While I enjoyed the homecooked 19th Century comedic goodness of my last post, I thought I'd give us a little push into the present century with some help from YouTube. User aanon2550 (who posts as user aanon on the Thai language forum at thaivisa.com) has done English translations for three videos by Thai comedian Note Udom โน๊ต อุดม (อุดม แต้พาณิช). aanon knows his Thai, and the videos are a lot of fun. There is also plenty more of Note's material on YouTube, but I figured I'd post the ones with the English subtitles.
The second two appear to be from other TV appearances, but the first video is apparently from one of Note's series of standup comedy specials. The term for standup comedy in Thai is เดี่ยวไมโครโฟน, which literally means "microphone solo". As opposed to the concept of a standup club where people can come anytime and see different comics, shows here tend to be periodic, but bigger deals held in larger venues. Note has these periodic sell-out events where he packs the place, and then sells the video of the show on VCD. He seems to be extremely well-known and popular, and has been for a while. A few years ago I ran into him at the mall, but had no idea who he was at the time--the Thai friend I was with got his autograph, though. He just did his seventh standup show this past December. You can learn more about him at his website, udomteam.com. Enjoy.
Video 1: แฟนบอกเลิก
Video 2: ศาลพระภูมิ
Video 3: ต้นงิ้ว
Showing posts with label jokes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label jokes. Show all posts
January 13, 2008
September 12, 2007
Jokes! 5
Q: ลิฟท์จอดที่ชั้น 30 มีคนเข้าไปถึง 20 คน ลิฟท์ร้อง บี๊บ บี๊บ คนยังไม่ทันออกเลย สลิงก็ขาดเสียก่อน ปรากฏว่าไม่มีใครบาดเจ็บเลยสักคน ถามว่าเพราะอะไร?
An elevator stops at the 30th floor and 20 people get on. The elevator (is past the weight limit) and cries out *beep* *beep* but the people can't get off in time--the cable breaks first. Not one person was hurt. Why?
A: เพราะตายหมด
Because they all died.
This is sort of an unjoke, but there is a tiny modicum of wordplay involved. It depends on how you interpret บาดเจ็บ "hurt, injured." In the logic of the joke, if they're all dead, they're not injured. :P
Q: อะไรเอ่ย เวลาเรายืนมันห้อย เวลาเราเดินมันแกว่ง?
What is it? When you stand it hangs; when you walk it swings?
A: แขน
Your arm.
This is a major theme among the type of joke known as อะไรเอ่ย--jokes with intentional innuendo but an innocuous punchline. The อะไรเอ่ย style joke is as well known in Thai as the "knock-knock joke" in English. And we have plenty of these อะไรเอ่ย-style jokes in English, usually with the structure "What ...", as in, "What's black and white and re(a)d all over?" (A newspaper, a sunburned penguin, etc.) We just don't have a category name for them like we do for knock-knock jokes. And English also has plenty with innuendo, too (but good taste restrains me from retelling them here).
Q: ยายพายเรือไปทำบุญที่วัด ปรากฏว่าเรือรั่วและกำลังจะจม ยายต้องเสียสละทิ้งของ สองอย่างระหว่างปิ่นโตกับดอกไม้ ถามว่ายายจะเสียอะไรจึงจะไปถึงวัด แน่ๆ?
An old woman rows a boat to the temple to make merit. The boat has a leak and is about to capsize. The old woman has to decide between two things to throw overboard: a lunchbox* or a flower. What will the old woman sacrifice to make sure she gets to the temple?
A: เสียชีวิตสิ ถึงวัดแน่นอน
Her life. She'll get to the temple for sure!
The translation here works okay, although to sacrifice your life has a different connotation in English. Thai on the other hand has the common euphemism for die เสียชีวิต, to lose your life. The Thai word for sacrifice is เสียสละ, hence the joke.
Q: พระใช้อะไรตีระฆัง?
What does a monk use to ring the temple bell?
A: ใช้เณร
A novice.
This is a play on ใช้, which means to use, but also to have someone do something for you (it doesn't carry the same inherently negative connotation as English, like, "you used me.") To say ผมใช้เขาไปซื้อของที่ตลาด is to say, roughly, "I sent him to buy things (for me) at the market." So in this case, what does a monk use to ring the temple bell? A novice--one of the young boy monks at the monastery. It's all about delegation.
