Thai Language Introduction

Tones and grammar

It will be worth spending a fair amount of time on this page as it forms a good basis for understanding the fundamentals and has some really good tips too. As we mentioned previously, spoken Thai is tonal. There are five tones in spoken Thai. These are low, falling, mid tone, high and rising. Although, when written in Thai characters, it is evident what the tones and pronunciation are from tone marks too, when using Roman characters it needs clarifying by a separate method. This is denoted by the following system and the marks are placed above the relevant letter or word section. mid  -  no tone mark low  -      \ falling  -  ᴧ high  -     / rising -   ᴗ Words written in Roman characters require the tone marks as the meaning of the word could be totally different. Let’s take the word suay.  suay with a rising tone will translate as beautiful. Without this rising tone, it will translate as unlucky. Most phrase books will use this denotation system when used with Roman numerals. It pays to practice listening to the tones on any of the software packages listed in this section. If using the flashcard system, try closing your eyes and just listen to the words, you will soon learn to distinguish the tones. Thai language has a logical grammar system but there are a few interesting points to note. There are no plurals in Thai language, all nouns are singular. The general convention for yes and no is chai and mai. This is not strictly true as there is not an equivalent for yes in the Thai language. chai  is really a confirmation word and is used to confirm a question. mai chai is used to say not correct. For instance, the question  ‘don’t you want to see the movie’  could be answered with chai. You may think that this means ‘I want to see the movie’. In fact it means ‘correct I don’t want to see the movie’. Usually it may be clarified ‘chai I don’t want to see the movie’ or ‘mai chai  I want to see the movie’. Be careful with negative questions or you will not be watching the movie that you really wanted to see. Did you notice the addition of the word na inserted before the polite particle krap? This is a way of softening the end of a question, statement or other phrase and is a good idea to use it whenever you can.  A good habit to get into. A quick word about adjectives, they always follow the noun. As we have said, Thai is a logical language. Whereas in English, we would use adjectives first, Thai language places the important word first. So, for ‘red house’, Thais will say ‘house red’. The house is more important than the colour as there are many things that could be red. If the house is big and red, then it will be ‘house big red’. Once you start to learn, it will become easier. jai  is a word which means heart (loosely) or inner self. There are some rules here too. Let’s take jai dee which means ‘kind hearted’ (lit: inner self good or heart good). Or dee jai which means ‘feel good’. Or jai yens (lit: heart cold) which means ‘chill out’ or ‘appearing cool’. The rule is, if the feeling is outward, then  jai  is said first. If the feeling is inside, then  jai  is said last. Fun so far? More to learn here.

Thai Language Introduction

Tones and grammar

It will be worth spending a fair amount of time on this page as it forms a good basis for understanding the fundamentals and has some really good tips too. As we mentioned previously, spoken Thai is tonal. There are five tones in spoken Thai. These are low, falling, mid tone, high and rising. Although, when written in Thai characters, it is evident what the tones and pronunciation are from tone marks too, when using Roman characters it needs clarifying by a separate method. This is denoted by the following system and the marks are placed above the relevant letter or word section. mid  -  no tone mark low  -      \ falling  -  ᴧ high  -     / rising -   ᴗ Words written in Roman characters require the tone marks as the meaning of the word could be totally different. Let’s take the word suay.  suay with a rising tone will translate as beautiful. Without this rising tone, it will translate as unlucky. Most phrase books will use this denotation system when used with Roman numerals. It pays to practice listening to the tones on any of the software packages listed in this section. If using the flashcard system, try closing your eyes and just listen to the words, you will soon learn to distinguish the tones. Thai language has a logical grammar system but there are a few interesting points to note. There are no plurals in Thai language, all nouns are singular. The general convention for yes and no is chai and mai. This is not strictly true as there is not an equivalent for yes in the Thai language. chai  is really a confirmation word and is used to confirm a question. mai chai  is used to say not correct. For instance, the question  ‘don’t you want to see the movie’  could be answered with chai. You may think that this means ‘I want to see the movie’. In fact it means ‘correct I don’t want to see the movie’. Usually it may be clarified ‘chai I don’t want to see the movie’ or ‘mai chai  I want to see the movie’. Be careful with negative questions or you will not be watching the movie that you really wanted to see. Did you notice the addition of the word na inserted before the polite particle krap? This is a way of softening the end of a question, statement or other phrase and is a good idea to use it whenever you can.  A good habit to get into. A quick word about adjectives, they always follow the noun. As we have said, Thai is a logical language. Whereas in English, we would use adjectives first, Thai language places the important word first. So, for ‘red house’, Thais will say ‘house red’. The house is more important than the colour as there are many things that could be red. If the house is big and red, then it will be ‘house big red’. Once you start to learn, it will become easier. jai  is a word which means heart (loosely) or inner self. There are some rules here too. Let’s take jai dee which means ‘kind hearted’ (lit: inner self good or heart good). Or dee jai which means ‘feel good’. Or jai yens (lit: heart cold) which means ‘chill out’ or ‘appearing cool’. The rule is, if the feeling is outward, then  jai  is said first. If the feeling is inside, then  jai  is said last. Fun so far? More to learn here.