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Lesson Transcript

Intro
Hi everybody! Jay here. Welcome to Ask a Teacher, where I’ll answer some of your most common Thai questions.
The Question
The question for this lesson is: How do I use Thai quantifiers?
Explanation
To begin with, let me first tell you about Thai nouns. In Thai, most of the time, nouns don’t have singular or plural forms. To allow us to identify the amount, we quantify almost everything. The equivalent of this to English is asking for “three glasses of wine,” rather than just wine. The difference is in Thai, we use it on every noun. In this lesson, I’ll introduce some of the quantifier for everyday objects.
We put quantifiers in after we say the amount of the object. The pattern follows this format:
noun + amount or number + quantifier
The most standard quantifier which you can use with most nouns is อัน an. You can use it it when you don’t the specific quantifier for a noun. For example, มีด 1 อัน mîit nùeng an (“one knife”). Other quantifiers include:
แท่ง thâaeng - used with pencils
ใบ bai - used with pillows, leaves, glasses, cups, bowls, dishes
ด้าม dâam - used with pens
Some that are used with liquids, foods, and grains are
แก้ว gâaeo - ขวด khùuat
and so on
Following the format “noun + amount/number + quantifier,” here are some example sentences:
ฉันมีดินสอ 1 แท่ง chân mii din-sǎaw nùeng thâaeng (“I have one pencil”),
ผมขอหมอน 2 ใบ phǒm khǎaw mhǎawn sǎawng bai (“I would like 2 pillows”) ,
นม 4 แก้ว nom sìi gâaew (“4 glasses of milk”).
You can see that all the nouns are quantified in these sample sentences, and the quantifier is used after specified amount of the noun.
If you don’t know which quantifier to use, stick with อัน an!

Outro
Pretty simple, right?
If you have any more questions, please leave a comment below!
Bye! สวัสดีค่ะ (sà-wàt-dii khâ)

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