Crazy Thai Language

Randomly today I was having a self-discussion about this topic, so I decided to go ahead and write a bit on it. As the title explains, Thai language is very unique. Most of you can probably guess this to be so since it’s a foreign language. However, having spent the last, maybe, 8 or so months learning it (I started to study it three months before I left for Thailand), I have come to the conclusion it is still weird. You’d think if you’re used to speaking it you’d be okay will all the weird rules, but nope. So here’s a list of the things Thai language has that are quite weird.

TONES

Anybody who has even attempted to learn Thai will tell you the tones are the bane of your existence. Let me explain. In English we all talk at generally the same pitch, Sure, sometimes we might be excited and talk with a really high voice, or be depressed and talk lower, but overall it’s the same. For Thai though, these changes in pitch are called tones. And every single word has them. This means even if you generally pronounce something correct, you can screw up and make it an entirely different word. A classic example is the word for “dog” and “horse”. Both of these are pronounced “maa”, however to say horse you have to have a higher pitch than you would for dog. And if you’re thinking this is just a minor inconvenience, allow me to tell you about the words for “near” and “far”. Guess what? They’re both “glaai”! Just different tones! Ay!

WORDS WITH NO ENGLISH MEANING

If you look up any Thai word in a translator, it will give you a general English word to compare it with. However, having experienced Thai from the locals, I kind of think some of these words are incorrect. One example is with the word “hong-nam”. If you put this in any translator it will tell you it means “bathroom”. The word itself though is made up of two separate words meaning “room” and “water”. In a sense, when talking about the bathroom, you’re really talking about the water room. How is there not an English meaning? Well you first have to step inside this said hong-nam. In Thailand the bathrooms are pretty much like American ones, except that room is rarely ever perfectly dry. This is because the way Thais clean their bathrooms is by washing all the dirt down the shower drain. Hence the reason it’s called the water room. I think personally these words are just my feeling, so it’s not really a Thai language thing, heh.

LAZY WORDS

I don’t think I really have to explain what I mean by this. Basically, Thai has some words that are so simple that it’s kind of lazy. You have the word for “to cook”, which is just the two words “make food” put together. The word for “ice” is literally “hard water”. And then you have “kind” that is just “good heart” Oh! But my favorite has to be the word for “parents”! It’s just “mom-dad”…

MULTIPLE USES

Then you have these words… These words are written and said the same way, yet mean two completely different things. In know we have a lot of these in English, but just figure I should let you know the Thais have them too. Now, when people are first learning Thai they probably think nearly all the words are identical. However, you have to remember the tones. Once you move these out of the way, there really aren’t too many words that are completely the same. The example that I can think of right now though is the word “bpen”. It means “to be” (for people), “to live”, “alive”, and “to be able”. Thankfully you can usually tell from the context which one it is. Although it gets a little tricky from the “to be” and “to be able”.

JAPANESE AND THAI DO NOT GET ALONG

At least their languages don’t. I took Japanese for two years in American school, so I am able to speak and understand a good bit. However, the meanings are so opposite it’s kind of scary! You have the Japanese word “blood”, but in Thai it means “pee”. Then there’s the word in Japanese for wonderful, but in Thai is means…well I don’t think I can say it on here. To top it all off, my Japanese friend’s name is Atsushi. I forever will feel bad for him since his name means…eh…well…I don’t think you need to know, haha!