7: Tom Yam for the soul

The tom yam was hot
when the clouds started to cry;
Makes me warm inside
Translation
Tom yam yang pedas/panas
apabila awan menangis;
Menghilangkan rasa dingin

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I made Tom Yam campur (mixed) for dinner today, and had it while was raining outside. Cold weather+hot/spicy food = perfect combo.


Anyway, of all the haikus I've posted here so far, I think this one is possibly the hardest to translate, because feeling warm is generally a good thing in English, but not exactly in Malay... possibly due to the fact that Malays typically come from tropical countries and so feeling hot/warm isn't a thing to really thrive for. 'Warmth' would thus probably bring to mind sweatiness, rather than comfy, fluffy thoughts. Thus in the translation I actually used 'feeling less cold', which has a somewhat equal effect to 'makes me warm'.

Also, in Malay, the English word 'hot' can be translated into 2 ways: to mean high temperature, people use 'panas', while hotness from spices like chilli is called 'pedas'. For the original haiku, I meant to use both meanings for the single word 'hot', but as I said, the translation didn't come through perfectly. I apologise :)

Random language lessons ftw :P

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