#thai vocab

[polyglot-thought]

[Thai, Indonesian, Malay->English]

Cute animal I found out existed today: The Flat-headed Cat (Prionailurus planiceps)

And they are endangered 😢

They are native to southern Thailand, Peninsular Malaysia, Sumatra and Borneo.

Since I am a language blog, I will show you how to refer to Prionailurus planiceps in the official languages of each respective country (Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia) 😄 with Color Coded Translations

—

Thai

แมวป่��หัวแบน

maew bpàa hŭua baen

flat-headed (wild) cat

—

Indonesian

kucing liar kecil

little wild cat

—

Malay

kucing hutan

forest/jungle cat

—

Please correct me if I made a mistake

[fuck-i-like-too-much-stuff]

Okay so after surviving the "Pond, look at me." Numerous "are you feeling shy?" "Let's try this" * proceeds to climb over him without realising they're being filmed. * "he doesnt like skinship"- "i dont"- "but he will do it for you. You're special"- "i know, its an honor."

I have 2 questions- 1) The fuck? 2) Phuwin are you insane?

[rigelmejo]

Something that always annoys me is the idea only 1 language learning method works. Which is not true. While it may be possible that, for a particular individual, only a few out of many study methods may work well enough for That Individual to make progress and stay motivated... that doesn't mean all the other study methods won't work for anyone else out there, or that those few methods will work for every other given person.

Obviously if you've been studying a while, then you already figured out what kinds of things work for you and don't. If you're a beginner, just wading into studying?

I would suggest you simply look for study methods that: 1. Teach you new things regularly, 2. Review and practice things you've learned, 3. Include studying things you need for your particular goals (for example if your goal is to read X book then the study materials at some point should involve reading practice and some words the book contains, if your goal is to talk about Y then the study materials should include some information about pronunciation and words you'll need to be able to say).

As you can imagine, a TON of study materials will meet these requirements. And you can study a given skill in a LOT of ways.

(Reading is my focus lol so just for reading, a beginner might: do vocabulary study with lists or conversations with native speakers or watching shows and looking words up or listening to dialogues with a transcript like in a textbook or graded readers or a picture book with word labels in the target language or a video game with labelled objects in target language, all of those things as long as your vocabulary is improving or reading practice is happening would help you make progress). So to improve reading skill as a beginner: you could study with a textbook, a podcast with transcript, a classroom or tutor with words written down in target language (like TPRS), a video game, a TV show and a translate app on your phone, a friend you talk with (who either writes words down or you look up words you hear with a translate app), a friend you text with, srs flashcards like anki (provided there's text) etc. As long as there's new words, and/or you're practicing reading, the study method may work. If it works will come down to if you can stay motivated doing it regularly, and make sure you regularly learn some new things and review/practice things you've already studied.

So consider those things when you see people selling a study method as a product (especially when it's costing you money). Consider if it teaches you NEW things, and are those new things related to your goals, and how MUCH new stuff will it teach you before you finish it? Consider if it provides review or practice, or if you can use it's materials to review on your own making up your own method, or if you'll need to do separate review/practice.

So examples:

LingQ. Can it teach you many new words? Yes, thousands, since you can import any texts you want when you get done with their provided material (I have no idea how much their beginner material covers though in terms of words... I would hope 1000-3000 words but that can be researched). Is your goal reading? It's suited to reading, so you will practice and review often with it. Cost? I think it was $12 a month when I last had it, and the price may have increased. Is it worth it? Depends on a learner's needs. I found it was wasting my money, so I chose to use free tools like Pleco and Readibu apps - since those apps are suited for Chinese learners and have better translations, Pleco has better paid graded reader material if I was going to spend money, and both Pleco and Readibu let me import texts so I can learn thousands of new words just like LingQ but free. Now that I'm not a beginner, I often use Microsoft Edge to read chinese... since I can still click-translate words easily (all my web browsers have that tool free), and Edge's TTS voice is helpful for pronunciation and sounds quite good. I read webnovels online so Edge works well. But it's translations aren't as good as Pleco or Readibu, so if I still needed translations more I would use them. So... is LingQ a good study method? Its certainly a study method marketed to buy. Well... the method is suited to improving reading skill, at least. It costs money, which is a negative, but it does offer a lot. However: everything it does regarding reading can be done free with other apps or sites or web browsers on their own. So if paying money motivates you to read... sure. LingQ does have a few word tracking features a learner may find worth the money, keeping in mind the actual read-to-learn method can be done free without lingq. (Also... while LingQ is a valid option for improving reading, if the learners goal is speaking then it would be important to think of what study activities the learner will do OUTSIDE of LingQ to improve speaking... because I've seen how LingQ is marketed as "how to learn a language" but it's only focused on some skills. It has vocabulary and grammar in some sense, since you'll read a lot and encounter new words and structures. But it doesnt have speaking or writing practice at least last time I was on it. Those activities would need to be worked on, on your own).

