The week that was in Thailand news: Lost in translation! It happens to us all from time to time!

[rooster59]

The week that was in Thailand news: Lost in translation! It happens to us all from time to time!

 

 

As regular readers will know I was a language flop at school - failing abysmally in French and German - even if I did show some aptitude in my native English tongue.

 

Coming to Thailand this changed due to the fact that I was desperate to learn Thai and put in the kind of hours only matched later by my determination to master the international Scrabble dictionary. I ended up teaching Thai for 20 years and these days translate the language on Thaivisa.

 

This week on Thailand's number one news site (as we like to call it!) many of the stories involved Thai vocabulary, foreigners and misunderstandings. The phrase "Lost in Translation" even featured in a report of a fight in Phuket between a foreigner and some locals and Burmese at a restaurant.

 

Fortunately when I make mistakes these days - as I must admit occasionally happens - it doesn't usually end up in fisticuffs either on Thaivisa or at the Ratchayothin Roost. I am usually forgiven my domestic slips by Mrs Rooster after the required "should have known better" admonishments. It is a truism that the better you get at languages the better you are expected to be - a word to the wise for those praised for just saying "khop khun khrap" or "sawatdee" with adequate clarity.

 

All people who learn Thai have their favorite "boobs" (mistakes, not the time when you might have asked for milk from a busty waitress and wondered why she was impressed or upset). Many words sound very similar to the uninitiated such as "suay" which when spoken with a common tone is er...common parlance for "terrible"....and when with a rising tone means "beautiful".

 

Mixing the two can result in mirth. Mixing the word "hia" (common tone) with the falling tone variety might result in your return to the land of your birth in a box if it was deemed deliberate and you were addressing a wealthy man of Chinese descent. Hia in the two tones indicates that as well as water monitor, a rather reviled creature in Thailand probably because it steals farmers' eggs.

 

If one does not want to be the subject of ribaldry when referring to riding a horse - "khee maa" - one should go low and high and not falling and rising. The latter suggests you may have stepped in something a dog might have done. Rooster has done it all - stepped in horse and dog pooh and ridden dogs (canines, I might add).

 

When pronouncing the words for near and far, differently spelled but fiendishly close for the learner from a non-tonal background, I can sense the position of my tongue in trying to get it right. Try that if mistakes abound; it is infinitely better than blaming Thais for their ears. Such comments that I have heard from foreigners over the years are like those that believe the locals are bad mouthing them because they heard the word "farang" - it helps to hide their own limitations, inadequacies and frustrations when it comes to learning Thai.

 

I have had such fun with Thai over the years and consider myself still learning though admittedly at a slower rate than in the halcyon days of the 1980s when every new word was a joy, when ordering two packets of cigarettes successfully in a bar was a major triumph! Not least as the all important classifier for packets when pronounced wrongly means brothel. Try "buree song song" if you are a 40 a day consumer of coffin nails.

 

I used to assess Thai ladies' English in very simple ways using one of the sentences from the Oxford placement test. If they could appreciate the difference between "There are a lot of Thai girls in the north" and "There are a lot of tigers in the north" they would rank. If they could come back with a witty riposte, their rank would be higher. We would then move on to their ability to use "it depends" in English.

 

If I was interested in the lady romantically I would quiz them on the offside rule in football (soccer to my Septic friends, the reason for this slur to come later in the column.....)

 

Testing a foreigner's Thai I might use a term like "rong rian". Most will recognize this as "building learn" or school but when the vowel and tone of "rong" is altered a little the expression means "to complain". Of course if they "complain" that I didn't pronounce it properly they get a few points for being cheeky sods.

 

Over the years I came to recognize that one of the great dangers in learning a foreign language is to use the wrong dictionary. I became known at my international school for encouraging Thai to English dictionaries but banning English to Thai. It was too easy to come up with the wrong word (a bit like the Thai student who praised me for my lovely "dic").

 

A case in point was when I learned the word "seuak" from a lexicon that suggested "interrupt" as its meaning. I thought that with some polite additions I could easily use it to ask someone nicely to please let me finish. I tried it out and it resulted in one of those occasions when I got a lecture from a Thai and never forgot to avoid that word again!

 

I don't believe it can be used politely - a Thai who doesn't want to be interrupted would skirt around the issue perhaps saying "diaw phuut hay jop gorn na" (wait speak until finish first na).

 

"Seuak" was central this week to the story about a Thai speaking foreigner who was on the line to a bank's call center and who heard the word in reference to them by an employee who didn't know they were listening in. The comment soon reached Thai social media and the employee was apparently sacked. The foreigner asked for them to be reinstated but the damage seemed to have been done.