And for next time, more jokes:
Q: กาอะไรพ่นไฟได้
Q: มะนาวอะไรมาจากนอกโลก
Q: หมูอะไรหมุนคอได้
Q: กำอะไรเอ่ยกินกับข้าวเหนียว
Q: อะไรเอ่ย ดำบวม
A small hint.. these all involve a new kind of wordplay I haven't discussed before: คำผวน. Even with that hint, though, these are all insanely difficult, if you ask me.
*I don't know of any common translation for ปิ่นโต. If you're not familiar, it's a set of small stackable food containers for segregating the different parts of your lunch, with a frame that wraps around and holds them together tightly, with a handle on top. The term "Chinese lunchbox" comes to mind, and I found a page on Amazon using that term, though I don't get the idea from Google that that's very common. Some places use "bento box," but bento also refers to a Japanese homepacked single-serving meal (see the Wikipedia entry). While I suspect both Thai and Japanese borrowed the word from Chinese, they're note quite the same concept anymore. Does anyone know of a name other than Chinese lunchbox? Sorry for the tangent...
An elevator stops at the 30th floor and 20 people get on. The elevator (is past the weight limit) and cries out *beep* *beep* but the people can't get off in time--the cable breaks first. Not one person was hurt. Why?
A: เพราะตายหมด
Because they all died.
This is sort of an unjoke, but there is a tiny modicum of wordplay involved. It depends on how you interpret บาดเจ็บ "hurt, injured." In the logic of the joke, if they're all dead, they're not injured. :P
Q: อะไรเอ่ย เวลาเรายืนมันห้อย เวลาเราเดินมันแกว่ง?
What is it? When you stand it hangs; when you walk it swings?
A: แขน
Your arm.
This is a major theme among the type of joke known as อะไรเอ่ย--jokes with intentional innuendo but an innocuous punchline. The อะไรเอ่ย style joke is as well known in Thai as the "knock-knock joke" in English. And we have plenty of these อะไรเอ่ย-style jokes in English, usually with the structure "What ...", as in, "What's black and white and re(a)d all over?" (A newspaper, a sunburned penguin, etc.) We just don't have a category name for them like we do for knock-knock jokes. And English also has plenty with innuendo, too (but good taste restrains me from retelling them here).
Q: ยายพายเรือไปทำบุญที่วัด ปรากฏว่าเรือรั่วและกำลังจะจม ยายต้องเสียสละทิ้งของ สองอย่างระหว่างปิ่นโตกับดอกไม้ ถามว่ายายจะเสียอะไรจึงจะไปถึงวัด แน่ๆ?
An old woman rows a boat to the temple to make merit. The boat has a leak and is about to capsize. The old woman has to decide between two things to throw overboard: a lunchbox* or a flower. What will the old woman sacrifice to make sure she gets to the temple?
A: เสียชีวิตสิ ถึงวัดแน่นอน
Her life. She'll get to the temple for sure!
The translation here works okay, although to sacrifice your life has a different connotation in English. Thai on the other hand has the common euphemism for die เสียชีวิต, to lose your life. The Thai word for sacrifice is เสียสละ, hence the joke.
Q: พระใช้อะไรตีระฆัง?
What does a monk use to ring the temple bell?
A: ใช้เณร
A novice.
This is a play on ใช้, which means to use, but also to have someone do something for you (it doesn't carry the same inherently negative connotation as English, like, "you used me.") To say ผมใช้เขาไปซื้อของที่ตลาด is to say, roughly, "I sent him to buy things (for me) at the market." So in this case, what does a monk use to ring the temple bell? A novice--one of the young boy monks at the monastery. It's all about delegation.
And for next time, more jokes:
Q: กาอะไรพ่นไฟได้
Q: มะนาวอะไรมาจากนอกโลก
Q: หมูอะไรหมุนคอได้
Q: กำอะไรเอ่ยกินกับข้าวเหนียว
Q: อะไรเอ่ย ดำบวม
A small hint.. these all involve a new kind of wordplay I haven't discussed before: คำผวน. Even with that hint, though, these are all insanely difficult, if you ask me.
