Goo and other pronouns

[misteregg]

My girlfriend refers to herself as "goo" a lot to her friends ( sorry, not sure of Thai spelling )

I have heard a couple of girls in the bar call themselves "goo" as well. Is it gender specific and what level of politeness is it?

 

Also, off i don't know the name of one of my staff , I have nearly 100, I refer to them as nong. Would you say that is ok?

One more, my girlfriend has a nickname for me "gair" แก่, which obviously means "old" but I have heard girls in the bar call their elderly relatives

แก่. So is it polite or not?

[BaldPlumber]

Guu, personal pronoun used between friends.

 

Nong is OK to use for anyone younger than you.

 

Gair I would have thought very impolite, why not use pii

[Douchebag]

AFAIK goo and mung (I and you) are very informal, but also quite common on social media.

[Tarl]

Good question on gae. Never heard it used ever here referring to relatives. Maybe they are saying bpae แป๊ะ which refers to their uncle .

[badboyz08]

My girlfriend refers to herself as "goo" a lot to her friends ( sorry, not sure of Thai spelling )

I have heard a couple of girls in the bar call themselves "goo" as well. Is it gender specific and what level of politeness is it?

 

Also, off i don't know the name of one of my staff , I have nearly 100, I refer to them as nong. Would you say that is ok?

One more, my girlfriend has a nickname for me "gair" แก่, which obviously means "old" but I have heard girls in the bar call their elderly relatives

แก่. So is it polite or not?

 

 

กู(goo) = I or Me (but its rude mostly use with close friends)

 

น้อง(nong) is fine (but this word mostly use with younger people than someone who use)

 

แก่(gair) is fine (but sometime it can be rude.. becuase somepeople doesnt like other to remind their age)

[vercin]

.

[Harry Brown]

.

 

 

 

What is the name of that book?

 

Where can it be bought?

[Douchebag]

here you can see "you" can be translate in thai to khun (normal), jao (?), ter (can also mean she), mung (very informal), gae (?) and loo (?).

[Tarl]

here you can see "you" can be translate in thai to khun (normal), jao (?), ter (can also mean she), mung (very informal), gae (?) and loo (?).

Jao is Isan for you.

[Douchebag]

 

 

น้อง(nong) is fine (but this word mostly use with younger people than someone who use)

Mostly you say. When else? When the person is physically smaller/inferior/lower rank? Or?

[vercin]

What is the name of that book?

 

Where can it be bought?

The fundamentals of the thai language by Stuart Campbell and Chuan Shaweevongs,I believe it is impossible to find,it was given me by an expat in 1992.

[Harry Brown]

The fundamentals of the thai language by Stuart Campbell and Chuan Shaweevongs,I believe it is impossible to find,it was given me by an expat in 1992.

 

 

Thanks for the info.

[Tarl]

Asked the TGF tonight whether gae is rude or impolite she just said no, why would I think it is? I said because some people don't like people saying they are old. She said but they old, I said yeah. She said them ting tong up to them.

[slick67]

Well, there is

 

แก่ with a low tone meaning "old", and

แก with a mid tone meaning "you". This one is a bit informal and used usually between friends.

[badboyz08]

Mostly you say. When else? When the person is physically smaller/inferior/lower rank? Or?

 

i mean

 

when meet stranger and not sure how old are they.  

 

thai people like to call น้อง(Nong) or พี่(Peeh)  anyway

 

its more comfortable to call other like they relate than

 

polite word such as คุณ (Khun), ท่าน(Dhan)

or rude word such as มึง (Mung), เอ็ง(Eng)

[ekku]

My girlfriend refers to herself as "goo" a lot to her friends ( sorry, not sure of Thai spelling )

I have heard a couple of girls in the bar call themselves "goo" as well. Is it gender specific and what level of politeness is it?

 

Also, off i don't know the name of one of my staff , I have nearly 100, I refer to them as nong. Would you say that is ok?

One more, my girlfriend has a nickname for me "gair" แก่, which obviously means "old" but I have heard girls in the bar call their elderly relatives

แก่. So is it polite or not?

 

Spotted this question again "is it polite or not?" I can't think of any useful answer to this question. If you hear these words spoken by Thai people, you shouldn't think they're being polite or impolite ok? If you ever say these words, they won't think you're being polite or impolite. They'll just think you're a foreigner trying to speak Thai. You should never have to say "goo" or กู to anyone. I can say แก to some workmates but it does require a certain level of fluency before it's natural. 

 

"nong" should be fine with your staff, with any waiter or waitress, ..the list goes on.

 

Instead of asking about politeness you might want to ask if it's intimate or not. How intimate do you think you can be with Thai people?

[Explorer8939]

The Thai pronoun issue is very confusing. Thai is extremely rich in pronouns, in theory. But I notice that some people simply use their own name in place of a personal pronoun, which makes things more understandable, albeit weird.

[jayjo]

On 28.2.2018 at 19:08, Explorer8939 said:

The Thai pronoun issue is very confusing. Thai is extremely rich in pronouns, in theory. But I notice that some people simply use their own name in place of a personal pronoun, which makes things more understandable, albeit weird.

This 1000x

Dont get used to Khun and Pom, because no Thai talks like this.

Using names instead of Pronouces is awkward at first, but you will get used to it.

[Darksider11]

15 hours ago, jayjo said:

This 1000x

Dont get used to Khun and Pom, because no Thai talks like this.

Using names instead of Pronouces is awkward at first, but you will get used to it.

If you know the person, always use their name. If not you can use Pi or nong. For example: When calling a waitress over to your table in a restraunt TGF will call "Pi ka" as it's not age specific and she doesn't know their age. As all waitresses are way younger than me, I call "Nong krap".

BTW. Some of the words given earlier in this thread aren't Thai but Lao. Jao is the Lao equivalent of Khun, mung is more informal Lao. It's really hindered my grasp of Thai and Lao as, when people are teaching me a word, I'm never really sure which language it pertains to!