The shocking truth: ใจ doesn’t mean “heart”!

The word ใจ (”jai”) is commonly misunderstood. People say that ใจ means “heart.” That is simplistic and incorrect. If anything, ใจ really means “mind.”

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.

Thai	Translation	Notes
เข้าใจ	Understand	Literally, “enter mind”
จิตใจ	Thoughts, consciousness
รู้ใจ	Intimate	To know one’s mind
ตั้งใจ	Intend	Literally, “put mind”; “Set one’s mind [to something]“
ตัดสินใจ	Decide	“Make up your mind”
เกรงใจ	To mind someone	To be considerate
พอใจ	Satisfied	To get what you have in mind
ใจร้อน	Hot-headed, eager	Literally, “hot mind”
ใจเย็น	Cool-headed, level-headed	Literally “cool mind.” (Not “cold-hearted”)
เปลี่ยนใจ	Change one’s mind	Literally, “change mind”
น้ำใจ	Thoughtfulness
แปลกใจ	Surprising	Thought-provoking
ใส่ใจ	Careful	Or, “mindful”
ใจอ่อน	Yielding	Literally, “soft mind”
เอาแต่ใจตัว	Determined	“Headstrong”

The Case for “Heart”

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

Thai	Translation	Notes
หัวใจ	Heart	The blood-pumping organ
ตกใจ	Startled	“My heart skipped a beat”
เสียใจ	Saddening	“Broken-hearted”
ดวงใจ	Sweetheart
ใจดี	Nice	“Kind-hearted”
ใจดำ	Cruel	“Black-hearted” (ostensibly)
หมดใจ	Wholeheartedly
ใจร้าย	Mean	“Heartless” (This is ร้าย, not ไร้; so no literal translation)
เจ็บใจ	Crushed	“Heartbroken”
กำลังใจ	Courage	หมดกำลังใจ means “disheartened”

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.

Thai	Translation	Notes
ดีใจ	Pleased
สนใจ	Interested
หายใจ	Breathe
ไว้ใจ	Trust	Maybe literally “to leave your mind” with someone with someone?
ประทับใจ	Impressed
จริงใจ	Sincere	Maybe literally “true heart” but that’s a stretch. I would say “straight shooter.”
แน่ใจ	Confident	Maybe literally “sure mind”?
ภูมิใจ	Proud
ตามใจ	Assent	“To go along [with someone]“
น้อยใจ	Sensitive	Or “offended”

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.”

Compliments for ร and ล

Sometimes when I meet somebody new and I receive a compliment for my Thai, it goes something like พูด ร-เรือ ล-ลิง ชัดเจน. I think that’s funny because it’s something that is really, really easy to do if you speak English already. As if I would confuse “L” with “R”!

Presumably, the speaker (usually a taxi driver) has his own difficulties with the two. Like me, if he doesn’t concentrate, he could slip back into his own hometown accent. This shows pretty clearly that we all have our own difficulties with new languages.

…stan… and สถาน

This is something I wish I noticed before, but I just discovered the link between the names of nations ending with “…stan” and the Thai root สถาน. You see สถาน all over the place in Thai:

• สถานี – Station (police station, train station, radio station, etc.)
• สถานทูต – Embassy (place of diplomacy)
• โบราณสถาน – Archaeological site

I first noticed this when I discovered that Pakistan is called ปากีสถาน in Thai, when I expected to see ปากีสตาน. But obviously both words share the same Sanskrit root. The Online Etymology Dictionary entry for stan indicates (if I am reading it right) that not only do these countries names come from the same root, but also English stand, station, static, standard, and so on.

Being Heard in Thai (in Thai)

Besides the technical difficulty of speaking the language, there is an additional hurdle to being understood in Thailand. When approached by a foreign stranger, sometimes Thais are not “in Thai mode,” and they may completely miss the meaning because they expect to hear English. Really, expecting English is a perfectly rational reaction, given the ratio of foreign speakers to non-speakers. The problem is, while in the wrong language mode, a listener will not understand even the most well-executed statement. Most people have experienced this when they hear a foreign language from others in earshot or from the television, and it has this sort of spooky similarity to gibberish in their own language.

The solution is to make a Thai switch over to Thai mode before you communicate anything substantive. I have had some success by using the phrase หวัดดีคับ before I say anything. This is course the common Thai shortening of the formal สวัสดีครับ, but as a foreigner, there is a world of difference between สวัสดีครับ and หวัดดีคับ. The former means “I am a tourist” while the latter means “I have been here a while.” In my opinion, that is all it takes to be interpreted correctly the first time.

Whenever I hail a Taxi, or enter a shop, or pretty much do anything with a stranger, I always start with หวัดดีคับ exactly. It’s not informal, it’s a message with meaning, and I think it helps quite a bit. In general, as a foreigner, the informal spoken expressions are crucial to master as they will flip the subconscious switch of some listeners who may otherwise be unprepared to listen. So, for example, เอ๊โทษคับ is another one I use to flag down a guard when asking how to get someplace.

Tone Names: Arbitrary

This is something I’ve wondered for years.

What is the point in assigning English words like “high” to tone names? Those are not the words the Thais themselves use to describe them. Thais just say สามัญ or เอก or โท and I think that’s superior for learning. What does “falling tone” even mean? What is falling? I hear no falling here! That’s a bad start for new learners. I say import the Thai words, or, failing that, go with: mid tone, low tone, crazy tone, hard tone, dippy tone, as they make a much more mnemonic introduction. Then just go straight for “aek tone,” “toh tone,” etc.

License vs. Signature

As an intermediate Thai speaker, I will share my opinions about the Thai language, specifically, contrasting it with English. I hope to be interesting to English-speaking Thais and Thai-speaking foreigners.

Something that struck me recently is the subtlety between the Thai versions of “signature” and “license.” First of all, by “license,” I do not mean, “driver’s license,” I mean “software license.” The former is simply ใบอนุญาต but the latter is ไลเซ่น or ไลเซ้น — I’ve heard it both ways.

Contrast this with “signature”: ลายเซ็น. The first syllable is in principle longer but not helpful in practice. The only answer is the tone of the second syllable. Context does not help much: project manager types will say ต้องมีไลเซ้น (หรือลายเซ็น) เรียบร้อยไว้ก่อน.

So I often find myself sometimes unconsciously rewinding the tape and playing it back to make sure I heard right.

Update: November 30, 2007

Yesterday I was in a meeting attended by a vice president from J.P. Morgan. His English was excellent and he had seemed to adopt the western accent for this word while speaking Thai: ลายเซ่นส์ with the final “S” pronounced as well. It sounded natural enough, I suppose.