Word of the Day for Thursday, March 5, 2009:
รำคาญ /ramˈkʰaan/ to be annoyed, irked.
Used both intransitively (e.g. รำคาญจริงๆ "I am seriously annoyed") and transitively (e.g. รำคาญเพื่อนบ้านฉลองกันเสียงดัง "I'm annoyed by the neighbors' loud celebrations").
Even though you use it to describe yourself, it's a passive aggressive way of saying something/someone else is annoying. So that last sentence is a way of saying, "The neighbors are being really obnoxious (with their noisy celebrations)". And if uttered alone as an interjection in contemptuous tone, it is a strong rebuke indeed.
Bonus vocab: The sister word of รำคาญ /ramˈkʰaan/ is น่ารำคาญ /ˈnâa ramˈkʰaan/ "annoying, irksome, bothersome".
This word is all too fitting for me today. In one of those irksome moods. Which means that today I'm trying not to overtly act ขี้รำคาญ /ˈkʰîi ramˈkʰaan/ "irritable".
Ah, you've picked another loan from Khmer! At least I'm fairly certain it is. In Khmer, however, រំខាន is completely transitive; you say that "someone 'ramkhaan' you;" if you said "I ramkhaan..." it means "I [am bothering/both] someone else"...
ReplyDeleteGreat series, by the way.
Thanks for this section. I am putting some of the sample sentences in my SRS. I like to add a field to my Thai cards with the Royal Institute definition; it adds some extra reading practice when I review the card and I normally learn a new word or two (or four).
ReplyDeleteHere is the RID entry for รำคาญ
/รำ-คาน/ [กริยา] ระคายเคือง, เบื่อหน่าย.