You can do that kind of cost/benefit contemplating with any study method material you see being sold. Amother example: there's a beginner Mandarin course called Mandarin Blueprint. It teaches like 800 words. Thats all. It may be worthwhile for a beginner... who still needs to learn 800 common words. But if you already know a few hundred words, the benefit of the course is less, you'll need to find a new material to teach you more new stuff soon. And the price was like a few hundred for the course... which for me personally was too much to spend, when I had already learned 800 hanzi from a book that cost me 12 dollars and 2000 words from a free user made memrise deck. The course claimed to get a person speaking, competent, but anyone not a beginner would say speaking basically with 800 words is nowhere near the level of working in Chinese or just doing a lot of daily life stuff, or reading/listening to media. (Although for the motivated beginner if you're learning 800 words on your own like I was, its definitely close to the point of jumping to learn more words and start reading kids and teenager books, and watching easier shows if you're willing to look new words up). So to me... Mandarin Blueprint felt like overselling some basic beginner materials. (Again when I know several other things that teach beginner stuff either more in depth so HSK test prep classes, and college courses, or that teach beginner stuff to the same depth as Mandarin Blueprint but free).

Some study materials aren't going to act like they teach everything. I've seen chinese courses just for learning to speak tones better and general pronunciation - probably worthwhile if your goal is to improve speaking and a teacher could help improve the issues your having. But a learner needs to be aware for that course that they'll need to study vocabulary on their own, its JUST a pronunciation improvement course.

[kerizaret]

Ougghh I hate learning vocab 😔😔😔

[khaotungsfirst]

decided that it's actually fucking stupid to get so much thai immersion almost daily and not study it so here i am now trying to learn the thai alphabet

[daily-spanish-word]

people la gente

Imagine a big group of gents, gentlemen. Like: a few thousand very British fellows running the London marathon, all sporting black business suits, bowler hats and umbrellas.

Imagine the people waving with their hands.

Imagine encountering a hen party of thai women. The bride being so rich that she flew all her 200 best friends over to your city to celebrate.

Many people go to the beach in July. Mucha gente va a la playa en julio.

[airenyah]

there goes the sign again with classical music and we've moved on from beethoven to mozart's kleine nachtmusik

[historicallyaccurateweedshoppe]

Sixteen random words in Thai

ถนัด [thanat] v. to be an expert in; adv. skillfully, accurately

สม [som] v. to be well-matched, suitable

ระบือ [rabue] v. spread; adj. well-known

โฉมเฉลา [chom chalao] n. beautiful girl

แฉล้ม [chalaem] v. to be beautiful; adj. beautiful

พลิกแพลง [phlik phlaeng] v. to equivocate, modify

อภิวันท์ [aphiwan] v. to worship

เปรอ [preu] v. to service, attend upon

สนิธ [sanit] adj. close

สมาทาน [samatan] v. to hold to (religious precepts)

ปวง [puang] det. all

ชวด [chuat] n. great grandparent; year of the rat; v. to lose, fail

โฉด [chot] adj. mad, bad, evil, foolish

อะคร้าว [akrao] proud/prideful of

เนา [nao] v. to hem; to stay/live; n. ship

ป่าชัฎ [pa chat] n. wilderness

[nowtoboldlygo]

korean media resources for beginners! 🇰🇷

comprehensible input, vaguely in order of easiest to most difficult. on the CI wiki and lingotrack. here's the list for day-one beginners! (with lots of overlap)

태웅쌤 - Comprehensible Input Korean’s [Lv.A0] Complete Zero Beginner Korean Course 9 hours; modeled after Comprehensible Thai’s playlist!

KIWI-Korean Input With Images’s playlist 3 hours; did rewatch this a few times. so cute & simple!