*I don't know of any common translation for ปิ่นโต. If you're not familiar, it's a set of small stackable food containers for segregating the different parts of your lunch, with a frame that wraps around and holds them together tightly, with a handle on top. The term "Chinese lunchbox" comes to mind, and I found a page on Amazon using that term, though I don't get the idea from Google that that's very common. Some places use "bento box," but bento also refers to a Japanese homepacked single-serving meal (see the Wikipedia entry). While I suspect both Thai and Japanese borrowed the word from Chinese, they're note quite the same concept anymore. Does anyone know of a name other than Chinese lunchbox? Sorry for the tangent...
August 20, 2007
Jokes! 4
I let the most recent batch of Thai jokes stew a bit long. Without further adieu, let's jump right into the analysis of last time's jokes:
Q: ซุปอะไรมีสารอาหารครบทุกหมู่
What kind of soup has nutrients from all the food groups?
A: ซุปเปอร์มาเก็ต
The supermarket!
This joke works okay in English, although in Thai the loanword "soup" ซุป is spelled the same as the first syllable of the loanword "supermarket," so arguably it works better in Thai. This one's a simple pun to start off the batch.
Q: มีเงิน 20 บาท ให้น้องยี่สิบบาท จะเหลือเงินกี่บาท
You have 20 baht. You give your young sister twenty baht. How much do you have left?
A: เหลือ 10 บาท (น้องชื่อยี่)
10 baht (Yi is your younger sister's name.)
This joke requires explanation even after the punchline, which means it's not a very good joke. More of a trick question. The Thai word for twenty is ยี่สิบ /yii-sip/, but the punchline tells you that ยี่ /yii/ is the person's name, and so ให้น้องยี่สิบบาท is meant to be interpreted as "You give your younger sister Yii ten baht." Nevermind the fact that stress and intonation would probably differ if you were really talking about someone named Yii. In ยี่สิบ, ยี่ is unstressed and thus often is pronounced short. You would likely stress both ยี่ and สิบ if you meant a person named ยี่ (or reorder the sentence to avoid confusion). But now I'm taking all the fun out of the joke now, aren't I? :P
Q: ขี่ช้างจับอะไร
What do you ride an elephant to catch?
A: จับให้แน่นๆเดี๋ยวตก
Hold on tight! You could fall!
This joke makes no sense in English. The setup is a reference to a famous idiom, ขี่ช้างจับตั๊กแตน, "ride an elephant to catch grasshoppers," meaning to go to a lot of expense or effort for something that gets very little results, since trying to catch grasshoppers on an elephant would be a rather futile activity. So the setup is phrased so that the listener thinks the answer is ตั๊กแตน "grasshoppers." The punchline is, instead, a play on จับ. It means "catch," but also "grasp, hold on to." The alternate interpretation of the setup is, "When you ride an elephant, what do you hold on to?" Even with this interpretation, the punchline is still a play on words, because the phrasing จับอะไร makes you expect a noun in the answer, regardless. You've got to hold something. Instead of จับ_____ (noun), we get จับให้แน่นๆ "Hold on tight!" Notice, though, that even if the listener, knowing this is the setup for a joke, does answer with something like "ears," the joke still works. If I think I'm all smart and say "the ears" instead of "grasshoppers," the punchline reads like, "Well hold on (to the ears) tight! You could fall!" Interesting.
Q: ยาอะไรใช้รักษาคนไม่ได้
What kind of medicine can't cure people?
A: ยามาฮ่า
Yamaha!
This is a simple play on ยา "medicine" vs. ยา as the first syllable of the brand name Yamaha. Remember that modifiers come after the noun in Thai, so ยา____ would be the typical structure for the name of a type of medicine. For example, ยาพารา is colloquial for "paracetamol" (shortened from พาราเซตามอล, the alternate chemical name for what is known as acetaminophen in North America, the most famous brand of which is Tylenol).
Q: มีเงิน 15 บาท ไปซื้อขนมราคา 4.50 บาท จะได้เงินทอนเท่าไหร่
You have 15 baht. You buy candy that costs 4.50 baht. How much change do you get?
A: 50 สตางค์ (ก็ให้ไปห้าบาทไง)
50 satang (you gave them five baht!)