 

Language slips by foreigners are largely forgiven - when Thais err the penalty can be much more severe!

 

As a case in point later in the week a male high school teacher in Udon Thani was filmed walloping a female student while uttering the word "meung" - a foul word for "you" only used by very close friends or in threatening and abusive language. The tragedy for Thailand - if I may - is that the teacher could receive more sanction for his use of the pronoun than for his physical assault.

 

Also this week came the story with the headline about the "Lost in Translation" fight in Karon - whatever happened it fortunately ended without prosecution. Wais between combatants - in or out of the nation's police stations - are often worth a thousand words.

 

And yes, we all get "lost" in language from time to time!

 

POTY candidate Yinn reminded me this week (if I ever needed such reassurance) that speaking and understanding Thai makes life so much better in the kingdom. It was lovely to read the language and culture laced story about the Thai coffin maker who had one of his wares stolen. I tried in my translation to get across why he could leave his business open at night - I mean what local in their right mind, if there are any left, would tempt fate by pinching such a thing!

 

It turned out that Jamnong suspected a business rival - with Thailand's road death toll there must be plenty of room for them - and pointed his finger at the tough economic times.

 

Road death is not the only reason for so many "sops" (corpses). There seems to have been a lot of murder lately especially grisly ones revealing the Thai penchant for wiping out entire families when face is lost. In Chiang Rai an investigation was underway after two parents and their daughter - all workers at the local municipal finance office - were found dead.

 

Later on television I saw three coffins being burned outside at a temple and wondered why. Mrs R said they all needed to go up in flames at the same time as they were all part of the same family and would not have fit in the crematorium. You learn something new about life, and death, every day in Thailand.....

 

"Mystery surrounds" the death of a Dutch man who was found floating in the Chao Praya south of Bangkok after saying goodbye to his Thai girlfriend now "helping police with their inquiries". Rooster can't resist such terms though if you gave me full rein I'd have much fruitier language for the authorities in the death of a British/Indian man in the south.

 

Apparently the police have now determined that Amitpal Singh Bajaj was murdered by Norwegian Roger Bullman. He is of course being sought but questions from the highest authorities in the land need to raised about how he was given bail in the first place. This smells infinitely worse than my mother-in-law's som tam, something I never thought I would say!

 

Language also figured in the ongoing defamation trial in Los Angeles between Our Vern and Musk Melon. Melon suggested "paedo" doesn't mean what it says on the tin - rather like Australians referring to their best mates as "bastards". While Vern laid it on thick with the hurt caused by such a scurrilous and undeserved suggestion. I am batting for Vern on this as I don't even consider he started it with his "shove your sub where the sun don't shine" volley.

 

Melon started it by jeopardizing the rescue of the footballers in the cave in mounting a clear, disruptive and unwanted publicity stunt with a piece of kit that could never have worked in the narrow cave.

 

(The verdict announced yesterday was a disgrace, in my view. Hopefully further anticipated trials in the UK and Thailand might have a more favorable result for Mr Unsworth).

 

In surveys, Bangkok once again came out in second place on the "Euromonitor" (nothing to do with water monitors) scale of most visited cities. Second only to Hong Kong, another of Rooster's beloveds, Sanook stated this was in part due to all the shopping centers like the new Icon Siam where the Chinese supposedly spend all their Yuan. Bangkok also thrives because of health tourism.

 

Apropos, another survey listed Thailand as having the cheapest medicine in the world. This was pooh-poohed by some posters with stories of paying 100 baht for a few Tylenol at private hospitals. More fool them. One of the best strategies I know in Thailand is to connive with willing doctors to circumvent hospital pharmacies in preference for ones in the street. This has saved me literally hundreds of thousands over the years.....

 

Plod - as in any week on Thaivisa - were stars of the show. And none more so that Big Oud. The immigration chief was surrounded by so much vinyl, microphones and miscreants that Rooster drew a parallel with his disgraced predecessor Big Joke.

 

Oud - the sound of a snuffling pig, incidentally, - doesn't have the charisma or looks of his forebear but he is making a jolly good fist of revealing what is at the end of the long arm of the law. This week he was busting every Chinese tourist he could find at call centers. Obviously this pleases the powers that be in China as the victims of the scams are based there.

 

And we all know the value of keeping Mr Wu smiling while the Thais are cleaning his windows (Google George Formby and Mr Wu if you have any doubt about that!).

