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Imagine a scenario where people who speak different native languages come together and interact. There are, inevitably, going to be words in one language which sound like something with a different meaning in the other tongue. A prime example is the Thai word “fuk”.

Go to any vegetable stall in any Thai market and ask for a “fuk” – [“Khun mee fuk mai?” or “Pom chorp fuk”] and you will probably be offered a melon about the size of an elongated goose egg which is an ingredient in some Thai soups. Then there is the humble pumpkin; it’s a melon too. It’s called a fuk-tong, the “tong” being the Thai word for gold – the pumpkin is the melon with the golden flesh.

There is another type of melon called “fang” [I would transliterate the word as “faeng”, but I am a terrible pedant], and this is similar to the soup-melon, but somewhat larger.

My wife is one of 6 sisters and her mother has a green thumb; the mother-in-law maintains her garden very actively and meticulously. The third of the sisters sits in the town’s market-place all day selling fruit and vegetables, despite being a qualified teacher. This is more remunerative than teaching.

The youngest sister has been given the nickname “Fang”, a la the melon.

My mother-in-law supplies her number 3 daughter’s fruit & vegetable stand with produce from her garden which is excess to the family’s needs. One day during my August 2005 visit, I was asked to take a load of greens into town for the number 3 daughter to add to her stall’s offerings, and one of the comments that my mother in law passed was “see fuk fang” [4 of these melons].

I did not snigger, nor did I assume that I was being offered the opportunity to copulate with her youngest daughter.

I suspect that my mother-in-law knew that “fuk” has a less-than-polite meaning in English, and was trying it on to see whether I would react.

Oddly, while a water-melon is a melon too, it misses out on getting a fuk, it is called taeng mo.

There are a couple of words and phrases which I hear my wife and step-daughter use, but I haven’t been able to locate them in any paper dictionary. These two women are not likely to use bad language, so I assume that these expressions are polite.

One of these expressions, I have deduced to be used to ask someone “what’s wrong?”, or “what’s the problem?”. Bpen aria?

“Arai” is a fairly useful word to know, it means “what is...” and can be used in a number of ways. If you are still feeling your way around in the Thai language, you can get instant help by asking a Thai speaker “aria?” while indicating something that you want to know about. A more advanced way would be to ask “poot pasa Thai aria?” [speak Thai what], or a better, less literal translation, what do you call this in Thai?

Ever been in a bar and had a serving wench ask if you are ready for another drink? Not ready? Don’t tell her “Not yet!” as she might not have enough English to know you have not sworn at her. Much better to tell her “eek sahm na-tee” [after three minutes].

For those who don’t know, when dogs copulate, the base of the male organ swells into a bulbous shape which locks it into the female organ, and the two animals are stuck together, tail-to-tail for some time, sometimes up to an hour. This condition/situation is sometimes called a “knot”. So when somebody tells you to “get knotted”, [do I need to go on?].

Thai to English:
Not = knot
yet = fuck

“Not yet” = fuck like a dog.

The Thai alphabet, and the way that words are written, follows completely different rules from those which apply to western writing. One example is the word “lek”, meaning “small”. This word is spelled “elk” in Thai, placing the “e” before the letter that it actually follows. Each single-position vowel follows one of five rules. A vowel can be placed in any one of 5 positions when written – it can be written after the consonant that it follows, it can also be written before, above, or below the consonant that it follows, and it can even be written above and between consonants that it separates. To make this less confusing, each single-position vowel follows a single rule; you can’t use a vowel in one position and next time move it to some other position, the rules are rigid.

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/thai.htm is a site that can help you towards understanding written Thai.

Ever seen a woman who would be attractive if she wasn’t so fat? There is a polite term in Thai for this condition; tii-dah chang. The “tii-dah” is a form of honorific that you would use when addressing a beauty queen. It doesn’t have to be Miss Thailand, it can be the good-looker in a village that all of the local boys are drooling over. “Chang” is the word for elephant.

In simple terms, a beauty queen amongst the elephants. While I am told that the expression is polite, I certainly wouldn’t use it to address the woman it is used to describe. So next time you see a fatty, impress your Thai friends with the comment.