The setup sounds like a typical question you'd hear in an elementary school math class. The twist here is simple. If you have 15 baht, then you probably have two coins: a 10 baht and a 5 baht coin (the common coin denominations nowadays are 1, 2, 5 and 10. The 2 baht coin is a recent addition, though there have been 2 baht coins before in the past). So the trick is simply that if you have a 5 baht coin and you buy a 4.50 baht candy, you're only going to give them 5 baht (not 15), and thus 1/2 a baht (50 satang--that's Thai for cents) back. Simple, eh?
Now for a few more.
Q: ลิฟท์จอดที่ชั้น 30 มีคนเข้าไปถึง 20 คน ลิฟท์ร้อง บี๊บ บี๊บ คนยังไม่ทันออกเลย สลิงก็ขาด เสียก่อน ปรากฏว่าไม่มีใครบาดเจ็บเลยสักคน ถามว่าเพราะอะไร?
Q: อะไรเอ่ย เวลาเรายืนมันห้อย เวลาเราเดินมันแกว่ง?
Q: ยายพายเรือไปทำบุญที่วัด ปรากฏว่าเรือรั่วและกำลังจะจม ยายต้องเสียสละทิ้งของ สองอย่างระหว่างปิ่นโตกับดอกไม้ ถามว่ายายจะเสียอะไรจึงจะไปถึงวัด แน่ๆ?
Q: พระใช้อะไรตีระฆัง?
Until next time, have fun...
Q: ซุปอะไรมีสารอาหารครบทุกหมู่
What kind of soup has nutrients from all the food groups?
A: ซุปเปอร์มาเก็ต
The supermarket!
This joke works okay in English, although in Thai the loanword "soup" ซุป is spelled the same as the first syllable of the loanword "supermarket," so arguably it works better in Thai. This one's a simple pun to start off the batch.
Q: มีเงิน 20 บาท ให้น้องยี่สิบบาท จะเหลือเงินกี่บาท
You have 20 baht. You give your young sister twenty baht. How much do you have left?
A: เหลือ 10 บาท (น้องชื่อยี่)
10 baht (Yi is your younger sister's name.)
This joke requires explanation even after the punchline, which means it's not a very good joke. More of a trick question. The Thai word for twenty is ยี่สิบ /yii-sip/, but the punchline tells you that ยี่ /yii/ is the person's name, and so ให้น้องยี่สิบบาท is meant to be interpreted as "You give your younger sister Yii ten baht." Nevermind the fact that stress and intonation would probably differ if you were really talking about someone named Yii. In ยี่สิบ, ยี่ is unstressed and thus often is pronounced short. You would likely stress both ยี่ and สิบ if you meant a person named ยี่ (or reorder the sentence to avoid confusion). But now I'm taking all the fun out of the joke now, aren't I? :P
Q: ขี่ช้างจับอะไร
What do you ride an elephant to catch?
A: จับให้แน่นๆเดี๋ยวตก
Hold on tight! You could fall!
This joke makes no sense in English. The setup is a reference to a famous idiom, ขี่ช้างจับตั๊กแตน, "ride an elephant to catch grasshoppers," meaning to go to a lot of expense or effort for something that gets very little results, since trying to catch grasshoppers on an elephant would be a rather futile activity. So the setup is phrased so that the listener thinks the answer is ตั๊กแตน "grasshoppers." The punchline is, instead, a play on จับ. It means "catch," but also "grasp, hold on to." The alternate interpretation of the setup is, "When you ride an elephant, what do you hold on to?" Even with this interpretation, the punchline is still a play on words, because the phrasing จับอะไร makes you expect a noun in the answer, regardless. You've got to hold something. Instead of จับ_____ (noun), we get จับให้แน่นๆ "Hold on tight!" Notice, though, that even if the listener, knowing this is the setup for a joke, does answer with something like "ears," the joke still works. If I think I'm all smart and say "the ears" instead of "grasshoppers," the punchline reads like, "Well hold on (to the ears) tight! You could fall!" Interesting.
Q: ยาอะไรใช้รักษาคนไม่ได้
What kind of medicine can't cure people?
A: ยามาฮ่า
Yamaha!
This is a simple play on ยา "medicine" vs. ยา as the first syllable of the brand name Yamaha. Remember that modifiers come after the noun in Thai, so ยา____ would be the typical structure for the name of a type of medicine. For example, ยาพารา is colloquial for "paracetamol" (shortened from พาราเซตามอล, the alternate chemical name for what is known as acetaminophen in North America, the most famous brand of which is Tylenol).
