Comparison of vocabularies which has a word beginning with “???” (kin/eat) in Thai and “吃” (chī/eat) in Chinese which has implications about sexual behavior
Kritsadee Songkhai

Abstract
There are a lot of words that begin with the word “Eat,” both in Thai and Chinese. And, many words have a hidden meaning, for example, The Thai word “??????? (Eating water chestnut),” can also imply disappointment from your hope not being realized. Another example: Words in Chinese, 吃醋 (chīcù), where the word吃 (chī), means “eating” and the phrase 醋 (cù), which means “vinegar” and combiningthis two means “eating vinegar.” But, this combination implies “jealousy.” Therefore, words that have implicit meanings may confuse Thai students and Chinese students. Thus, more profound research can bring understanding to the benefit and efficiency of Thai and Chinese language students. As a result, we decided to do further research on this topic.Vocabularies which have a word beginning with “Eat” in Thai or Chinese languages and which have implications about “Sexual behavior.” Starting with collecting words that begin with the word, “Eat” from the Thai-Thai dictionary and Chinese-Chinese dictionary. In the Thai dictionary, 122 words with the word “Eat,” 3 of them have implications about sexual behavior. And, in Chinese dictionaries, 72 words begin with the word “吃” (chī ???), where the only phrase has implications about sexual behavior:“吃豆腐 (chīdòufǔ).” Hence, we decided to use the combination of these four words as the initial scope of the study. The research found that “Eat,” in Thai may imply having sex. But, there is no Thai dictionary that refers to the meaning “Eat” to having sex. This may confuse those who study Thai as a second language. In Chinese, most of the words beginning with, “吃” (eat) does not mean“having sex.” There is only 吃豆腐 (chīdòufǔ), which means to take liberties, e.g., touching inappropriately, which differentiates the word “Eat” in Thai and Chinese languages.

Full Text: PDF