몰입한국어 Immersion in Korean’s Super Beginner/A0-A1 short story playlist ~1 hour; new playlist but likely to fill out. stories repeated thrice.

한글용사 아이야 60+ hours; kids show, i love my hangul power rangers ❤️💙💛

Comprehensible Korean Language’s beginner playlist 13+ hours; brand new channel!! started 6/2024

Blippi Korean Easy preschooler show, dubbed. 🚶‍♂️

태웅쌤 - Comprehensible Input Korean’s hidden folks & unpacking playlists 15+ hours; imo his most comprehensible video game stuff

Peppa Pig in Korean 32 hours; preschooler show, dubbed. 🐷

Tayo 꼬마버스 타요 Preschooler show. 🚌

Pocoyo Preschooler show, lots of narration. 👦

Muzzy in Gondoland 4 hours; technically requires a subscription but offers a free trial, pretty famous for English learning & has a Korean version 🛸

other preschooler-level TV shows 한글용사 아이야, Blippi & Peppa are the easiest, but you start to unlock shows for 2-6 year olds at this level. and there are a billion of them.

search term 룸 투어 for room tours 🏡

shopping channel / infomercials!, product reviews always very very repetitive, and while i'm at bits & pieces understanding, it's fun to pick out new vocab occasionally. 🛍️

[lurkingteapot]

Hi, how would a non-binary person (me) get around the binary gender rules and vocab in Thai?

Thank on you for your amazing resources!

Hi there!

This is a question I feel like native speakers of Thai should be much more qualified to answer 😅 @recentadultburnout ? @jinitak ? Any takers?

For what it's worth, though: I also consider myself outside the gender binary, and am uncomfortable with some forms of gendered address in languages I'm fluent in, and as such have looked into it a bit. I'm barely conversational, so the things I list here have been sourced from conversations with queer and non-binary Thai acquaintances and a couple of language teachers plus my own observations, which may very well be faulty … so under the cut it goes.

First off: Thai isn't nearly as clearly binarily gendered as many beginner resources indicate. Beginner resources will say, oh, men™ say ผม (/pʰǒm/) and women™ say ฉัน (/tɕʰǎn/), but (as you may have already observed while watching shows or interviews) in reality people (queer or straight, cis or trans) will use several different pronouns for themselves and others depending on who they're talking to, and in what context—perception of gender is only one part of that. Your age, the tone of voice and level of politeness/formality you're affecting, the situation you're in at that moment, all those things affect how you talk about yourself to others, and how others talk about and to you. It's not as cut and dry as English "these are my pronouns" -- partially also because you'd kind of need to go out of your way to gender the person you're talking about in Thai.

One example: people of all genders can and do use ฉัน (/tɕʰǎn/), though I gather it's less commonly used by men these days. Contrary to what most classes will teach, men or people who are read as male may (and do!) use ค่ะ (/kʰâʔ/; often drawn out to ค่าาา (/kʰâː/ with a very drawn-out aaa)) and จ๊ะ (/tɕáʔ/) in affectionate/familiar conversation, and it's not unheard of for men to refer to themselves by their given name, either -- something a lot of teachers will say are "feminine" speech patterns. For women or people who're read as female to use particles such as ครับ (/kʰráp/) or pronouns such as ผม (/pʰǒm/) seems to be less common, though not unheard of, especially when a woman is affecting a brash personality at that moment. All that is to say … for those of us who fall somewhere in between (or outside the binary altogether), there's quite a bit of wiggle room.

Golf Tanwarin (former MP and the director of GMMTV show The Eclipse) uses different particles depending on context – I've watched interviews where they use ครับ (/kʰráp/) exclusively, others where they use both ครับ (/kʰráp/) and ค่ะ (/kʰâʔ/), and in the live spaces they opened when the Eclipse was airing, to my recollection they used ค่ะ (/kʰâʔ/) and จ๊ะ (/tɕáʔ/) pretty much exclusively. Some non-binary Thais use non-standard polite particles -- Silvy Pavida (The Warp Effect, Laws of Attraction) uses งัฟ (/ŋáp/) on their IG posts, for one example.

My personal approach (which, again! may or may not work for you) is that I go with what people expect from my appearance, and switch to other options only once I'd've got to know my conversation partner better. My reasoning for this is that as a language learner, trying to deviate from the expected language use will likely be perceived not as me trying to express my identity, but simply as me being bad at the language -- I feel like I need to attain and display a level of skill with the language that makes clear the uncommon way I use it is intentional, first. This might not be your approach! but it's worked for me so far.