Q: มีเงิน 15 บาท ไปซื้อขนมราคา 4.50 บาท จะได้เงินทอนเท่าไหร่
You have 15 baht. You buy candy that costs 4.50 baht. How much change do you get?
A: 50 สตางค์ (ก็ให้ไปห้าบาทไง)
50 satang (you gave them five baht!)
The setup sounds like a typical question you'd hear in an elementary school math class. The twist here is simple. If you have 15 baht, then you probably have two coins: a 10 baht and a 5 baht coin (the common coin denominations nowadays are 1, 2, 5 and 10. The 2 baht coin is a recent addition, though there have been 2 baht coins before in the past). So the trick is simply that if you have a 5 baht coin and you buy a 4.50 baht candy, you're only going to give them 5 baht (not 15), and thus 1/2 a baht (50 satang--that's Thai for cents) back. Simple, eh?
Now for a few more.
Q: ลิฟท์จอดที่ชั้น 30 มีคนเข้าไปถึง 20 คน ลิฟท์ร้อง บี๊บ บี๊บ คนยังไม่ทันออกเลย สลิงก็ขาด เสียก่อน ปรากฏว่าไม่มีใครบาดเจ็บเลยสักคน ถามว่าเพราะอะไร?
Q: อะไรเอ่ย เวลาเรายืนมันห้อย เวลาเราเดินมันแกว่ง?
Q: ยายพายเรือไปทำบุญที่วัด ปรากฏว่าเรือรั่วและกำลังจะจม ยายต้องเสียสละทิ้งของ สองอย่างระหว่างปิ่นโตกับดอกไม้ ถามว่ายายจะเสียอะไรจึงจะไปถึงวัด แน่ๆ?
Q: พระใช้อะไรตีระฆัง?
Until next time, have fun...
July 29, 2007
Jokes! 3
Answer time again. Today's jokes are jokes with a twist. They ask you one thing, but the answer appears unrelated, unless you get the hidden meaning. In three of them, the answer is based on a double meaning of a word in the setup. In one (#3), it's a "non-joke"--that is, the punchline is an obvious answer. When compared with English jokes, these are pretty standard joke strategies, and #3 translates just fine into English, because there's no wordplay involved. Let's get right to it:
Q: นกแก้วกับนกขุนทองเกาะอยู่ที่ไหน
Parrots and myna birds--where do they perch?
A: เกาะอยู่กลางน้ำ มีน้ำล้อมรอบ
An island is in the middle of the sea; it has water all around it.
The double meaning here is เกาะ, which means (with respect to birds) "to perch," but also means "island." There's a bit of grammatical trickery going on. The alternate meaning of the joke is actually a non sequitur: Parrots and myna birds--where are islands located? So until you get this second meaning, the answer to the joke also appears to be a non sequitur.
Q: น้ำอะไรเอ่ยผู้ชายไม่ชอบ
What kind of water do men dislike?
A: น้ำหน้าอย่างเธอนี่แหละ
A face like yours.
In this joke, น้ำ "water" is also a blanket term for any kind of liquid, so you could translate the setup as What kind of liquid do men dislike?, too. The key word in the punchline is น้ำหน้า, which is an elaborate alliterative term meaning the same thing as หน้า: face, but น้ำหน้า is only used derisively. Besides the meaning of water, น้ำ has another (inferred) meaning of "essence", which is seen in words like น้ำหน้า and น้ำใจ. You could also simply argue that in น้ำหน้า, the word น้ำ is just an alliterative nonce. Either way, the twist of this joke is that the answer has nothing to do with liquid, like the setup leads you to believe it will. Rather, it's an insult directed at the listener. Be careful who you use this one on. :)
Q: ล้างจานยังไงมือไม่เปียก
็How do you wash dishes so your hands don't get wet?
A: กินแล้วแช่ไว้ให้แม่ล้าง
When you're done eating, leave them for Mom to wash.
The answer is obvious; but the joke is that it's not the most obvious answer. By presenting the question as a joke, the listener tries to think of a more clever answer than "wear gloves," which is the "real" answer to this question. For this joke, the fact that it's a non-joke is what makes it funny. Bait and switch.
