In Thai, แตก means “break,” specifically with the implication of shattering, bursting, and with stuff spilling out. Glasses break (แก้วแตก), bags burst (ถุงแตก), and you can bust your head open (หัวแตก). In contrast, breaking pencils or body parts is หัก, as in แขนหัก.

And of course, นรก means Hell.

So the mental picture in both languages is the gates of Hell bursting open and all sorts of mayhem flooding forth. Both languages use the expression to describe the point in time when something orderly falls into chaos, perhaps in an unsalvageable way.

(Incidentally, my professional life has changed quite a bit recently, and nowadays, I am working exclusively with non-Thai-speaking foreigners. So it is now very difficult for me to find sources of information for this blog. Nevertheless I shall continue to post things as I come across them.)

I don’t have much to say about this week’s words, except that I have a suspicious feeling that Thai speakers use the word ประสิทธิภาพ (efficient) a little more often than English speakers. I’ve heard Thai speakers use that word when I would have said “quality” (คุณภาพ). However, I suspect this may be a characteristic of the individuals I know, or even confirmation bias in myself.

Admittedly, few words in any language always “mean something.” Context influences meaning. Consider รถ, which means “car,” right? Not exactly. รถ means “car” sometimes. Generally, รถ means “vehicle,” which is obvious when you consider these words: รถเข็น รถม้า รถตู้ รถถัง รถพ่วง รถไฟ (in English: cart, carriage, van, tank, semi, and train).

One way to think about it is that the word รถ means “car,” but the prefix รถ means “vehicle.” ใจ is no different, but I want to correct the ใจ/heart misunderstanding for two reasons:

1. It’s wrong.
2. It contributes to the bad myth that Thai is a primitive language or that Thai people are juvenile.

Let’s approach this objectively: count ใจ-words and see what the data reveals. In the tables below, the first column is the Thai word; the second column is the basic English translation; and the third column makes the case for the word if it is unclear, either by noting the literal translation or by citing similar English expressions.

The Case For “Mind”

All these ใจ-words relate to the concept of the mind, thought, or consciousness.

The Case for “Heart”

All these ใจ-words clearly relate to the concept of the heart.

Although I categorized it as a heart-word, I take issue with ใจดำ. It means “cruel,” but nobody actually says “black-hearted” in English. We say “cold-hearted.” When you translate “cold-hearted” literally, a Thai speaker will misunderstand you, hearing “level-headed.” Nonetheless, since “black-hearted” is understandable in English, it goes in.

The Case for Neither

These examples do not clearly contribute to the heart/mind debate. Some strike me as a little mind-like, but the correlation is not strong enough.

Also note that some native Thai speakers (even educated ones) assert that their mind feels to them physically embodied in the center of their chests. But this fact contributes to neither the mind nor the heart argument. It only confirms that the concepts of mind and heart overlap for Thai speakers (as they do for English speakers). So this fact, while interesting, is not relevant to this analysis.

Conclusions

It’s pretty clear that most ใจ-words do not evoke the heart meaning, although some do indeed. Many seem connected to the English “mind” concept, directly or indirectly. Therefore, the argument that “ใจ means ‘heart'” is not compelling.

(We did not consider each word’s frequency of use, but the results would likely not change since each type of ใจ-word is in extremely common usage.)

So we have a convincing primary conclusion: That ใจ means “heart” is incorrect—it’s is a misleading oversimplification.

And we have a reasonable secondary conclusion: If there is one word that ใจ does mean, that word is “mind.”

English speakers understand “spine” alone to mean the backbone. But in Thai, that is กระดูกสันหลัง—so it’s not a perfect match with English, but still easy to remember.

The spine of a book is สันหนังสือ (literally, “book spine”), correlating with English very closely.

Just remember that the spines (little sharp things) on porcupines and sea urchins are not the same word in Thai. That is a different concept with different words in each language.

Update February 4, 2008: Thanks to Rikker for pointing out in the comments that “ridge” is likely the best meaning for สัน. So go ahead and remember “spine” as a mnemonic for backbones and books; but to take it further, “ridge” is better for understanding.

Edit 1 February, 2008: Added the list of words here since that is the point of a digest.

I’d like to discuss สามารถ (“capable,” or “able”). Informal Thai might use ทำได้ or ทำไม่ได้ (you can substitute ทำ for any other verb). In a more formal setting, you will hear ไม่สามารถทำได้. (Note, the words สามารถ and ได้ almost always come in pairs.)

There are already some things to notice:

• Business Thai, like business English, tends to be loquacious and elegant-sounding without actually contributing additional meaning. Sorry. I mean people talk more, but they say less. That seems like a problem, but it’s an advantage. Since the density of useful information is lower in business Thai, a foreigner can pick up the meaning even if he misses a word here or there.
• Business Thai, like business English, also uses a larger vocabulary than informal Thai—another advantage. More vocabulary means more precision, and so you can say what you mean with less ambiguity and misunderstanding. If I say ผมทำไม่ได้ then I can’t do it—maybe I lack the talent, or maybe it’s illegal—who knows? But if I say ผมไม่สามารถทำได้ then I am incapable of doing it. The latter statement is more precise and clear.

These two points seem contradictory, but they are not. Often in a professional setting, people make rambling statements with plenty of specificity to sugar-coat bad news or to conceal their ignorance. But specificity itself is not bad, just the dishonest rambling.

Another great use for สามารถ is that you can use it to say “competent” and “incompetent,” two crucial words when discussing staff, partners, managers, employees, distributors, or whomever. เขามีความสามารถมาก translates to, “he is very competent.” เขาไร้ความสามารถมาก translates to “he is very incompetent.”

