Learn how to ask, "Can you speak English?"
Now Playing: Lesson Audio
Get a breakdown of the dialogue and translations instantly with the Premium line-by-line Audio. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Get this lesson’s key vocab, their translations and pronunciations. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Unlock Lesson Notes and Transcripts for every single lesson. Sign Up for a Free Lifetime Account and Get 7 Days of Premium Access.
| INTRODUCTION |
| Hello and welcome to Thai Survival Phrases brought to you by ThaiPod101.com, this course is designed to equip you with the language skills and knowledge to enable you to get the most out of your visit to Thailand. You will be surprised at how far a little Thai will go. |
| Now, before we jump in, remember to stop by ThaiPod101.com and there, you will find the accompanying PDF and additional info in the post. If you stop by, be sure to leave us a comment. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| In today's lesson, we'll cover another extremely important phrase: "Can you speak English?" |
| Using this phrase as opposed to speaking English at someone is important for many reasons. For one, if the party you're speaking to doesn't understand English, at least he or she will be able to understand what you're asking. Furthermore, it shows a lot of respect to show that you took the effort to learn even a little bit of the language, and for these reasons and many more, we're going to cover this phrase. |
| In Thai, "Do you speak English?" is phûut paa-sǎa-ang-grìt dâai mǎi? |
| As usual, don't forget to add khá and khráp at the end of the phrase to make it more polite. |
| So for women, it's: phûut paa-sǎa-ang-grìt dâai mǎi khá. |
| phûut paa-sǎa-ang-grìt dâai mǎi khá. |
| And for men, phûut paa-sǎa-ang-grìt dâai mǎi khráp. |
| phûut paa-sǎa-ang-grìt dâai mǎi khráp. |
| Let’s break it down by syllable, shall we? |
| phûut paa-sǎa-ang-grìt dâai mǎi khá. |
| phûut paa-sǎa-ang-grìt dâai mǎi khá. |
| phûut paa-sǎa-ang-grìt dâai mǎi khráp. |
| phûut paa-sǎa-ang-grìt dâai mǎi khráp. |
| The first word, phûut, means "speak" or "talk." The next word is paa-sǎa, which means "language." The third word is ang-grìt, which means "English." The next word is dâai, which means "can," and the last one is mǎi, which indicates that this phrase is a question. |
| And of course, it’s followed by khâ or khráp, which make the sentence sound more polite. |
| Therefore, phûut paa-sǎa-ang-grìt dâai mǎi khá, and phûut paa-sǎa-ang-grìt dâai mǎi khráp is equivalent to "Can you speak English?" |
| Now, let's try a different language. How about French? |
| The word “French” in Thai is fà-ràng-sèet, fà-ràng-sèet. |
| Therefore, to say "Can you speak French?" in Thai is: phûut paa-sǎa-fà-ràng-sèet dâai mǎi khá. |
| phûut paa-sǎa-fà-ràng-sèet dâai mǎi khá, for women. |
| And for men, it’s: phûut paa-sǎa-fà-ràng-sèet dâai mǎi khráp. |
| phûut paa-sǎa-fà-ràng-sèet dâai mǎi khráp. |
| Let's break it down and hear it one more time: |
| phûut paa-sǎa-fà-ràng-sèet dâai mǎi khá. |
| phûut paa-sǎa-fà-ràng-sèet dâai mǎi khá. |
| phûut paa-sǎa-fà-ràng-sèet dâai mǎi khráp. |
| phûut paa-sǎa-fà-ràng-sèet dâai mǎi khráp. |
| Here, just the word for the language changes, the rest is the same. |
| Cultural Insights |
| Nowadays in Thailand, English is studied at schools, so the number of speakers is increasing; however, there are still many people who don’t speak English, especially outside Bangkok, the capital city of Thailand. |
Outro |
| Okay, to close out today's lesson, we'd like for you to practice what you've just learned. I'll provide you with the English equivalent of the phrase and you're responsible for saying it aloud. You'll have a few seconds before I give you the answer, so chôok-dii khâ, that means "good luck" in Thai. |
| Remember, khâ is for women and khráp is for men. |
| Ok, here we go! |
| "Can you speak English?" for women - phûut paa-sǎa-ang-grìt dâai mǎi khá. |
| phûut paa-sǎa-ang-grìt dâai mǎi khá. |
| phûut paa-sǎa-ang-grìt dâai mǎi khá. |
| "Can you speak English?" for men - phûut paa-sǎa-ang-grìt dâai mǎi khráp. |
| phûut paa-sǎa-ang-grìt dâai mǎi khráp. |
| phûut paa-sǎa-ang-grìt dâai mǎi khráp. |
| "Can you speak French?" for women - phûut paa-sǎa-fà-ràng-sèet dâai mǎi khá. |
| phûut paa-sǎa-fà-ràng-sèet dâai mǎi khá. |
| phûut paa-sǎa-fà-ràng-sèet dâai mǎi khá. |
| "Can you speak French?" for men - phûut paa-sǎa-fà-ràng-sèet dâai mǎi khráp. |
| phûut paa-sǎa-fà-ràng-sèet dâai mǎi khráp. |
| phûut paa-sǎa-fà-ràng-sèet dâai mǎi khráp. |
| All right. That’s is going to do it for today. Remember to stop by ThaiPod101.com and pick up the accompanying PDF. If you stop by, be sure to leave us a comment. |
Comments
HideHi ThaiPod101.com listeners! No matter how good you get at Thai, this phrase is sure to prove useful at some point. In what kind of situations do you think it would be useful?
