Outrageous Thai: Slang, Curses and Epithets (Thai Phrasebook)

by T.F. Rhoden

Book Overview

This is a user-friendly and concise Thai phrase book and guide to Thai slang and Thai curses.

The Thai people love fun and laughter. They appreciate foreigners who speak their language. But how would they react to foreigners who throw insults in the Thai language and know how to make them blush at the use of direct and vulgar Thai words? This Thai phrasebook, while designed to teach non-Thais to understand that spoken language on the...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0804848122
• ISBN13: 9780804848121
• Release Date: March 2017
• Publisher: Tuttle Publishing
• Length: 168 Pages
• Weight: 0.57 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.2" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

Best book on Thai slang available

This ground-breaking book deserves five stars because it is the best, most comprehensive resource for Thai slang and colloquialisms available. Becker's slang book is pretty good, but Outrageous Thai is superior. I believe that only a foreigner would dare to put to paper all those words that Thais use but tell us we don't need to know. I wanted to know. I was not disappointed. Be warned that the book indeed contains vocabulary and expressions that are vulgar; hard-core slang that's offensive. The book also offers a wide range of useful suggestions on ways to get your Thai to sound more natural, less bookish. So, the book teaches you words that you are likley never to utter, but are interesting to know and you may encounter, while providing a wide range of vocab./tips that can be put into daily use immediately. This book is a must for anyone serious about not only learning, but really using the Thai language.

Nice details and examples

I enjoyed dipping into this book and browsing the wide variety of examples of Thai colloquial language and slang. The examples of language have good transcriptions and translations, and there is also a lot of interesting text explaining the meaning and providing anecdotes of usage. A lot of fun!

Awesome, and Funny!

I bought this one along with Becker's "Speak Like A Thai Volume 2 - Thai Slang and Idioms," and Outrageous Thai is far the superior! Looking over the other reviews, I can agree that this is just one of those books that takes some common sense to use; but the author does, repeatedly, say when and when not to use particular words and phrases, so I think the guy covers himself pretty well in that regard. I'd have to say that this is the best book in the market right now for Slang in the Thai Language hands down!

Entertaining

I've been reading this book with my wife and it's been very entertaining for us. My wife is from Isaan and I'm an intermediate Thai speaker with a bit of Lao. This book is not about learning to speak Thai for a business man, this book is about learning what the tuk tuk driver just said to his friend and if you don't understand the difference this isn't your book. In short it's a great book as long as you understand what it means to speak that way in front of Thai people...

Saw this book in action

This review will be admittedly a little unfair. First, I have not seen the published book itself and second I know the author personally. How can I write a review of a book I have not yet read you might ask. This is easy. I have seen and heard the author using what can only be described as "Outrageous Thai" in action. His command of Thai words and phrases that I never wanted learn in the first place was impressive to say the least. Most of the time the context was humorous. In these cases no one got offended but an eye or two was raised. In other case people got very offended which resulted in awkward situations for my friend but very humorous situations for the rest of us. The value in this material is that it explores a side of Thai that you really can't find anywhere else. Even if you never use a single one of the phrases provided it will give you some insights into the Thai language. Standard phrase books are always missing something the material provided here helps fill some of those holes. To truly enjoy the material imagine your friends or even yourself saying this stuff to a variety of people. The images it will evoke should, at the very least, produce a chuckle.