I first went to Thailand in 1997 and immediately fell in love with the country. Thailand at that time to me was mysterious and exotic, full of potentials and pitfalls.
Fast forward to 2010 and here I am after 13 years and many trips to the LOS sharing, with the help of my 
Thai Language and Vocabulary
Thai can be quite difficult for Westerners to learn, however if you’re just visiting the country you’ll find that you really don’t need to know much Thai in order to get around. Having some knowledge of the language though will help you when it comes to meeting and interacting with Thai;s as they will really appreciate your effort to learn there language.
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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Check out these similar posts:
- About Thai Language and Relationships
- Say “I Love You” and Other Thai Love Phrases
- Thai Love Phrases
- Thai Words for Colors
- Speaking of Thai Food
- Learning Thai Consonants
- Counting in Thai
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.
good post steve. my struggles with the language are ongoing. it’s not so much learning thai- it’s *remembering* thai
i notice you are using the “khrab” version of the transliteration for the polite male endings. in my american brain pronouncer, i would say this as “craw-B” but what i hear from the thai’s (usually) sounds like “Kap”, pronounced like the way americans say “Cop” meaning policeman. but i’ve also seen it transliterated as “Khrub”, “Krap”, “Krup” and “Khrap” this has always baffled me, as the english transliterations, the way i would pronounce them aren’t like what i hear the thais saying. there is no formal standard for transliteration of thai to english as i understand it. this sure makes it harder to try to learn from guides. but even the ‘official’ thai transliterations are rather difficult to sort out. the signs to the airport in bangkok call it “Suvarnabhumi Airport”. which i would pronounce as “Su-varn-a-boom-ee” but when you hear a thai say it, they say what sounds like “su-wanna-poo-mi”. ??????? i got a clue when i realized that “b” and “p” are interchangeable in many transliterations of thai – they both indicate a “pee” sound. they do something like this in korea also, but i can’t remember which two letters it was.
sometimes i think i could benefit from a “hooked on phonics” course in thai sounds before i tried learning the language.
but keep it up. i learn a few words every time i come home to thailand. someday i hope to be able to make a complete sentence – all on my own!
Add to that the regional differences and it becomes even more of a nightmare. I’ve heard ‘khrab’ pronounced ‘cop’, cup’, ‘cap’ and probably some others that I don’t even remember. It’s funny because even with my limited Thai skills I get told by Golf’s parents that I speak Thai with a Bangkok accent :>)