buay tahan

Buay tahan is Singlish (Singapore English with Hokkien) meaning "cannot stand" or "unbearable." Not concerning, just regional vocabulary. If your kid uses it constantly, ask them where they first heard it, not to police their speech but to understand which online community they are in. Most slang of this kind moves through TikTok and group chats, so seeing it in your child's vocabulary just means they are plugged into normal teen internet culture.

Buay tahan is Singlish (Singapore English with Hokkien influence) meaning "cannot bear" or "cannot tolerate." "Buay" is Hokkien for "cannot"; "tahan" is Malay for "bear/endure." Use in Singaporean and Malaysian contexts. Formal equivalent: "unbearable," "cannot tolerate." Common non-native mistake: parsing the words individually; the phrase functions as a fixed expression. Read or listen to the word in context several times before trying it yourself; the right register is harder to learn than the dictionary meaning.