Pain, Disease & Illness: The (Thai) Language of Medicine with Stu Jay Raj [Season 4, Episode 30]

The topic is a bit morbid but these are strange times -
Greg interviews polyglot and podcast favorite Stu
Jay Raj on the roots of the Thai language as they
pertain to pain and medicine. They begin trading stories over the
fiendishly tricky (for Westerners anyway) pronunciation of the
Thai language, and the often hilarious (and obscene) mistakes
that can happen, with Stu explaining that (roughly) Sanskrit and
Pali are to Thai what Latin and Greek are to English. Stu
explains most formal Thai words, especially scientific and
academic ones, come from Sanskrit and Pali. 


This segways into a discussion of how to interact with
medical personnel in Thailand, and all the different Thai words
for discussing pain and sickness. Stu emphasizes that Thai words
can have double meanings, being positive in one context but
negative in another, which turns into a discussion on the Thai
words for excrement (really!), which are kind of important to get
right, if you think about it. :)


Last, Stu gets into the physical differences of pronouncing
various sounds to explain Thais' difficulty in saying various
English words. It turns out that pain works in both
directions! 


Don't forget to check out Stu's excellent book
Cracking Thai Fundamentals!


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