Learn how to ask "Who?"
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| สวัสดีค่ะ ดิฉันกิตติยาค่ะ (sà-wàt-dii khâ. dì-chǎn Kittaya khâ) |
| Hi everybody! I’m Kittaya. |
| Welcome to ThaiPod101.com’s “Learn Thai in 3 minutes.” The fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn Thai. |
| In the last lesson, we learned how to ask "When" questions in Thai. |
| This time, we are going to ask questions with the interrogative word "Who?" |
| Imagine you want to ask your friend who the attractive girl just behind him is. |
| Here, the question you can ask is “ผู้หญิงที่อยู่ข้างหลังคุณคือใคร(phûu-yǐng thîi yùu khâang-lǎng khun khuue khrai)?” |
| [slowly] “ผู้หญิงที่อยู่ข้างหลังคุณคือใคร(phûu-yǐng thîi yùu khâang-lǎng khun khuue khrai)?” |
| So let’s break this down: |
| First we had: |
| ผู้หญิง(phûu-yǐng) is “Woman” in Thai |
| ที่อยู่(thîi yùu) means "which (located) |
| ข้างหลัง(khâang-lǎng) means behind" and |
| คุณ(khun) is “you” |
| คือ(khuue) means "to be". |
| And finally ใคร(khrai) which is the basic translation of "Who" in Thai. |
| All together it is “ผู้หญิงที่อยู่ข้างหลังคุณคือใคร(phûu-yǐng thîi yùu khâang-lǎng khun khuue khrai)?” |
| Who is the woman behind you? |
| So in Thai, "Who" is mainly translated as ใคร(khrai) to ask about someone's identity. |
| For example, if you want to ask "Who are these people?" You will say คนเหล่านี้คือใคร(khon lào-níi khuue khrai)? when talking about a group of unknown persons. |
| ใคร(khrai) only works for people, so you can't use it to ask information about things or places. As a question word, ใคร(khrai) can also be used to ask who did something, for example. |
| If you are in a museum for instance, you can ask ใครวาดภาพนี้(khrai wâat phâap níi)? This means "Who painted this painting?" |
| Another question word with ใคร(khrai) that is used quite a lot, is ของใคร(khǎawng khrai)? In this case, the meaning is different as it can be translated to "Whose" |
| So if you want to ask "Whose pen is this?" you will have to say ปากกาของใคร(bpàak-gaa khǎawng khrai)? If we break down this question, it is: |
| ปากกา(bpàak-gaa) which is "pen" and |
| ของใคร(khǎawng khrai)? which is the pronoun Whose |
| You can also use the word ใคร(khrai) to ask "for which person is it?" In Thai, we use the formula สำหรับใคร(sǎm-ràp khrai)? |
| So if you want to know "For which person is this piece of cake?" It will be เค้กชิ้นนี้สำหรับใคร(khéek chín níi sǎm-ràp khrai)? |
| Now it’s time for Kittaya’s Insights. |
| If someone that you didn't expect is knocking at your door in Thailand, the common question you can ask is นั่นใครคะ(nân khrai khá) or นั่นใครครับ(nân khrai khráp)? before opening the door. |
| This literally means "Who is that?" in a polite way. |
| Before ending this lesson, Let’s go back and look at all the ways to translate "Who" in Thai: |
| - ใคร(khrai) is the basic "Who" as in ใครวาดภาพนี้(khrai wâat phâap níi)? |
| - ของใคร(khǎawng khrai) is insisting on the ownership, it is the equivalent of "Whose", as in "Whose pen is this?" ปากกาของใคร (bpàak-gaa khǎawng khrai)? |
| - สำหรับใคร(sǎm-ràp khrai)? which is the direct translation of "For who?" As in "For who is this piece of cake?" เค้กชิ้นนี้สำหรับใคร(khéek chín níi sǎm-ràp khrai)? |
| In this lesson, we learned how to correctly use the interrogative word for "Who" which is ใคร(khrai) in Thai, but also its variations. |
| Now you can easily know who is who! |
| The next lesson will be the last of this series! |
| We will deal with the last but not least common interrogative word ทำไม(tham-mai) which means “why”. I’ll be waiting for you in the next Learn Thai in 3 minutes. สวัสดีค่ะ(sà-wàt-dii khâ) |
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