Learn about the most useful Thai words and phrases for absolute beginners
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| Hi! |
| Welcome to Introduction to Thai. |
| My name is Alisha, and I'm joined by... |
| Hi everyone! I'm Jay. |
| In this lesson, we'll focus on teaching you the most useful Thai words and phrases for absolute beginners! |
| Make sure you're repeating the words out loud after I say the examples! |
| Are you ready? Let's get started! |
| Expressing Thanks and Forgiveness |
| The best phrase to learn when studying a new language is one that expresses gratitude and appreciation. If you had to learn only a single phrase, this would be it! |
| We taught you this phrase in the first lesson of this series. Do you remember what it was? |
| ขอบคุณ (khàawp khun) |
| It means "thank you." |
| Keep repeating after Jay until you get it! |
| ขอบคุณ (khàawp khun) |
| Your turn! |
| ขอบคุณ (khàawp khun) |
| ขอบคุณ (khàawp khun) |
| But what if you want to expressive even greater thanks, like in English when you say "thank you very much?" |
| Then you would add มาก (mâak) after the ขอบคุณ (khàawp khun). |
| Altogether, it's... |
| ขอบคุณมาก (khàawp khun mâak) |
| Ok, let's move on. |
| Wait a minute! |
| Do you know that in Thai, just saying ขอบคุณ (khàawp khun) or ขอบคุณมาก (khàawp khun mâak) can sound a bit rude without polite particles? |
| What are polite particles, Jay? |
| Polite particles are words that are added to the end of sentences to make them sound polite. The most common polite particles are ครับ (krub) for men and ค่ะ (ka) for women. |
| So, if a woman wants to say "thank you," she will say... |
| ขอบคุณค่ะ (khàawp khun khâ) or ขอบคุณมากค่ะ (khàawp khun mâak khâ) |
| and for guys... |
| ขอบคุณครับ (khàawp khun khráp) or ขอบคุณมากครับ (khàawp khun mâak khráp) |
| The next phrase we'll teach you is perhaps the second most useful phrase of all. It's to apologize or to excuse yourself. |
| ขอโทษ (khǎaw-thôot) |
| It means "excuse me" or "I'm sorry." |
| ขอโทษ (khǎaw-thôot) |
| Use this phrase when you want to grab a waiter's attention or when you bump into someone on the street ! |
| ขอโทษ (khǎaw-thôot) |
| Your turn! |
| ขอโทษ (khǎaw-thôot) |
| Imagine you're on the street and you want to stop someone to ask them for directions. What do you say? |
| ขอโทษ (khǎaw-thôot) |
| OK. One last time... |
| ขอโทษ (khǎaw-thôot) |
| And don't forget to add krub if you are a guy! |
| ขอโทษครับ (khǎaw-thôot khráp) |
| If you are a woman, add ka at the end of the sentence. |
| ขอโทษค่ะ (khǎaw-thôot khâ) |
| Now you can say "thank you very much," "excuse me," and "I'm sorry" in Thai. Let's move on. |
| Where is...? |
| Asking where something is is an incredibly important and useful phrase to learn. You're going to need this when asking where the bathroom, the train station, or where the hotel is. |
| To ask where something is, put the Thai word for "where" first, followed by verb "to be," and then add the place you want to find. |
| ที่ไหน (thîi-năi). That's Thai for "where." |
| and อยู่ (yùu) or verb "to be" in Thai. |
| For example, if you want to ask "Where is the bathroom?" |
| ห้องน้ำอยู่ที่ไหน (hâawng náam yùu thîi-năi) |
| For the train station, it'll be... |
| สถานีรถไฟอยู่ที่ไหน (sà-thăa-nii rót fai yùu thîi-năi) |
| And so on. |
| You can ask where something is by starting with... |
| ที่ไหน (thîi-năi) |
| And followed by verb "to be." In Thai, it is ... |
| อยู่ (yùu) |
| You might have noticed that this sentence structure is different from the English. Rather than saying "Where is the bathroom?" in Thai, it goes "The bathroom is where?" |
| Let's practice these two sentences again. First is "where is the bathroom?" |
| ห้องน้ำอยู่ที่ไหน (hâawng náam yùu thîi-năi) |
| Your turn! |
| ห้องน้ำอยู่ที่ไหน (hâawng náam yùu thîi-năi) |
| The second word of this sentence is the word we use for "bathroom" in Thai. |
| ห้องน้ำ (hâawng náam) |
| OK. Now let's teach you some vocabulary so that you can use it in the sentence. |
| Here are some of the most common words you'll need to learn: |
| โรงแรม (roong-raaem) |
| "hotel" |
| โรงแรม (roong-raaem) |
| If you ask someone this question, they'll direct you to the closest hotel. |
| If you'd like to ask where a specific hotel is, like the Hilton for example, simply place the name after "hotel." |
| โรงแรมฮิลตัน (roong-raaem hiu-dtân) |
| โรงแรมมณเฑียร (roong-raaem mon-thiian) |
| โรงแรมไดมอนด์ (roong-raaem dai-mâwn) |
| Next... |
| เซเว่น (see-wên) |
| "convenience store" |
| เซเว่น (see-wên) |
| Actually, "convenience store" in Thai is... |
| ร้านสะดวกซื้อ (ráan sà-dùuak sùue) |
| But in daily conversation, people prefer to use the word "seven" for convenience store. It is shortened from 7/11 (Seven-Eleven), a popular convenience store franchise in Thailand. Just think of it like the way Americans prefer to use the word "Kleenex" for facial tissue paper. |
| So, the question, "Where is a convenience store?" will be... |
| เซเว่นอยู่ที่ไหน (see-wên yùu thîi-năi) |
| Our second example sentence was "where is the train station?" |
| สถานีรถไฟอยู่ที่ไหน (sà-thăa-nii rót fai yùu thîi-năi) |
| Your turn! |
| สถานีรถไฟอยู่ที่ไหน (sà-thăa-nii rót fai yùu thîi-năi) |
| You can substitute almost anything by using this phrase... |
| อยู่ที่ไหน (yùu thîi-năi) |
| ...to ask where something is in Thai. |
| And don't forget to add a polite particle at the end of the question to make it more polite. |
| In this final lesson, you learned how to say "thank you," "excuse me," "I'm sorry," and how to ask where something is in Thai. |
| And in this series, we introduced you to the basics of Thai pronunciation, grammar, writing, and more. |
| Let's conclude with some parting advice from Jay Listen to some of her/his tips on how to learn Thai from a native Thai speaker's perspective. |
| Parting Advice - Insider Knowledge |
| To improve your Thai, I would suggest you regularly interact with your Thai friends, read Thai magazines and newspaper, and watch Thai TV programs and movies. |
| Watching contemporary videos, such as our videos here at ThaiPod101, will ensure that you're learning real, applicable Thai in the fastest and most effective way. And you'll be able to perfect the sound of Thai by repeating after us in the videos. |
| You've reached the end of this course "Introduction to Thai," but it's only the beginning of your journey to Thai fluency! Where do you go from here? Try our Thai in 3 minutes series where we teach you basic grammar and even more useful phrases! Or, check out any of our other video series. We have many different categories for you to choose from. |
| Good luck as you continue learning Thai, and I'll see you in another video! |
| Bye! |
| Bye~! |
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