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Originally Posted by nelsonone
My personal favourite is CAN/CANNOT for yes/no
I guess because it is so formal in English-but it always makes me laugh-particularly when you ask what you think is a simple and innocuous sort of question and you get a very serious "velly solly Sir CANNOT!!!!"
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I can see why this would seem funny to you. However, a peculiar thing about the Thai language is that there is no such word as "Yes", as we know the word in English.
The closest thing to a straight out yes in Thai is "Chai". Chai means yes, however, it only means yes if someone asks you a rhetorical question. IOW, if I say(in Thai), You are going to see you friend later, aren't you? The answer would be "Chai" because in Thai the "aren't you" part of the queston is "Chai mai?" and if you say "Chai" it means yes. But if you say "Mai Chai" it means no, so the word "Chai" means either yes or no, in this case, depending on whether "Mai" precedes it.
The other two common yes words are "Dai" and "Khaa(for a woman) or Khap(for a man). Dai basically means OK. Like can you do it for me? Dai means OK or yes, i can. The word dai often means can, but has other meanings, too.
In this case, the question would end with "Dai Mai?" in Thai, meaning "can you?" and the answer is Dai for yes and "Mai dai" for no. So, directly translated to Engish, dai=can and "mai dai"=can not.
Khaa or Khap is not as clear to me. But I have used it often. It seems to be an indicator of agreement. If someone asserts an explanation or is making a point and you agree, or don't want to bother debating the point, you can say, Khap!! and a woman could say Khaa! In this case, when a man says it, it is high, sharp, and abrupt. When a woman says it, it is soft and trailing off, sort of fading a way, and dropping in pitch(IINM!), which is a very interesting difference, when you think about it. I think depending on the context it can mean anything from "I agree wholeheartedly" to "Yeah, sure....whatever."
Of course, that is only if Khap stands alone when spoken in response to something someone said to you. It is an affirmation of what was said. In all other cases, it has no meaning, except that it shows that you are being polite and respectful to the person you are talking to.
For questions which have an action verb in them, such as "Are you going now?" then to say yes, you repeat the verb. The verb for go is "bai", so you would say "bai" to answer yes. If someone asked "Did you go to the market?" the you would say "bai laew", which is to say "go already" or "went already?"
Sorry to be so pedantic, but when you understand Thai a litte, then you can see why thay say some of the funny things they do!
JayBee
