Reading an article in today's Thaiger,  I discovered that I--and I assume most readers of this forum--are best described by what the author says is a rude word in Thai: ngean.

Nisamanee “Nat” Lertworapong, a transgender You Tuber with 1.74 million Facebook followers, has been criticized for teaching the word to a Singaporean citizen. The author claims it means "horny."

It would be disingenuous of me to feign offense if I was accused of being horny. In fact, it's a quality I quite admire in Asian men.

https://thethaiger.com/news/national/thai-youtuber-criticised-after-teaching-rude-word-to-foreigner

 

 

8 hours ago, reader said:

ngean.

Thanks reader. What would the pronunciation be?

8 minutes ago, Lonnie said:

pronunciation

I found this for nge...it helps a little... especially for a Thai ignoramus like me.

https://www.nameslook.com/nge/

But if you make it in practice it will certainly lead-hopefully for both of the couple, to being very much ´SIAO´. And that keeps them drawing in........(like SEE-(y)AO).

That nguen is one of those works about impossible to pronounce with twisted tongues of farang. Though there are many more words meaning or relating to about same state of feelings. It rymes a bit with ´deun´=walk.

If you're talking to a bar boy, you won't have to use that word.  You'll mispronounce it anyway.

You can say "horny".  They know that one . . .

15 hours ago, Lonnie said:

I found this for nge...it helps a little... especially for a Thai ignoramus like me.

 

To hear the word in question, go to Google Translate, choose Thai, paste in the word เงี่ยน

(here I've done it for you: https://translate.google.com/?sl=th&tl=en&text=เงี่ยน&op=translate )

and click the "listen" icon

(ignore the "Ngeī̀yn" you will also see; that's just Google's own weird transliteration which nobody else uses. It's a letter-by-letter substitution for the individual Thai symbols, and doesn't even approximately indicate the pronunciation, not least because it knows nothing about the way Thai compounds 15 vowel symbols to make about 50 different sounds 😕)

14 hours ago, pong2 said:

That nguen is one of those works about impossible to pronounce with twisted tongues of farang. Though there are many more words meaning or relating to about same state of feelings. It rymes a bit with ´deun´=walk.

No, that's เดิน with a completely different vowel (no ย):

https://translate.google.com/?sl=th&tl=en&text=เดิน&op=translate

1 hour ago, thaiophilus said:

(here I've done it for you: https://translate.google.com/?sl=th&tl=en&text=เงี่ยน&op=translate )

Thanks thaiophilus. I think I got it.😄

That's not the correct way to say it. But if you are a tourist talking to a bar boy it doesn't matter. He will smile and say yes till you open your wallet and pay him.