 

Up in Chiang Mai an out of control American called Daniel Park continued to cause grief. Following his video outing calling the Thais "gooks" last month after damaging a restaurant it was further revealed that he had bashed that bastion of American culture Ronald McDonald outside an eatery that bears his name in the city.

 

I contacted Mr Park to ask when he was due in court and would he be turning up. He denied that he had gone on the run, then - after suggesting I was not from Thaivisa but the CIA - he got a bit coy. This soon passed as I assured him my intentions were merely to let him explain his hatred for Thailand. He said he would welcome deportation - wouldn't we all - and we amicably went our separate ways.

 

He then sent me a torrent of abuse making me wonder if that was what he reserved for the British rather than the Thais. So I blocked him.

 

Thereafter a man was seen pushing over a mailbox in Mae Jo and, wanting to confirm that it was him, I was tempted to unblock him. Until Facebook told me something I didn't know - on unblocking someone one is unable to re-block them for 48 hours. No way Mourinho!

 

Whether this individual is mentally ill or just a todger I know not but when you have spoken to someone reasonably and are subsequently abused I reserve the right to call him a Septic (a British cockney rhyming slang related to tanks and yanks).

 

English teachers - lacking in both numbers and quality - were in the news this week. The education authorities said that many more would be hired and Thaivisa suggested these could actually come from a magical place in Thai myth, otherwise known as abroad.

 

The forum went into curmudgeon overdrive suggesting that foreign teachers meant cheap hire Filipinos. It was hard to argue with their suspicions as Thais are at best 'thrifty' especially when there is the possibility of graft. This word rarely means work in the kingdom.

 

Later in the week we were told in a story overflowing with buzzwords how English would be taught alongside new technology. The new ministers in the education sector continue to rattle their curriculum cages spouting twaddle.

 

A minister of a different ilk, transport supremo Saksayam Chidchob, proudly presented plans to pay the public 50% of all fines for reporting fare refusing taxi drivers and minivans for approaching the speed of sound. Wisely he put a 30,000 baht ceiling on the public's earnings. Rooster imagined that without that caveat some Thais would have given up their day jobs!

 

Down in QUOTES - the Queen Of The Eastern Seaboard - a German on crutches was robbed by a person "dressed as a woman" and the eight story Holiday Inn partially went up in smoke causing the evacuation of hundreds of tourists. In the first rumors abounded about the sex of the thief, in the second about the time it took for the fire brigade to respond.

 

Finally my congratulations to a lovely young lad called Tarin Pairor, the 15 year old son of a Canadian man and his Thai wife who are physics lecturers in Korat. Tarin won the world youth Scrabble championship in Kuala Lumpur last Sunday.

 

Two weeks prior I had beaten Tarin 3-0 in a tournament in Bangkok. I remembered thinking at the time that I had rarely been that lucky and if I ever beat him like that again it would be a miracle.

 

The second poster on the KL story on Thaivisa suggested that Tarin had probably cheated. This was kindly removed by the moderators but not before I managed to aim my best shot.

 

I asked the poster if they knew that when placed correctly on a Scrabble board the word "KNOBHEAD" could garner 248 points.

 

Ah...the power of language!

 

Rooster

 

-- © Copyright Thai Visa News 2019-12-07

Follow Thaivisa on LINE for breaking Thailand news and visa info

[Samui Bodoh]

An enjoyable read as always and, as an added bonus, on one of my favourite topics; language.

 

Sadly, while I am one of those people who absolutely appreciates the value of learning a local language, I am also one of those special people who are literally tone deaf. How tone deaf? When I try to carry a tune, little children run away in fear (not a joke; it has occurred on four continents). I did plug away at a language school for two years (my Thai friends there used to say that I was the only foreigner who they thought really couldn't get the hang of it), and through hard, grinding work managed to attain 'Beginners' level. Yes, since then I have continued the best that I could, but I remain reliant on the goodwill (greatwill?!) of Thais and their infinite patience with me. I do not really understand how they know, but my experience in the Kingdom has been that Thais know that I try and demonstrate endless understanding; a bit, I suspect, like with a handicapped younger brother.

 

Notwithstanding the above, I did manage to pick up (non-tonal) Bahasa Indonesia and had fun with that. My favourite story there was with the root word 'Malu'. In Indonesian, you learn to expand your vocabulary very quickly through the use of prefixes and suffixes, but this on rare occasions leads to both mirth and embarrassment. All who live in that country have heard the tale of a foreigner standing up in front of a large crowd to explain their embarrassment of not speaking Indonesian well, only to learn later that they mentioned their very large testicles.

