Dozen / โหล

Both Thai and English have multiple words for the number after eleven. English has “dozen,” and Thai has โหล. Both seem to be used in similar situations: a dozen oranges, or ส้มโหลผล. At least–I think so; usually market speak is less formal and must admit only a foreigner would say ขอส้มสองโหลผลครับ. But I hear เอากี่โหลคะ/สองโหลครับ plenty.

I think the English “dozen” is used more liberally than in Thai. Maybe it’s my southern upbringing, but I feel it’s natural to say “about a dozen children,” whereas I don’t think any Thai would every say เด็กประมาณโหลคน.

Still other situations must only use “twelve/สิบสอง. It’s less natural to say both, “one year has a dozen months,” and หนึ่งปีมีโหลเดือน.

In theory / ในทฤษฎี

Many Thai adverbs are prefixed with อย่าง. But happily, when something could happen theoretically, both languages use the preposition “in,” or ใน. That’s cool. Also, Thais can be heard to say ในเชิงของทฤษฎี which of course translates to “theoretically.”

“You can say that again”

Last night, I was happy to learn that English and Thai both have similar expressions to agree with somebody.

English: You can say that again!
Thai: พูดอีกก็ถูกอีก!

My naive first try, คุณพูกได้อีกครั้ง, is apparently a worthless translation. So don’t do that.

Anyway, hopefully, this will help both Thais learning English and anglophones learning Thai to speak more natively.

The More / ยิ่ง

ยิ่งสวยยิ่งอันตราย
The prettier, the more dangerous.

In English, juxtaposing comparative adjectives has a clear meaning (like, “the more, the merrier”) and it works exactly the same way in Thai (like, “ยิ่งเยอะยิ่งดี”).

Update Tuesday, October 23, 2007: Changed the title to match the English/Thai format like the others.

Thai-English Pseudo-cognates

This is a category for coincidental moments of sameness between Thai and English.