Mist? Fog?The more vocabulary I learn in Thai, the more I understand how most of their multisyllabic words are made from joining together two or three simple words. For example, one of the words for "mist" or "fog" is called "shy rain." [This photo was taken on the Thai Burma border.]
ข อ โ ท ษ ข า is khòór thôht kaa, equivalent to "excuse me," used if bumping into someone or when trying to get someone's attention. But with a slight difference: "Please excuse me" in English translates into Thai to mean "Please punish me!"[This is the AUA Language Center.]
Some Thai proverbs translate perfectly into English. Others are a bit oddly interpreted. My favorite is "To know things in the same way a duck does" which apparently is translated in English to be the equivalent of "Jack of all trades, master of none."Don't catch fish with both hands = You can't have your cake and eat it, too.
Playing the violin for water buffalo = Casting pearls before swine.
Bad seven times, good seven times = Every cloud has a silver lining.
Out of the frying pan and into the fire =
Out of the tiger's mouth into the alligator's.
Splitting hard wood with an axe = Calling a spade a spade.
Buddhist holy days don't occur only once = Every dog has his day.
"This was the moment I longed for every day. Settling at a heavy inn table, thawing and tingling, with wine, bread, and cheese handy and my papers, books and diary all laid out; writing up the day's doings, hunting for words in the dictionary, struggling with verses, or merely subsiding in a vacuous and contented trance while snow thawed off my boots." Patrick Leigh Fermor
