ศาลาชุมนุม

[R.E.G.]

My exposure to Muslims suggests that they would use "อัลลอฮ์" (Allah) when making specific reference to God.

Hopefully there is a Muslim on this forum who can shed light on the use of the word "พระเจา" in the Thai Muslim world.

John

Christian, Moslem, Judism, all have the same God. In Thai is that พระเจ้า?

[Tommo]

i always took it to mean a generic term for a god.

I was trying to find the word for 'swap' the other day, I seem to remember thai people saying to me something that sounded like 'sa-lap gan' and they'd do a crossing of hands in front of them.

Any ideas?

[claude06thailand]

swap > สลับ > สลับกัน
swap > ผลัด > ผลัดกัน

I was surprised to find only แลกเปลี่ยน in my 3 dictionaries...

[grthai]

From experience with this case I would use เปลี่ยนกัน, แลกกัน, or แลกเปลี่ยนกัน because I can still remember when I was first learning Thai and I tried to use สลับกัน with a Thai friend asking him to swap me the basketball he was holding for the volleyball I had and he was confused. It was then that I was taught that สลับกัน means to alternate not to swap like to alternate using something or positions when doing something. Despite this I can think of something that is sort of an exception. พี่ ขอสลับกันใช้หน่อยได้ไหมครับ Can we alternate using (something) please? hahaha This is super polite and probably not what college friends would say to each other, but you get my drift. Oh! Good memories.

[mangkorn]

It means "to alternate," in the sense of every other one, e.g., alternating current.

Apropos Tommo's question, it may be used to mean "swap" in the sense of trading shifts with a co-worker, i.e., you need to take tomorrow off, and so he agrees to work for you if you take one of his shifts (alternating).

But it doesn't generally mean swap in the sense of exchanging one thing for another.

[Tommo]

ขอบคุณ

เหลวไหล - nonsensical; unreliable; [interjection] "Blah!"

ไม่เหลวไหล - nonsense; nonsensical

hmm, to me that sounds like basically the same thing. So if เหลวไหล means "nonsense" why doesn't ไม่เหลวไหล "not nonsense".

I was trying to form this sentence, guess at my attempt na ถ้าผมพูดไม่เหลวไหล คุณจะรู้ยังไง

[simonbournemouth]

hmm, to me that sounds like basically the same thing. So if เหลวไหล means "nonsense" why doesn't ไม่เหลวไหล "not nonsense".

Khun Tommo,

I'm not familiar with the term "เหลวไหล", so I can't comment on it. A term I have heard for "speaking nonesense" is "พูดเพ้อเจ้อ".

Perhaps; ถ้าผมพูดเพ้อเจ้อ คุณจะรู้ยังไง

[Tommo]

yes that look like it would work and there's little ambiguity. Perhaps nonsense could take two meanings here, 1: nonsense like speaking in tongues or say someone pretending to speak japanese when they don't know a single word or 2: nonsense like "2x10 equals a camels face".

[mangkorn]

"2x10 equals a camels face".

That would be a surrealist's way of talking sense, no?

Anyway, as in interjection, ไร้สาระ is probably the most-common way to say "nonsensical."

[claude06thailand]

ขอบคุณ

เหลวไหล - nonsensical; unreliable; [interjection] "Blah!"

ไม่เหลวไหล - nonsense; nonsensical

hmm, to me that sounds like basically the same thing. So if เหลวไหล means "nonsense" why doesn't ไม่เหลวไหล "not nonsense".

I was trying to form this sentence, guess at my attempt na ถ้าผมพูดไม่เหลวไหล คุณจะรู้ยังไง

Where did you find that เหลวไหล = ไม่เหลวไหล ?

As Mangkorn said, พูดไร้สาระ is the common way.