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Introduction to the Thai language

Although English is widely spoken in Hua Hin and other major tourist areas around Thailand, it can be indispensible to learn a few simple, everyday words and phrases to get you around.

Not only will it make life easier, but your hosts will appreciate you all the more for your efforts.

Thai is a tonal language and there are 5 distinct ones - low, high, falling, rising and mid. This effectively means that the same word can be pronounced 5 different ways to produce 5 different meanings. Sounds complicated? Well, it can be at the start, but you shouldn't let this put you off trying to speak. In practise you're only likely to be using a handful of words and their meaning to a Thai will be obvious from the situation you find yourself in.

The Thai script is totally different to the western and includes 44 consonants and 48 vowels and diphthongs. Many of the sounds are not used in western languages and there is no clear way to tranliterate from Thai to English.

As a result, we have compiled a brief guide to common words and phrases below and tried to sectionalise them into the areas where they're most likely to be used. We have not given the Thai spelling of these English words, but have indicated a phonetic approximation of the Thai word in English.

There are a couple of things that should be pointed out from the start. Thai people are extremely polite and this is reflected in their language. Most sentences will conclude with a "polite" word. The word used depends on the gender of the person who has spoken. For a man it is "krap" or more commonly these days "kap". For a woman, it is "ka". So the Thai for hello is "sawadii" and if said by a man, it becomes "sawadii krap/kap" and for a woman, "sawadii ka". Thankyou is "khawp khun"... "krap/kap" or "ka".

Questions and answers are quite straightforward. If asking a question, you just say the necessary words and add "mai?" at the end of the sentence ( "krap/kap/ka" afterwards is again polite). To answer a question, you simply repeat the words in the question and leave the "mai" out. So, how are you? (sabai dee MAI?) is simply answered with "sabai dee". Again, for the last time of reminding, a krap/kap/ka at the end is polite. More on the Thai language can be found here:

www.expathuahin.com/language-huahin.php

Useful Thai words and phrases

Note: As there is no direct and standard form of transliteration in Thailand you may come across these words spelled differently. The only way to be 100% correct with your pronunciation is to learn Thai script.

Pasah Thai

The only way to truly learn the Thai language is to learn how to read and write it.

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