 

My favourite language experience occurred working in Hanoi many years ago. My work counterpart, a certain Mr. Cach, was... er... ahem... not one of my favourite people, but we were stuck with each other. I was making another futile attempt to learn a tonal language back in those days, and when my Vietnamese teacher asked me about my work, I answered something like "Mr. Cach and I....". Her face went beet red, then she laughed so hard that she literally fell out of her chair and onto the floor. She did try to avoid an explanation, but eventually I learned that my mispronounced tone meant that I referred to my colleague as 'Mr. (male genitalia)'. I swore her to silence and for the next two years, whenever I was unhappy with the guy, I purposefully mispronounced his name. And, for two years I was never caught knowing precisely what I was saying... To this day I wonder how all our other colleagues managed to keep a straight face.

 

Hmm... why do language learning problems seem to always focus on genitalia? Is it proof that the universe has a sense of humour?

 

 

[leeneeds]

Knobhead

 

Knobhead (77°55′S 161°34′E) is a massive ice-free mountain, 2,400 metres (7,900 ft) high, standing south of the western end of the Kukri Hillsand overlooking Ferrar Glacier and Taylor Glacier at their point of apposition, in Victoria Land, Antarctica. It was discovered by the British National Antarctic Expedition (1901–04) and so named because of its appearance.

 

A border word that gets its spin in Australian language as <deleted>,

the second poster on Khun Tarin's achievement  wears the title well

[overherebc]

Friend who was exceptionaly proud of his 'pony tail' and was learning Thai went for a shampoo and little trim in BKK.

He said the words 50/50 Thai and English 'May Aow cut short'.

Two seconds later his 'pony tail' was handed to him, with a smile, of course.

[kickstart]

A true story ,new year a Brit guy walking with his girlfriend on a Thai beach ,he looks up at the sky  and says in Thai ,It could be snowing in the uk now ,his girlfriend then slapped him in the face ,he said why . 

She tried to explain, snow in Thai is Hi-Ma, he said,a H and two e's and Mar,which means in English A female dogs genitalia .he remembered that word .

My one ,my wife has a friend called Moie ,I said to her is Moie come coming round ,she looked at me in a strange way ,long story short ,Moie in wrong tone what I said , is pubic hair.  

But the tassels on a cob of sweet corn,before the outer shell is taken off  is known on the farm as Moie ,pubic hair . 

[Isaanbiker]

1 hour ago, overherebc said:

Friend who was exceptionaly proud of his 'pony tail' and was learning Thai went for a shampoo and little trim in BKK.

He said the words 50/50 Thai and English 'May Aow cut short'.

Two seconds later his 'pony tail' was handed to him, with a smile, of course.

It was perhaps better than removing his smaller tail.

 

  I love language articles to death. And I almost got killed when I accidentally misused the words "hoy and menn". The waitress almost killed me. 

 

A friend of mine with an unbelievable vocab in Thai, unfortunately a brutal way of pronouncing them, made me laugh so many times.

 

   Instead using the word Krung Thip for his fags, he wanted Krung Thep and didn't understand why they didn't have that and pointed in the air where they thought Bangkok would be located. 

 

And another guy using the 50/ 50 language got huge troubles when he used key and khun together. Vice versa and made somebody to a <deleted>-y person. 

 

He wanted to know if the guy had seen his keys.

 

  But we all know that shi_e happens. Innit?  ????

 

 

 

  

 

 

[FarFlungFalang]

Carefull Rooster I was sin binned for my miss interpretation of "septic rings" post as someone found it offensive.

[bluesofa]

13 hours ago, rooster59 said:

The education authorities said that many more would be hired and Thaivisa suggested these could actually come from a magical place in Thai myth, otherwise known as abroad

I'm sure a lot of readers would have the knowledge of where to hire a broad.

 

[bluesofa]

9 hours ago, kickstart said:

{snipped}

My one ,my wife has a friend called Moie ,I said to her is Moie come coming round ,she looked at me in a strange way ,long story short ,Moie in wrong tone what I said , is pubic hair.  

But the tassels on a cob of sweet corn,before the outer shell is taken off  is known on the farm as Moie ,pubic hair . 

If you're Thai and visiting Finland don't be offended when Finns say 'hello'. It's the same word as pubic hair in Thai (assuming they say it with a rising tone).

