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I know many of you that have found Thailand Musings are interested in Thai girls and how to find a Thai bride of your own. After being married to a wonderful Thai girl for over 3 years I can understand your interest in Thai girls. Read more about my Thai bride.
Thailand has its own language and alphabet which is completely different from Western languages. The Thai alphabet contains 44 consonants and 18 vowels. In addition, Thai is a tonal language with 5 different tones, meaning the same word can have 5 different meaning dependent on the tone. Believe me this can be very confusing when you are learning the language! Golf has demonstrated for me already and I’ll be damned if I can hear much difference in the tones most times and I certainly can’t reproduce them. Very funny for her and very frustrating for me.
That being said, most common words and phrases can be picked up by the Westerner and it is very appreciated by the Thai’s. Want to get a smile? Simply use some Thai phrases when you are in Thailand. Even if you mangle the pronunciation it will be appreciated and in most cases will get you a huge smile and possibly a new friend.
Here’s a great resource for Thai writing: http://www.omniglot.com/writing/thai.htm
However if you just want some basic phrases to use keep coming back here to Thailand Musings. I will try to add short lists of 5-10 words or phrases each week and if you have any questions about any of them you can certainly leave a comment and Golf can help you.
So, here’s the first of many Thai vocabulary lists:
Sawasdee – Hello
La korn – goodbye
Korp khun – thank you
Khun cheu a rai? – What is your name?
Khun pood pa sa ang krit mai? – Do you speak English?
Kor tode – excuse me
Ka rue na – please
Sa ba dee mai? – How are you?
Dee – good
Mai dee – bad
Please note also that Thai’s are very polite, especially to strangers. When speaking it is polite to add –khrab to the end of any sentence or phrase if you are a male. If you are a female you would add –kaa. So “Hello” is said like this:
Sawasdee khrab (for males)
Sawasdee kaa (for females)
Please do not forget to add these to everything you say lest the person you’re speaking to think you are rude and unthinking. Let me know if there are any words or phrases in particular you’d like to learn and I’ll be happy to include them in the next Thai vocabulary post.
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It’s great to see you helping English speakers learn more about the Thai language!
Thanks Justin,
It’s not an easy language for Westerners to learn, because of the tones, the different alphabet, the structure…seems everything is different. I am still a rank beginner even after being with Golf for two years.
I do think that it can be a beautiful language though…listen to some songs sometime at http://www.ethaimusic.com
Anyway, look for more vocab going forward, next we will learn to count to 10!
P.S. Nice forum/blog and congratulations on the 100th member!
this has help a bunch thank you, but friend keep throwing word in i don’t understand is there any other sites the will expand on this as the other you have listed are missing the words i need to find.
Thanks again great site
Hi Robert,
Glad the site has been helpful to you and that you’re enjoying it. You can try the Learning Thai site for more vocabulary or Thai Language Online. Both are pretty good. Or you can take the route that I took and that’s to meet some Thai people, either in person (best) or online (still good) and have them tutor you. You can meet Thai girls at Thai Love Links (of course) or on the social site Hi5
Sawasdee to you. I am a person who is interested to learn various languages around the globe. I have heard about Thai language and I started to learn some easy phrases in it. This blog is again a nice one to learn more about Thai language.
Thanks for sharing and keep posting more on the language please.