I’ve debated whether to include a plain old vocabulary component to this blog. There are already plenty online resources for looking words up. I am also uninterested in a word-a-day format for the blog.

On the other hand, much of my exposure to Thai is in a business setting, and I often feel liberated or empowered when I learn a new word or phrase. I want a way to share this feeling with others. Most recently, I felt frustrated at the latest BarCamp (a kind of software conference). I realized that an English-language presentation on business Thai would have gone over extremely well, but I was unprepared to deliver something like that on the spot.

Therefore, I will address the situation in this way: I set up a new page, Business Thai, where I will (for now) maintain a table of words, adding to the list as I think of them (or as readers suggest them). To help us through the Hell that is hump day, I will post to the blog a weekly digest summarizing the new additions every Wednesday.

I am not aiming for comprehensiveness, because that would be just a dictionary, and I don’t want a dictionary. Instead, I want the cheet sheet that you can print or memorize to get the most bang for your buck. Most foreign professionals operating in Thailand quickly realize that their speaking Thai is discouraged; however, Thai is still spoken all the time and you want to be prepared for that.

Yesterday I discovered that Thai speakers and Anglophones have the same expression for that place on the sides of your mouth where mustard always gets stuck: the corner of your mouth, or มุมปาก.

English also has the “corner of the eye,” but I do not see such a phrase (มุมตา) used in Thai as much on the Internet, although I suspect it would be recognizable by many Thai speakers.

This is to notify you that we have removed or disabled access to the following material as a result of a third-party notification by Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation claiming that this material is infringing:

(Foul) Thai language on The Family Guy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8liBWSKu6XQ

I feel that my usage of the clip constitutes fair use; however, I will not be submitting a counter notice (thereby inviting a lawsuit from Twentieth Century Fox) under the DMCA safe harbor provision.

What I can’t figure out is how so many other videos from “The Family Guy” remain online.

Recently I had the dubious pleasure of watching a few episodes of “The Family Guy.” As with most jokes on the show, this one came out of the blue:

Edit, 15 January, 2008: The video has been removed by YouTube at the behest of Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation.

I believe this is what he says:

เอ้ย จะไปไหน มานี่ อีดอก กูจ่ายเงินไปแล้ว ขี้โกง กูตกลงกับพ่อมึง ทำไมไม่ยอมทำ

Here is a rough translation:

Hey, where are you going? Come back! I paid for you lazy bitches! I struck a deal with your father. Why won’t you follow through?

I will analyze Seth MacFarlane’s pronunciation in detail; but first, some general thoughts and comments:

• The pronunciation is very bad. MacFarlane’s performance is laudable: surely he’s busy writing the show and voicing half the characters. But when a foreigner attempts to speak Thai, there is no extra credit for good effort. I first thought this was some other language because neither my natively Thai-speaking wife nor I recognized anything. Upon several reviews, I discerned ไปไหน, but I was unable to pick up anything else. My wife, however, caught all of it eventually.
• It is possible that he says พวกมึง and not พ่อมึง. พวก makes more sense and it roughly translates, “We had a deal!” But I hear พ่อ so I have to go with that.
• Quagmire drops his briefcase at 00:06 in a very impressive way.
• The girls don’t look Thai. They look like the character Tricia Takanawa, who is presumably from Japanese ancestry.
• The woman or women who voice the girls are not Thai speakers either. They seem to say ไปเร็ว and maybe หนี, but it’s unclear. Many times I think I hear the word เลว, but it makes little sense for fleeing slaves to pass moral judgment on their captors during flight.
• This joke is poorly researched. Non-Thai speakers would get the same entertainment from a made-up language. Thai speakers will firstly be disoriented by the pronunciation, and secondly not get it since the wording is too awkward for real Thai speech.
• Finally, let me just say that listening to this clip over and over has made my stomach turn. I can’t stand poor pronunciation. It kills me. (ทะ-เว็น-ตี้ บาท makes my skin crawl.) The profanity plus the butchering of the language just made me want to puke.

Now, in an effort to learn from MacFarlane’s mistakes, let’s examine the mispronunciations one syllable at a time:

Finally, some closing comments about the performance as a whole, in order of importance:

1. The overall score is an F because in the Thai language, there is only A and F. People say ทำไมพูดไทยเก่งจัง, or else people say อะไรวะ.
2. This is a perfect example of under-confidence ruining Thai pronunciation. When westerners speak without confidence, they change the tone of their voice, which changes the spelling of words. MacFarlane missed these words for that reason: นี่ ดอก โกง ลง พ่อ ไม่ ทำ.
3. Because American English has the right sounds, there is no excuse for MacFarlane to miss these words: ขี้ พ่อ (or if พวก then that’s even worse) ยอม.
4. It sounds to me like the pause between มานี่ and อีดอก is another confidence problem. It should be มานี่อีดอก but I think MacFarlane balked at the adjacent สระอี vowels, ruining the natural language flow.
5. These words are just plain hard for new speakers: เงิน ตก มึง. MacFarlane did okay with ตก and มึง, but I expect a professional voice actor to say เงิน since English has ง งู as a final sound already. It shouldn’t be out of reach for a pro.

Listening to foreigners speak Thai is a great way to discover what to improve in ourselves. Hopefully, MacFarlane’s typical pronunciation failings give us a chance to learn.

I am an advocate of clean language on the Internet. I think it’s more interesting because it’s more challenging. Profanity detracts from the experience in a similar way that dirty jokes detract from comedy. Comedian John Cleese explains this phenomenon in an interview from the “Fawlty Towers” DVD special feature:

However, I have an interesting post pending that shows a professional American voice actor speaking Thai. It’s noteworthy, however the things he says are not too nice. So that is why we have this new category.