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Friday, December 19, 2014

Learning Thai with Namewee's "Thai Sad Song" and me!

As much as I continue to be impressed by Namewee's endless creativity and talents, I did not expect him to come up with a Thai Love Song Part 2 aka Thai Sad Song.

To be very honest, I found this song a little underwhelming and MV much less tasteful than the first one, but there were a couple of parts of the song which made me break out in laughter, and the new Thai words he used can bring your knowledge of the language up a notch.

So after my first Thai lesson with his previous viral song, here's my second lesson with his follow-up, focusing on some new but extremely useful Thai words (he did repeat some words from the first song, but I will not waste your time on them again).

  1. Dtrong Bpai:
    Do take note of how I spelt these words. Dt would mean you need to pronounce it in between D and T, Bp would mean you pronounce it in between B and P, understand? LOL

    Anyway, Dtrong Pai means move straight, or go forwards.

  2. Tii Nai:
    Depicts location, like "where" in English, and most commonly used with "Yuu" in front.

    For example:

    "Toilet Yuu Ti Nai?" means "Where is the toilet?"

  3. Liao Kwaa:
    Turn right.

  4. Liao Sai:
    Turn left. Combined with words 1 to 3, you are now invincible while talking to Thai cabbies!

  5. Jep Mak Mak/ Jep Jing Jing:
    "Jep" means hurt or painful.
    "Mak" means very and "Jing" means real.

    So the phrases mean "Very Very Painful" and "Really Really Painful" respectively.
    Note that "Mak Mak" and "Jing Jing" can be used frequently with a huge array of words to emphasise your point.

  6. Laew Jer Gan:
    I was about to give up on the song until the appearance of this phrase before the final chorus, which put me into hysterical laughter, especially after seeing how they translated these words in Chinese.

    Actually, Namewee might have made a (purposeful) mistake. If he was meaning to say "goodbye" or "see you again", he should not have used "Rao Jer Gan", as it literally translates to "We meet together".

    Instead, the correct and informal way of saying "See you again" is actually "Laew Jer Gan".


Ok, so now that all of us have leveled up in our command of simple conversational Thai, let's enjoy this pretty hilarious song, hope my lesson has at least helped you understand the entire song!




2 comments:

  1. Hello Eddie, I am a Singaporean currently learning Thai and can totally appreciates the humor in the song and v cute video!;) Aroy! Cool blog too! Did you have posts on work culture, accommodation/cost of living in Bangkok? Thanks, Susanne

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hello Susanne! Nice to hear from you!

      Firstly, thank you very much and I have another Thai tutorial based on his other happier Thai song.
      http://strangerinbangkok.blogspot.com/2013/03/learning-thai-with-namewees-thai-love.html

      Secondly, I have a series of posts talking about working in Thailand, they might or might not suit your needs but they are all very interesting for sure!

      http://strangerinbangkok.blogspot.com/search/label/Working%20in%20Thailand

      PS. The deeper you go into this chain of posts, the more you will learn about my challenges in Thailand from the business sense, especially right at the beginning of my tenure in 2010.

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