Colloquial case study: “You’re funny-looking!”

A native Thai speaker and I recently collaborated on translating one of my favorite childish come-backs:

Oh, you think you’re funny?
Well you’re not funny, you’re just funny-looking!

I want to explore this phrase is because I’ve seen Thai people laugh genuinely at the English version, so there must be some common chord that it strikes, and commonality is what we are all about here.

This is my translation of the same statement to Thai, keeping the “spirit” identical:

แกนึกว่าแกตลกเหรอ
ไอ้ที่ตลกกว่าคือหน้าแก

First, let’s review some spoken Thai techniques:

• เหรอ is pronounced อ๋อ
• ไอ้ is pronounced ไอ
• แก can be swapped with any other second-person pronoun, such as เธอ
• You can optionally append a final particle such as นั่นแหละ

One Joke, Two Languages

What is the common ground that makes both versions humorous? The answer is that both languages have two meanings for “funny”:

1. Makes you laugh (น่าขำ)
2. Abnormal (ผิดปกติ)

Both versions begin with misdirection: the words imply that a compliment is on its way (“you make me laugh”), but they rapidly devolve into an insult (“you look abnormal”). In both versions, the true meaning of the statement isn’t clear until the final two syllables, and both version pivot around the dual-meaning of “funny/ตลก.”

Now let’s compare the translations.

1. The first line is practically identical in both versions
2. The Thai version begins with ไอ้, a word for nonhuman things—no doubt starting the process of putting the victim in his place
3. While the English version denies the victim’s funny-ness, the Thai version only points out that the victim’s face is just so much funnier.
4. The Thai version uses หน้า instead of “looks.” In my opinion, Thai speakers use the word หน้า synecdochically to mean “looks,” although some may disagree and say that they really are describing the victim’s physical face.
5. My sources tell me that the Thai version sounds much more aggressive. While the English version is so juvenile that I doubt it would incite anything but laughter, the Thai version is to be used with caution.

Lessons Learned

We can learn several lessons about real-world spoken Thai from this example:

• Most importantly, Thai speakers can use very different wording to point out something comparatively greater (“bigger,” “faster,” etc.). An Anglophone learning Thai would never instinctively say “แต่ที่ (ajective) กว่าคือ…” But it makes sense, and in fact English has a very similar phrase. Ask yourself which of these statements sounds better:
  • “His presentation was interesting, but his clothing was more interesting.”
  • “His presentation was interesting, but what was more interesting was his clothing.”
• Thai speakers often prefix nonhuman objects with the particle ไอ้. I hear this very often either in reference to computer components.
• The word หน้า is a foundational word for good conversational Thai.

To be Funny-Looking

Finally, for clarity, here is an example of the duality of looking “funny,” or ดูตลก. In the film “Fargo,” a Minnesotan working girl describes gangster Carl Showalter (Steve Buscemi) as funny-looking to the police. She seems to feel that “funny-looking” sums him up accurately:

Here is the man she describes in the scene:

Profanity and Hilarity: Crossing the Line

Rikker’s post about the etymology of ทุเรศ reminded me of a phenomenon that all speakers of foreign languages should understand.

Foreigners cannot use profanity and nasty phrases to the same effect as natives. Attempting to do so only makes them look silly.

Most everybody can remember an event from back home where an irate foreigner started dropping the f-bomb or making up profane phrases on the spot. I think it’s fair to say that any time this happens, it’s pretty darn funny. And of course, when the foreigner realizes that people are laughing at him, then he will be angrier still. Recently, I watched Harold & Kumar Go to Whitecastle (I am not lazy: the ampersand is really part of the title). Harold has a slight accent while Kumar sounds native. The filmmakers clearly use Harold’s profanity for comedic effect. Another example from Hollywood is The Big Lebowski in the scenes where the nihilists use profanity to sound tough but only make us laugh.

The practical lesson here: if you are a foreigner somewhere and you become upset, do not resort to the dirty words you learned in your first six weeks here. It’s counterproductive. You want to raise your voice? Fine. You want to say something socially unacceptable? No problem. But if you use profanity, then you become a clown and that will not help you at all. You must learn that effective communication in a foreign language means profanity is off-limits.

Where is the boundary of counter-productiveness which we must not cross? Certainly, it depends on the country and culture. In Thailand, simply having the wrong color skin is enough, even with perfect pronunciation. In the United States, skin color isn’t important (native-born Americans are all colors already), but accent is.

For foreigners in Thailand, I believe that the word ทุเรศ represents the borderline of what foreigners can get away with without sounding silly to Thais. If you say ทุเรศ, you mean business, and it just barely cancels out the clown factor. Words stronger than ทุเรศ are out of reach, since the clown factor dominates over the word’s meaning. A rule of thumb: borderline words are words which parents discourage their small children (under age six) from use. โง่ is another borderline word. ไอ้บ้า ผัว เมีย กวนตีน ห่วย and all the words more profane than these are inaccessible to foreigners wishing to communicate effectively.

New Category: Nailing Thai

I created a new category called Nailing Thai. Nailing Thai is like nailing an athletic performance. Done well, it looks graceful and easy; but any small mistake typically leads to disaster.

Here will go discussion on emulating the subtlety and nuance that a native speaker would make. For several reasons, Thai is a very strict language concerning word choice and pronunciation, and if you get it wrong, you quickly make no sense.

Some past articles have been retrofitted into this category.

Had better (do such-and-such) / (such-and-such) ดีกว่า

English and Thai both use the word for “better” to describe a preferred action. “You had better do your homework first.” ทำการบ้านก่อนดีกว่า

Wikipedia tells me that the English usage is as a modal auxiliary verb. Just don’t get carried away: the two aren’t exactly similar. I’m not sure why, but you can’t say “The bus had better get here soon,” as รถเมล์มาแล้วดีกว่า–it’s nonsensical. (Consider รถเมล์ต้องมาเดี๋ยวนี้.) So I think it’s best say ดีกว่า when something would literally be “more good.”

Some may say that this is too common in all languages to deserve special attention; but my objective is to expose ways that good English speakers can become good Thai speakers (and, wherever possible, vice versa). Like Krav Maga, the idea is to exploit natural reflexes, except that instead of whooping ass, the idea is to communicate better.

Mid Tone is the Hard Tone

It’s safe to say that new learners pick up the first three tones pretty easily (in the traditional order — ฟา ฝ่า ฝ้า ฟ้า ฝา — is there a word for this order?) The final tone (เสียงจัตวา) is not bad either. Most new learners need to practice เสียงตรี until they get it, but it’s achievable.

Today I expose the dirty little secret about Thai: the mid tone (or “common tone,” เสียงสามัญ) is the hardest by far. Actually the true difficulty is the ambiguity between the mid tone and the low tone. Without context, side-by-side contrast, repetition, or very focused concentration, it’s hard to hear the difference.

My “natural” tone is definitely the low tone (เสียงเอก). When challenged to utter a single, clear, mid-tone syllable (for example, แก), I often fail and just say “old.” ให้แก: no problem. คำว่า แก เฉยๆ ไม่ได้เดดขาด. It’s hilarious. Notably, native Thai speakers do not have this problem whatsoever.

Fortunately, in real conversation, there is always context, so in practice it’s a non-issue. Tellingly, no Thai has ever noticed me mispronounce the mid tone. For a while, I pronounced “year” and “hit” with the low tone, but in mid-sentence, it is either not noticeable or at any rate not worth mentioning.