Learning Thai with Original Thai Words: Words of Wisdom
If you need to learn only two words for wanting, then use au เอา to take, to want before the
nouns and yàak อยาก to want before the verbs. Everything becomes much easier in Thailand if
you are able to express yourself politely. In fact, it is almost impossible to be too polite in
Thailand. To be simple and humble is regarded as having good manners.
In Thai, you should respect everyone and be polite regardless of their position or status. This is
true in every country, but in Thailand being polite is built into the language more than in many
other languages. Therefore, it is important to use polite request particles like khâ ค่ะ and khráp
ครับ when you request something. Also, ni หน่อย a little is also commonly employed in Thai to
make a request sound like it is not a big deal. sàwàtdii สวัสดีis a very handy expression to be
polite. It can be used all the time. It can be translated into English as Hello! Goodbye! Good
morning! Good afternoon! Good evening! and so on. sàwàtdii สวัสดี is a Pali/Sanskrit origin word.
In order to speak Thai, it is not necessary to understand the Thai writing system with three
different consonant classes, with five different tones, with the number of rare consonants
(Bali/Sanskrit), with special spellings (English, Khmer etc.). The Thai writing system is quite
complex. To master it well can be very challenging and time consuming.
You may have wondered about the tone marks in transliterations. These tone marks are used in
transliterations only; they are not used in the Thai script. As you know, the Thai language has five tones.
In order to speak Thai fluently, you need to have some knowledge of tones. However, in the beginning,
we are placing more emphasis on the correct pronunciation than the tones.
In the last Chapter 21, we give you a tone exercise which will help you understand Thai tones better. Here
are the tone marks commonly used in transliterations. Note that the tone marks in transliterations are
always placed above vowels.
Examples:
- Middle tone, no tone mark
pai ไป to go
maa มา to come - Low tone, tone mark pointing downwards
nɔi หน่อย a little bɛ̀ɛp แบบ style, like - Falling tone, tone mark is like a hat
dâai ได้ can, to get
rîip รีบ to hurry up - High tone, tone mark pointing upwards
sʉ́ʉ ซื้อ to buy
yím ยิ้ม to smile - Rising tone, like a hat but upside down
khɔ̆ɔng ของ things, goods, of
khɔ̆ɔ ขอ to ask
The Thai writing system is very complex, and it takes a long time and much serious effort to master it
well. Just to give you one example:
phan-rá-yaa ภรรยา is Pali/Sanskrit origin word meaning wife in English. It has three syllables.
The original Thai words commonly have only one syllable and are not spelled in this way. In this
word we have four consonant symbols after each other ph ภ + r ร + r ร + y ย. The last symbol is
the long vowel sound aa. Yet, the actual pronunciation is phan-rá-yaa. The word contains
sounds as ph, an, r, a, y and aa. These sounds (an) and (a) are not spelled but pronounced.
This is the reason why we don’t waste time with the complex Thai writing system at the
beginning. It is very complicated, and to learn to read and write takes considerable time. The
original Thai words and sounds are not that difficult.