Thai Idioms and Proverbs: Memorize the Real Sayings in a 78-Card Deck

Thai sayings are full of animals: tigers, crocodiles, buffaloes, elephants, frogs and cats. Learning them is a quick way to pick up the vocabulary and get a sense of Thai humor. The Thai Idioms & Proverbs deck on Flip It (code BP8181, 78 cards) mixes two very different kinds of material, though, and you'll learn faster if you separate them before your first review.

Two decks in one

Cards 1–32 are presented as native Thai sayings. Each card has an English literal on the front and the Thai plus a gloss on the back. Some are the real thing, and they're worth learning:

Cards 33–78 are English proverbs translated word for word: Rome wasn't built in a day, Curiosity killed the cat, Money doesn't grow on trees, Let sleeping dogs lie. A Thai speaker will understand them, but they aren't Thai sayings. Use them as sentence-reading practice, not as idioms to use in conversation.

Cards to repair

• Card 21: the back หนีเสือปะจระเข้ means "flee the tiger, run into the crocodile". The front's tamarind tree and bear are nowhere in the Thai. Rewrite the front to match.
• Card 32: น้ำขึ้นให้รีบตัก means "when the water rises, hurry and scoop it up". There's no lotus. Keep the gloss ("seize the opportunity") and fix the front.
• Card 16: ข้าวสาร is milled rice, not "rice fields" (that would be นา). The literal on the front doesn't match the Thai.
• Card 43: the standard saying is ลูกไม้หล่นไม่ไกลต้น ("fruit falls not far from the tree"). Put it on the back, and use it for card 50 (like father, like son) too.
• Card 52: Thai already has a proverb for this: เพื่อนกินหาง่าย เพื่อนตายหายาก ("friends to eat with are easy to find, friends to die for are rare"). Learn that one instead of the literal translation.
• Card 68 (It takes two to tango): the Thai equivalent is card 22. Merge the two cards.
• Card 63: เข้าเมืองตาหลิ่ว ต้องหลิ่วตาตาม is a genuine Thai saying. หลิ่วตา means to squint or close one eye, not "slant eyes". Correct the gloss.
• Card 1: same same but different is tourist Thai-English, not a Thai idiom.
• Unverified items: card 7 uses two different words for dog (สุนัข and หมา) in one line, and several cards in the 1–32 block don't match any set phrase. Check them with a native speaker before you use them.

How to study what's left

1. Reverse the real idioms. Show the Thai first, recall the literal image, then the meaning. The image is your memory hook: an elephant hunting a grasshopper is hard to forget.
2. Use the animals as a vocabulary list. เสือ tiger, จระเข้ crocodile, ควาย buffalo, ช้าง elephant, กบ frog, แมว cat, ไก่ chicken, หมา/สุนัข dog (casual/formal). Once you know these words, many idioms become partly readable.
3. Read the calques for script practice. Cards 33–78 are mostly simple sentences (เวลาคือเงิน, มาง่ายไปง่าย, เลือดข้นกว่าน้ำ), which makes them good reading drills.

Keep going in Thai

Build the basics with Thai Top 100 Essential Words and Thai food vocabulary for menus and street stalls.

Find Thai Idioms & Proverbs (BP8181) in the library on Flip It.