Q: อะไรเอ่ยยิ่งใหญ่ยิ่งขนเยอะ
What is it--the larger it gets, the hairier it is?
A: รถบรรทุก
A freight truck.
This joke is based on the double meaning of ขน, which means "hair" (more specifically animal hair or human body hair--though it also refers to a bird's feathers) and "to haul" or transport, like you do with a truck. So the alternate meaning of the setup is, "What is it--the larger it gets, the more it hauls?" Naturally, the larger the freight truck, the more it hauls.
Ready for more? Let's try five this time:
Q: ซุปอะไรมีสารอาหารครบทุกหมู่
Q: มีเงิน 20 บาท ให้น้องยี่สิบบาท จะเหลือเงินกี่บาท
Q: ขี่ช้างจับอะไร
Q: ยาอะไรใช้รักษาคนไม่ได้
Q: มีเงิน 15 บาท ไปซื้อขนมราคา 4.50 บาท จะได้เงินทอนเท่าไหร่
July 20, 2007
Jokes! 2
Time for answers to jokes from the last post. I've included translation and explanation. Even though the joke doesn't work in translation, it can help us learners to understand how the humor works:
Q: มีคนไทยอยู่สองร้อยคน คนไหนเป็นคนอีสาน
There are two hundred Thai people. Which one is from the Northeast?
A: คนร้อยเอ็ด
The person from Roi-Et./The 101st person.
Comments: The province Roi-Et in Northeastern Thailand (aka Isaan) literally can be translated as "One hundred and one." I'm not sure how the province got its name, so I don't know if that's a correct translation or not, though. I've always wondered. This is also the province that Thais from Isaan jokingly refer to as L.A. (which is a play on the initials of Roi-Et when pronounced colloquially as ล้อยเอ็ด, hence ล.อ., Thailand's L.A.)
Q: มีแก้วสิบใบเต็มไปด้วยน้ำ แก้วใบไหนมีน้ำน้อยที่สุด
There are ten glasses filled with water. Which glass has the least water?
A: แก้วใบที่หก
The sixth glass./The spilled glass.
Comments: This is a pretty straightforward play on the word หก, which has two meanings in Thai: six and spill.
Q: เดือนแรกมีบ้าน เดือนที่สองมีรถ เดือนที่สามมีอะไร
The first month you have a house. The second month you have a car. What do you have the third month?
A: มีนาคม
March
Comments: This one's a bit more complicated. It's a play on the fact that the first syllable of the word "March" in Thai is the same as the word "have" มีั. It sets the listener up to expect มี+noun, but the joke is that March is the third month.
Q: มีสิบคนยืนบนหน้าผา คนที่เท่าไรตกหน้าผาตาย
Ten people are standing on a cliff. Which person fell off the cliff?
A: คนที่เก้า
The ninth person./The person who took a step forward.
Comments: This joke is best told aloud, since it involves two homonyms that are not homographs. Say what? Two words that sound alike but are written differently, ala their/there in English. The word for "nine" is เก้า, the word meaning "take a step" is ก้าว, but they are both pronounced with a long vowel. So it's also a play on the dual meaning of ที่. In this case, ที่เก้า means "ninth," while ที่ก้าว means "who took a step forward." In the first case it's a noun marking the ordinal numbers (ที่หนึ่ง 1st ที่สอง 2nd, etc.); in the second case it's a relative pronoun following the noun and preceding the verb. (This is also the case with the spilled glass joke.)
A few new ones:
Q: มีคนไทยอยู่สองร้อยคน คนไหนเป็นคนอีสาน
There are two hundred Thai people. Which one is from the Northeast?
A: คนร้อยเอ็ด
The person from Roi-Et./The 101st person.
Comments: The province Roi-Et in Northeastern Thailand (aka Isaan) literally can be translated as "One hundred and one." I'm not sure how the province got its name, so I don't know if that's a correct translation or not, though. I've always wondered. This is also the province that Thais from Isaan jokingly refer to as L.A. (which is a play on the initials of Roi-Et when pronounced colloquially as ล้อยเอ็ด, hence ล.อ., Thailand's L.A.)
