stand you, some wont.

 

I live in a village with Khmer speaking Thais, they say farang. The Lao speaking say falang. Both Think ATM.

 

Very true...  My Wife can order something in a restaurant, I understand perfectly what she has said....  The Waiter / Waitress is lost and my Wife has to repeat herself a couple of times... or the Waiter / Waitress get the order wrong....  

 

When getting the 1000 yard stare or the wrong order I used to think it was my fault... before realizing its not and Thai' face the very same issue !!!...  my Thai is fine, it the person listening who's ears are not yet tuned to Bangkok Thai (or they are just dumb and not paying attention !).

 

 

[phutoie2]

Rarely will you hear an educated Thai use that dreadful word, in our golf club house which is full of senior retired Army Officers, Police, Judges, Doctors etc, I have never heard it said. However gobby lard arsed expats are more than likely to use it. 

 The same types who cannot even pronounce Pattaya correctly. 

[Pilotman]

who knows, who cares.  

[skatewash]

I don't remember who said it earlier, but Isaan speakers do say falang rather than farang if they are speaking in Isaan dialect.  There is no 'r' sound in Isaan dialect or Lao (which is very closely related).  Isaan people learn standard Central Thai in schools, but often the mother tongue (first language learned at birth) is Isaan (Lao).  Therefore, not surprising that farang is often pronounced falang.  Also, there are a lot of Isaan people everywhere in Thailand not just in Isaan, so it will appear sometimes that everyone is saying falang rather than farang.  I'm not sure that's true, but obviously, this large group of speakers has influenced how things get pronounced countrywide even if Isaan is not considered the prestige language.

 

I learned two interesting things in my attempt to learn the Thai language:

 

1) I'm tone deaf (which is a serious handicap in a language that depends on tones ???? ) and

 

2) there are all sorts of rules in the Thai language for how syllables should be properly pronounced in Thai, in particular, with which sounds syllables may end.  When one applies these Thai language rules to English the result is sometimes called Tinglish.  You can explain 99% of the differences between Tinglish and standard English by simply knowing the rules for how syllables are pronounced in Thai.  It was an epiphany when I realized this. 

 

The lightbulb went on and I could finally understand why my girlfriend's last name (transliterated into English) ended in -kul and yet she would always pronounce it -kun.  She was pronouncing it correctly, of course, it was the transliteration system (Royal Thai General System of Translation) that insisted on being faithful more to the spelling of the word then how it was pronounced.  The result of the RTGS is that foreigners end up mispronouncing a lot of Thai words just because they accurately follow the transliteration.  We're set up for failure. ???? On top of which we get the tones wrong as we use tone in English to alter the meaning of a sentence, while Thais are using it to specify the meaning of a word.

[Bluespunk]

"How Do You Spell Farang?"

 

I don't...

[youreavinalaff]

8 minutes ago, skatewash said:

I don't remember who said it earlier, but Isaan speakers do say falang rather than farang if they are speaking in Isaan dialect.  There is no 'r' sound in Isaan dialect or Lao (which is very closely related).  Isaan people learn standard Central Thai in schools, but often the mother tongue (first language learned at birth) is Isaan (Lao).  Therefore, not surprising that farang is often pronounced falang.  Also, there are a lot of Isaan people everywhere in Thailand not just in Isaan, so it will appear sometimes that everyone is saying falang rather than farang.  I'm not sure that's true, but obviously, this large group of speakers has influenced how things get pronounced countrywide even if Isaan is not considered the prestige language.

 

I learned two interesting things in my attempt to learn the Thai language:

 

1) I'm tone deaf (which is a serious handicap in a language that depends on tones ???? ) and

 

2) there are all sorts of rules in the Thai language for how syllables should be properly pronounced in Thai, in particular, with which sounds syllables may end.  When one applies these Thai language rules to English the result is sometimes called Tinglish.  You can explain 99% of the differences between Tinglish and standard English by simply knowing the rules for how syllables are pronounced in Thai.  It was an epiphany when I realized this. 

 

The lightbulb went on and I could finally understand why my girlfriend's last name (transliterated into English) ended in -kul and yet she would always pronounce it -kun.  She was pronouncing it correctly, of course, it was the transliteration system (Royal Thai General System of Translation) that insisted on being faithful more to the spelling of the word then how it was pronounced.  The result of the RTGS is that foreigners end up mispronouncing a lot of Thai words just because they accurately follow the transliteration.  We're set up for failure. ???? On top of which we get the tones wrong as we use tone in English to alter the meaning of a sentence, while Thais are using it to specify the meaning of a word.

When you say "Isaan" please explain that you are referring to "Isaan Laos". There are a number of different dialects in Isaan. One of which pronouces the "r" very strongly.

[Pib]

 

[Dumbastheycome]

1 hour ago, Spidey said:

Or baxi da or maxi da. My wife calls me a maxi da.

Lao origin.

[Spidey]

34 minutes ago, phutoie2 said:

Rarely will you hear an educated Thai use that dreadful word, in our golf club house which is full of senior retired Army Officers, Police, Judges, Doctors etc, I have never heard it said. However gobby lard arsed expats are more than likely to use it. 

 The same types who cannot even pronounce Pattaya correctly. 

Sounds like you mix with a real bunch of tossers. Here, for the uneducated, is de facto on the word farang.

 

 

[Spidey]

1 minute ago, Dumbastheycome said:

Lao origin.

Yep. Nong Khai, a mile from the border with Laos. Took her to Laos and was amazed that she converse faultlessly with the locals. We normally converse in Lao as I've found it easier to learn and we have more Issan friends than Thai.