What I'm doing in the meantime: I try to watch content by people who … idk, match the sort of presentation I aspire to, or who I feel kinship with? and try to emulate what they do (keeping in mind that most online content is rather informal); sometimes, when I'm comfortable enough, I will just try things out when I have the chance (though this can have embarrassing results).

tl;dr there's no way around it, but there are several ways to manage it, and you'll find out best by playing around and finding what works for you, personally :)

(also: I'm glad you found the 'learning Thai' link dump helpful <3)

[checkadii]

Guest speaker for today’s class is. Lecturing in Thai. There’s 4 international students who don’t speak Thai. This is an international course. Every other course in this major and even electives are taught in English. I’m not good with Thai vocab. I think I should kill myself in front of the guest speaker to make a point

[raaindropps]

I hate this teacher

[ID: A quickly drawn comic, showing a teacher- drawn in a spikey humanoid form- and a student- drawn as a cat. The teacher points to a board reading "Buriipo" in Katakana and says "This word is 'Bleepo'". The student asks "What does bleepo mean?" to which the teacher points again at the board and says "Bleepo is a noun. 'I go to bleepo'"

The student looks dejected and says "Um... okay...". Next, the teacher holds up a sign reading "Buriipo ga arimasu" in Japanese, and tells the students "Now read this". The student sweats.

The student starts to think "Okay... that says Arimasu, so it's a noun that can both be 'had' and 'gone to'. That's most of them, though... Is it tangible, like a house? Or something like an appointment or date...? Lets look at the vocab list"

The student looks at the list. It reads "Fridge/table/bed/not bleepo", and they say "fuck".

They continue to think, "Most of these are tangible, so it's probably one of those.... But What? I don't want to say the phrase without being sure of what bleepo is... It's in katakana so it's a loanword probably. But theres no english word thay souns like it... another language then... FUCK!"

The teacher then points to the sign and says "This is said 'arimasu'".

The student pauses and looks back and forth. deadpan, they say "is that really what you think I'm struggling with". An arrow points to them reading "fluent in hiragana" /End ID]

[le-trash-prince]

I can't remember if we've talked about anything like this before but. OKAY SO. I have been thinking about like kim being obviously korean but also Kenta being half-Japanese (I think??) and like. consider Kenta waking up slowly (he used to come awake instantly but now he's safe, he can take his time to rise up from his dreams and it won't matter no one will get mad at him for wasting time or being late) and mumbling out "good morning" in japanese because he was dreaming about his mother. he doesn't remember much about her - he was so young when she was gone - but he remembers warm hands, her soft voice gentling him into sleep, waking him up each morning with the smile he can't quite picture and the words he can so clearly still hear.

and thennnn because I have also been thinking about omega kim, consider kim in heat (perhaps with beta kenta doing His Very Best) and in the middle of it, when Kim's most out of it, when he's simply nothing but clutching hands and helpless want, he slips back into his mother tongue. he can barely remember his own name like this, he cannot be expected to remember another language!

and also maybe when he's not in heat he'll teasingly call kenta hyung just for funsies. because maybe kim's voice is a little deeper and stronger when he's speaking korean and also maybe he's accidentally pavlov'd kenta into linking korean with kim's heat oops.

We have not talked about this no!! Kenta is half-Japanese, yes—they’re both half Thai.

Kenta feeling safe and warm when he’s waking up with Kim is always something that’s gonna make me melt into a pile of goo 🥹 And mumbling the snippets of JP he remembers when he’s sleepy wtf 😭😭😭 my heart

Kenta had been picking up little pieces of Korean, but after Kim’s first heat, he starts studying in earnest because it was a little nervewracking to not be able to understand what Kim was demanding. Of course a lot of the vocab Kim was using isn’t found in your typical online dictionary, so Kenta has to ask Kim directly about it. Which Kim takes absolute delight in letting Kenta know exactly what he was saying and watching Kenta go a little red (and then maybe they fuck about it)

And he would DEFINITELY get a kick out of calling Kenta hyung shfjfjf (Benz is always calling himself oppa lmfao) ESPECIALLY when he realizes he can use it as a clicker

Thank you for these lovely thoughts 🤩

[doitinanotherlanguage]

2024 Mid-Year Language Learning Recap

中文 / Mandarin Chinese

🎉 Goals reached so far: I got back to studying Chinese! I reviewed New Practical Chinese Reader 1 and 2. Now, I'm starting on the third book in the series. 🎯 Further goals for the rest of the year: My primary goal is to reach A2(/B1) level in Chinese (~HSK3). To do that, I'm planning to finish New Practical Chinese Reader 3, and start on New Practical Chinese Reader 4 (hopefully, I'll be able to complete that one entirely too this year).