Hello Karen,
Thank you. First here is how to correctly spell your name in Thai คาเร็น and how to correctly spell สบาย นะคะ(คะ here should not add tone mark because it is high tone, when you asking question and นะคะ) Yes, a little too much ค่ะ and คะ so I would recommend you write สวัสดีค่ะ คุณสบายดีไหม ขอบคุณมากนะคะ สำหรับบทเรียน
คาเร็น วิเวียน่า
You would not write คุณสบัยดีไหมค่ะ this way >> สบาย should write with long vowel aa and คะ should spell as high tone so, no tone mark. Hope that helps. Please feel free to let me know if you have any future questions. I will be glad to help.
Have a good day.
ปริษา Parisa
Team ThaiPod101.com
สวัสดีค่ะ คุณสบัยดีไหมค่ะ ขอบคุณมากนะค่ะ สำหรับบทเรียนค่ะ
คาร็น วิเวียน่า
I still learning the spaces in a phrase, because sometimes you write all together and other times no 😅
And I don't know if there are too much "ค่ะ"
Hello Rogerio,
Thank you very much for your comment and question. No it's literally in correct to put "dâai" at the beginning of a sentence
dâai + verb = done something
verb + dâai = can do something
......phûut paa-sǎa-ang-grìt dâai mǎi ? ...S..... + verb (to speak) + dâai + question word.
Hope that's help. Please feel free to let me know if you have any questions about Thai language. I will be glad to help. We wish you will have a good progress with Thai.
Have a nice day.
Parisa
Team ThaiPod101.com
Is it wrong to say it in this order? the first lessons say that in general thai is SVO (subject verb object), but in this case the verb is in the end of the phrase.
dâai phûut paa-sǎa-ang-grìt mǎi ?
Hello Dmytro,
Thank you very much for your comment and question. You can skip a pronoun "khun" when you can speaker know, who you are talking about. Hope that's help. Please let me know if you have any future questions. I will be glad to help. Thanks again for your well support. We wish you will have a good progress in learning Thai.
Have a nice day.
Cheer,
Parisa
Team ThaiPod101.com
Hi ThaiPod101
Do you need to start this phrase with khun?
Thanks
Hello Zak,
Thank you very much for posting. Please check out comment of our team Lena, it's below your comment and follow an instruction. Let's know if you can make it.
Have a nice day.
Parisa
Team ThaiPod101.com
what happend i cant download the pdf files anymore even i can click on them and when i click they take me to my dashbored page what should i do please help
1. A majority of English-speaking people taking holidays in Thailand (I would even say anywhere in the world) won't use the question "phûut paa-sǎa ang-grìt dâai mǎi khráp" or any other simple words because they think local people are supposed to know English.
2. phǒm nán phûut phaa-sǎa bproo-dtù-gèet dâai
(I'd like to say "I can speak Portuguese"). Could you, please, help me? Thank you so much :laughing:
Hi Samatha,
You’re welcome. We’re glad you enjoy the lesson and find it useful. :)
Have a good day.
Parisa
Team Thaipod101.com
khàawp-khun ná khá
@Pooneem
Thanks for catching that.
It should be fixed now.
Ryan
This is funny -- Jessi's intro at the review track says "We'll give you the equivalent in POLISH..." - I think you just picked the wrong header :-)