Q: มีแก้วสิบใบเต็มไปด้วยน้ำ แก้วใบไหนมีน้ำน้อยที่สุด
There are ten glasses filled with water. Which glass has the least water?
A: แก้วใบที่หก
The sixth glass./The spilled glass.
Comments: This is a pretty straightforward play on the word หก, which has two meanings in Thai: six and spill.
Q: เดือนแรกมีบ้าน เดือนที่สองมีรถ เดือนที่สามมีอะไร
The first month you have a house. The second month you have a car. What do you have the third month?
A: มีนาคม
March
Comments: This one's a bit more complicated. It's a play on the fact that the first syllable of the word "March" in Thai is the same as the word "have" มีั. It sets the listener up to expect มี+noun, but the joke is that March is the third month.
Q: มีสิบคนยืนบนหน้าผา คนที่เท่าไรตกหน้าผาตาย
Ten people are standing on a cliff. Which person fell off the cliff?
A: คนที่เก้า
The ninth person./The person who took a step forward.
Comments: This joke is best told aloud, since it involves two homonyms that are not homographs. Say what? Two words that sound alike but are written differently, ala their/there in English. The word for "nine" is เก้า, the word meaning "take a step" is ก้าว, but they are both pronounced with a long vowel. So it's also a play on the dual meaning of ที่. In this case, ที่เก้า means "ninth," while ที่ก้าว means "who took a step forward." In the first case it's a noun marking the ordinal numbers (ที่หนึ่ง 1st ที่สอง 2nd, etc.); in the second case it's a relative pronoun following the noun and preceding the verb. (This is also the case with the spilled glass joke.)
A few new ones:
Q: นกแก้วกับนกขุนทองเกาะอยู่ที่ไหน
Q: น้ำอะไรเอ่ยผู้ชายไม่ชอบ
Q: ล้างจานยังไงมือไม่เปียก
Q: อะไรเอ่ยยิ่งใหญ่ยิ่งขนเยอะ
Have fun. :)
July 5, 2007
Jokes!
From Mary Haas' Thai Reader (1954), three 50-year-old jokes that actually translate into English (so I translated them). Whether they're actually funny or not, you can decide.
#1
Sawai: “Suang, how old is your younger sister?”
Suang: “She is seven years old.”
Sawai: “But why did she tell me she was only four years old?”
Suang: “Because she learned to count at age three!”
#2
Teacher: “What color is the sea?”
Student: “Black.”
Teacher: “Why do you think it's black?”
Student: “Because there are so many squid!”
#3
Teacher: “Who can tell me what a fisherman's net is made of?”
Student: “It’s made of many, many small holes tied together with rope!”
And here are a few well-known jokes that don't translate:
#4: มีคนไทยอยู่สองร้อยคน คนไหนเป็นคนอีสาน
#5: มีแก้วสิบใบเต็มไปด้วยน้ำ แก้วใบไหนมีน้ำน้อยที่สุด
#6: เดือนแรกมีบ้าน เดือนที่สองมีรถ เดือนที่สามมีอะไร
#7: มีสิบคนยืนบนหน้าผา คนที่เท่าไรตกหน้าผาตาย
I'll post the answers next time, along with a new batch of jokes. If you have a Thai joke, post it in the comments. :)
#1
Sawai: “Suang, how old is your younger sister?”
Suang: “She is seven years old.”
Sawai: “But why did she tell me she was only four years old?”
Suang: “Because she learned to count at age three!”
#2
Teacher: “What color is the sea?”
Student: “Black.”
Teacher: “Why do you think it's black?”
Student: “Because there are so many squid!”
#3
Teacher: “Who can tell me what a fisherman's net is made of?”
Student: “It’s made of many, many small holes tied together with rope!”
And here are a few well-known jokes that don't translate:
#4: มีคนไทยอยู่สองร้อยคน คนไหนเป็นคนอีสาน
#5: มีแก้วสิบใบเต็มไปด้วยน้ำ แก้วใบไหนมีน้ำน้อยที่สุด
#6: เดือนแรกมีบ้าน เดือนที่สองมีรถ เดือนที่สามมีอะไร
#7: มีสิบคนยืนบนหน้าผา คนที่เท่าไรตกหน้าผาตาย
I'll post the answers next time, along with a new batch of jokes. If you have a Thai joke, post it in the comments. :)
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