52 Thai Heart Phrases for Conversation and Cultural Insight
One word carries an entire culture’s inner life. Jai. Heart. In Thai, a kind person has a good heart. An impatient one has a hot heart. The colleague who won’t trouble the boss with bad news carries awe in his heart. This deck draws 52 of those phrases from the 743 collected in Heart Talk: Say What You Feel in Thai, and deals them one card a week for a year. Each card carries the Thai script, a pronunciation guide, the literal meaning, and a few lines on how the phrase lives in ordinary conversation.
What’s Inside
Each card gathers a small cluster of phrases around one theme: comfort, courage, patience, trust. The Thai script sits alongside a pronunciation guide and the literal meaning. A few lines explain how the phrase lives in an office, a market, a kitchen, a hospital room. Learn them one at a time. Say them aloud. When a Thai speaker hears jai in a foreign mouth, used well, the reaction is not correction. It is recognition.
52 cards. One per week. One year.
What Readers Say
“A sweeping, comprehensive tour de force of the cornerstone of Thai culture. Recommended if you want to understand how Thai people think and perceive reality.”
— John B., Amazon (5 stars, Verified Purchase)
“A fascinating approach to one of the world’s more complicated languages, and worth reading even if you never plan to learn Thai.”
— Amazon reader (5 stars, Verified Purchase)
“My Thai Language teacher at Pro Language School in Bangkok did her Master’s thesis on this book. If your Thai falls somewhere between fluent and beginner, you will benefit from this book tremendously — and the Thais will love you for it.”
— Amazon reader (5 stars)
“It opens the door to the private realm of the Thai language — the linguistic heartscape where ideas take shape, feelings are formed, moods floated, and relationships started or mended when broken.”
— Published synopsis
Goodreads rating: 4.38 out of 5
Heart Talk: Say What You Feel in Thai
Third Edition — 743 Phrases
The Heart Talk Companion Deck is drawn from Heart Talk: Say What You Feel in Thai, now in its third edition with 743 jai phrases. The book is the full collection — the variations, the grammar, the stories behind the phrases. Start with the deck. Go to the book when a phrase catches you and will not let go.
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ISBN 978-1694514011
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Trade paperback, 6″ × 9 1/4″
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385 pages
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Heaven Lake Press, 2006 (Third edition)
About the Author
Christopher G. Moore is a Canadian author who has lived in Bangkok since 1988. He came for a year. The heart phrases kept him.
Heaven Lake Press · Bangkok