Español / Spanish

🎉 Goals reached so far: I did a lot of revision for Spanish in 2023, so for the first half of this year I've basically just been chilling when it comes to Spanish, not doing much active studying (just watching youtube and movies). 🎯 Further goals for the rest of the year: Continue to keep up my Spanish level (~B1) with Spanish readers (Better Reading Spanish and Read & Think Spanish).

Français / French

🎉 Goals reached so far: I basically spent the entire spring in revising my French, because I had a short trip to Paris (!!!) in May. I revised all my study materials from A1 to A2/B1 in preparation. 🎯 Further goals for the rest of the year: Right now, I feel like I'm somewhere around the A2 level maybe - my speaking is only so-so, but my reading is very good (probably my English and Spanish help a lot!). For the rest of the year, I just want to concentrate on upkeep because the spring revision was quite intense. So, I'm predicting a lot of French movies and youtube in my near future lol.

ภาษาไทย / Thai

🎉 Goals reached so far: I just started learning Thai in late spring this year! So far, I've learned to read and write, and I'm now starting on the basics. 🎯 Further goals for the rest of the year: Attain the A1 level by completing Easy Thai. Although, honestly, I'm learning Thai just for fun right now, so I'm mostly studying it this year when/if I have the time.

한국어 / Korean

🎉 Goals reached so far: I revised my A1(/A2) materials. I haven't really touched Korean in a while, so I'm really looking forward to getting back to it! 🎯 Further goals for the rest of the year: I want to finally finish Continuing Korean so badly! I've been picking it up and putting it down for several years now, and I really need to just stick with it for once and just get it done. So, if I have the time this year, that's my goal for Korean.

English

🎉 Goals reached so far: I haven't really been actively studying English for years now, so I didn't have any goals for English this year. Although, I do now have a job where I get to use English from time to time and that's fun. 🎯 Further goals for the rest of the year: Basically, just keep getting better at using English at my job (e.g. there's a lot of specific vocab related to the field, and sometimes calls with English-speaking clients are a bit of a mess because neither of us knows the right words in English lmao). I also really want to get better at "Simple English/Plain English". Because a lot of my clients are immigrants and our only common language is English (which is a second language to both of us), I'd like to be able to speak more clearly and understandably.

Svenska / Swedish

🎉 Goals reached so far: I did a bit of Swedish revision in the beginning of this year (for job purposes) but I'm really lacking in motivation for Swedish... I need to use Swedish a little bit in my job so I'm trying to let that push me a bit to try to do at least something related to Swedish sometimes, but it really is hard when I just don't feel like it at all. 🎯 Further goals for the rest of the year: I guess my biggest goal is to find motivation for learning Swedish. It's never been a language I've been interested to learn for it's own sake (it was an obligatory subject at school), but it's useful for job prospects so... I'd really like to be able to use it more fluently because I've learnt it for so many years. I just need to get myself more hyped to be learning Swedish.

[heretherebedork]

As multilingual (5 and still learning) person I can tell that it’s great but sometimes I don’t know how to think in certain language haha

And that's okay! Let me be clear, my entire non-English vocab is the vague ability to kind of make my understood in Spanish, about five Thai words and a smattering of Yiddush as well as a knowledge of the Hebrew alphabet without much actual language comprehension.

So no worries! Be proud of what you know and enjoy it and don't worry about perfection in the language or perfection in a fanfic.

[daily-spanish-word]

people la gente

Imagine a big group of gents, gentlemen. Like: a few thousand very British fellows running the London marathon, all sporting black business suits, bowler hats and umbrellas.

Imagine the people waving with their hands.

Imagine encountering a hen party of thai women. The bride being so rich that she flew all her 200 best friends over to your city to celebrate.

Many people go to the beach in July. Mucha gente va a la playa en julio.