faux pas anyone?

[Guest]

Anybody want to own up to commiting any blunders with the wonderful Thai language?

For example:

A friend of mine (honest - it wasn't me!) once asked the cashier at the cinema to sell her body having got the tone wrong for the word for ticket - dtoo-uh (rising tone). What came out was dtoo-uh (mid tone) for body.

 

I once asked for a chicken fart instead of fried chicken when I got the vowel sound slightly off in thawt (rising tone).

 

Similarly, anyone coming here with the name Todd Dawson could be in for an unfortunate time. With the right tones applied, he would be known to his Thai friends as Fart Small Prick!

 

You might also want to be careful asking a Thai in English " Have you finished yet?"

"Yet', I believe is low Thai slang for the act of procreation!

 

My Thai gf rocks with laughter at the name Cambridge. The Thai pronunciation of this comes out as kham - bpit. My non-bg gf refused to elaborate on why it should be so hilarious, only to say that it was ta- lueng (obscene) and was a phrase used by her female colleagues at work when they had been on their feet for a long time. Anyone care to enlighten me?

 

Arai wa

[Guest]

My own favorite Thai language gaffe was committed by a teaching colleague who suddenly developed a leak in his bathroom and water was positively p*ssing out of the pipe. He rushed to the phone to call reception and beg them to send the handyman up as quickly as possible. He shouted down the phone that he was in the bathroom and water was coming out. Unfortunately the expression he used translated as “I am about to ejaculate”. So you can imagine the innocent receptionist’s dismay as a farang bellowed down the phone “ I’m about to shoot me load, can you send the handyman up?”

I’m not sure whether this next one is actually true, but the Thai word for ‘excuse me’ if said incorrectly, comes out as “may I break wind?”. I heard of one foreigner who was puzzled for years why he got looks of total disdain from passengers on a crowded bus when he tried to work his way to the exit door.

[luckyfarang]

KHAW® THOHT(f) Excuse me

KHAW® DOHT May I please fart?

[Guest]

arai wa

Is there any chance that your gf comes from the Khamer speaking part of the LOS (Surin, Buriram). It's a long shot but, "kham" in Khamer means "to bite" (which interestingly enough in Thai means "a bite, portion of food or meal" in Thai)If we could find out what bpit means in Khamer it could mean something "ta-lueng". But like I said, it's probably a long shot and has nothing to with what your gf and her colleagues get a laugh from.

[Guest]

Hi Sev

No Khmer connections with my g/f but I'm not sure about her colleagues (nurses).

I tried pressing her further on this one and my reading of it (gleaned through giggle- racked mimes and 'come on.... you must know what I mean' looks) is that it alludes to a seizing up of the female genitals brought about by a lot of walking about thus preventing them from walking peoperly.

Ta-lueng mak na!

I'm still not really sure and my g/f really does find it deeply embarrassing (though hysterically funny) to explain.

 

Arai wa

[Ranger]

This one isn't quite a tonal mix-up and it's a story that I heard, but didn't actually witness.

A friend, who speaks very basic Thai, was at a restaurant ordering drinks from a very attractive, shapely waitress. He meant to ask for nam yen (water), but his mind (and eyes)were obviously focused on something else as he asked her very politely for nom yai (big breasts-literally big milk). All his friends roared with laughter and the waitress was quite embarrassed as was he.

Ranger

[Lamock Chokaprret]

When I was learning the colors I told a b/g friend of mine:

'Pom rien sii wan-nii'

Unfortunately instead of 'sii®' I used 'sii(h?)' which I later came to learn ('rien') is a word for 'to procreate.' Mea culpa.

[Guest]

In my early days in Thailand, mid-eighties, I was travelling in a train with my girl-friend, and in the compartment we met a man from Surin. I had just read about the ethnic group called Suay or Kui in Surin who are well-known as elephant catchers and trainers.

So, I asked the man (in Thai), "Do you know these people in Surin called Kuay?"

There was dumbstruck silence in the compartment; everybody who had overheard my question looked absolutely petrified. Nobody uttered a sound. My girl-friend though started laughing, and then I realised the mistake I'd made - I'd combined Suay and Kui to Kuay, the less than polite word for the male member. I reckon George Bush couldn't have done it any better.

[Guest]

My favorite and funniest story about speaking Thai:

I was with my current fiancee about a year ago when I first started hanging around in Thailand. I didn't know all that much Thai, and was frequently forgetting the words that I did know. We were in a restaurant and I was getting ready to ask for the check and couldn't remember how to say it. So I asked my girl. She told me and then headed off to the bathroom. I looked at the waitress, who was halfway across the restaurant, and hollered out "Chekatee krap!" You should have seen the look on her face and heard the giggling from my TG who was now safely out of striking range, when I announced to the entire restaurant that I was ticklish.

We still laugh about it everytime I order a bill now, although I will never again forget how to say "chek bin krap"!