[Orton Rd]

After several book courses, the linguaphone course and language Schools I married a Thai language teacher. 25 years latter the staff in shops still have trouble understanding the numbers i give them on the membership cards, I know when to give up!

[FarFlungFalang]

14 hours ago, rooster59 said:

rather like Australians referring to their best mates as "bastards".

Showing your age here Rooster we now endearingly refer to our mates as "kents", to use a printable version of the vernacular.In case you're wondering the word "kent" is an amalgamation of the words "kind gentleman".

[bluesofa]

4 minutes ago, FarFlungFalang said:

Showing your age here Rooster we now endearingly refer to our mates as "kents", to use a printable version of the vernacular.

Reminds me of Brian Cant of Play School fame.

I remember something like Red Nose Day when someone asked him, "Is your name Brian Cant?", to which he replied, "There's no need to be rude."

[overherebc]

49 minutes ago, bluesofa said:

If you're Thai and visiting Finland don't be offended when Finns say 'hello'. It's the same word as pubic hair in Thai (assuming they say it with a rising tone).

And if you work in Norway and you're asked what your job is say you are an engineer, don't say you're a fitter ( especially with a geordie accent ) or you'll get some strange looks.

[FarFlungFalang]

1 hour ago, bluesofa said:

Reminds me of Brian Cant of Play School fame.

I remember something like Red Nose Day when someone asked him, "Is your name Brian Cant?", to which he replied, "There's no need to be rude."

I wonder what superman would make of being one of the more well known Kents?

[wotsdermatter]

16 hours ago, rooster59 said:

The forum went into curmudgeon overdrive

Rooster, herein there is a problem.  While your knowledge and use of the English language, and you often state your preference is for using the USA vernacular, is profound, Curmudgeon is one of those transatlantic words that has different meanings depending on the users location of origin.  In North America, as a noun it refers to a person considered to be bad-tempered, disagreeable, or stubborn whereas in the U.K., as a noun, it is used to describe a killjoy or a wet blanket.

'nuf sed.

[Jane Dough]

40 minutes ago, wotsdermatter said:

Rooster, herein there is a problem.  While your knowledge and use of the English language, and you often state your preference is for using the USA vernacular, is profound, Curmudgeon is one of those transatlantic words that has different meanings depending on the users location of origin.  In North America, as a noun it refers to a person considered to be bad-tempered, disagreeable, or stubborn whereas in the U.K., as a noun, it is used to describe a killjoy or a wet blanket.

'nuf sed.

That's a problem?! Seems to be multi-purpose to me! Like a blanket term, especially useful now the mercury has dropped.

 

Cheers, and thanks for reading. 

 

Rooster

[Stargeezr]

Another great article Rooster, good subjects covered. I see cool weather in the

N and NE, and I hope it warms up a bit in a month. I am looking forward to

skipping the cold of Winter and spending some fun time in Thailand again

Geezer

[overherebc]

Can go both ways in translation mistakes.

 

Expat and local girlfriend, he speaks no Thai, she speaks no English.

In the bedroom doing the deed she keeps saying Chawp Chawp.

He says  I don't understand.

She checks the dictionary and the following night, doing the deed she starts moaning

Potato Potato Potato.

 

[wwest5829]

Those who know Spanish can appreciate that I confused the two words for “hot”. The young lady I was with (Margarita remains a special term for me every time I hear it), replied in Spanish, “That is your problem, Señor”. I knew the “hot” I used was the other “hot”. She laughed mischievously. I blushed and compounded the mistake saying I was embarazada = pregnant!

[sambum]

9 hours ago, bluesofa said:

If you're Thai and visiting Finland don't be offended when Finns say 'hello'. It's the same word as pubic hair in Thai (assuming they say it with a rising tone).

And if you're getting on a plane in New York - don't say "Hi Jack" even if you know who you're saying it to!

 

[paahlman]

Exellent Mr. Rooster..!

 

[yankyoakum]

Ah this explains why my wife says never speak Thai, she is a smart woman.....

[Mick501]

11 hours ago, bluesofa said:

Reminds me of Brian Cant of Play School fame.

I remember something like Red Nose Day when someone asked him, "Is your name Brian Cant?", to which he replied, "There's no need to be rude."

Some gay friends pointed out a similar quirk in The Sound of Music.  But be warned, if you watch this 9 second clip it will forever change the way you look at that movie.

 

 

[brianthainess]

On 12/7/2019 at 5:55 PM, rooster59 said:

he started it with his "shove your sub where the sun don't shine" volley.

I am sure he only meant park it in the shade. ????