Between my last post and this one (the dates don’t match the actual writing date), Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva อภิสิทธิ์ เวชชาชีวะ ordered a crackdown on the protesters camped out.

Prime Minister is translated as นายกรัฐมนตรี, but in the newspapers you’ll only see it in the short version, นายกฯ (naa1 yok4).

For those familiar with what happened, it was complete chaos. The videos you can find online make it feel like a warzone. Both the protesters and the military exchanged live rounds, rubber bullets, tear gas, and grenades. In the end, 24 people died and over 900 were injured.

The word for gun is ปืน. There are two ways you can say bullet in Thai. The first is ‘gun baby’, or ‘ลูกปืน‘. You can also say ‘กระสุน‘, although it’s not as commonly used. For a rubber bullet, just add ‘ยาง‘ (rubber) at the end to get กระสุนยาง. Just don’t get shot by one at close range.

Tear gas is a direct translation, combing the words for tear น้ำตา and gas แก๊ส, to get แก๊สน้ำตา. The word for grenade is น้อยหน่าเหล็ก. Since the word for explode is ระเบิด, don’t confuse grenade with the word for bomb, or ลูกระเบิด. There have been repeated reports of grenades going off for the last two plus years.

People injured during an event like this are called ผู้บาดเจ็บ or ผู้เจ็บป่วย. There were 24 ผู้เสียชีวิต (people who lost their life). If people were hurt or killed, you’d use the word ราย as the unit word.

There were 3 people injured and 4 people killed.

มีผู้บาดเจ็บ3ราย ผู้เสียชีวิต4ราย

As the นปช is convinced the current รัฐบาล is corrupt (hope you remember those words from the previous lesson), accusing them of double standards (สองมาตรฐาน), they want parliament to be dissolved to force fresh elections (เลือกตั้ง).

The term for dissolving parliament is ยุบสภา. You’ll see this everywhere, on headbands, bumper stickers, giant posters. Those who don’t agree with the นปช have put out calls for people to refuse to use taxes that have ยุบสภา written on them.

Thai vocabulary list 2: Language of Thai Political Response

นายกฯ Prime Minister

ปืน gun

ลูกปืน bullet

กระสุน bullet (less common)

กระสุนยาง rubber bullet

น้ำตา tears

แก๊ส gas

แก๊สน้ำตา tear gas (tear + gas)

น้อยหน่าเหล็ก grenade

ระเบิด explode

ลูกระเบิด bomb

ผู้บาดเจ็บ people injured

ผู้เจ็บป่วย people injured (or sick)

ผู้เสียชีวิต people killed

ราย unit word for those injured/killed

สองมาตรฐาน double standards

ยุบสภา dissolve parliament

เลือกตั้ง elections