Talking Thai

As this blog not only serves as a site for information for fellow travelers, it also serves the purpose of being my memory.  Something that years from now I can read about and think fondly back on.  As the Thai language is a very foreign and tricky, before I forget all the words I know I wanted to jot them down:) You will notice that several of the Thai words seems to be the same, yet have different English meanings.  This is because depending on how the word is spoken (i.e. an inflection or intonation) the meaning changes.  And of course I’m not writing the Thai words as they would actually be spelled, but rather in the way they sound so the pronunciation is correct.  So here we go…

  • Poured: Please
  • Sa-wah-dee-ka: Hello/Goodbye (spoken by females)
  • Sa-wah-dee-kap: Hello/Goddbye (spoken by males)
  • Khob-Khun-Ka: Thank you
  • Mama: Very
  • Khob-Khun-mama-Ka: Thank you Very much 🙂
  • Chai: Yes
  • Mai Chai: No
  • Ka/Kap (female/male): Sure, Yup, ok, uh-huh, your welcome
  • Hong: Room
  • Nam: Water
  • Hong nam: Bathroom
  • Sue-Aye: Beautiful
  • Ma (long A sound): Dog
  • Ma (short A sound): Come
  • Ma (long A sound with voice down): Horse
  • Klap Ma: Come back
  • Mayo: Cat
  • Sah-bye: Good
  • Mai Sah-bye: Not good
  • Sah-bye-dee: Good health
  • Mai Sah-bye-dee: Bad health
  • Tong: Stomach
  • Gai: Chicken
  • Kai: Egg
  • Kai Gai: Chicken egg
  • Tao-Rai: How much?
  • Ah-you-da Rai: How old?
  • Moo: Pork
  • Ooo-ah: Vomit (this one was an animal clinic word I learned and NOT learned because of the next word, lol!)
  • Mao: Drunk
  • Naan Tell-lie: How long?
  • Lawn: Hot
  • Mack: Very
  • Lawn mack: very hot
  • Nit Noi: Little bit
  • Mack Noi: A lot
  • Wah-Nee: Today
  • Prune-Nee: Tomorrow
  • Maroon-Nee: Day after tomorrow
  • Moon-Nee: Yesterday
  • Numb Ken: Ice
  • Toe-Who: Tofu
  • Mee: Bear
  • Mee Panda: Panda Bear 🙂
  • Ko: Beach
  • Tao: Turtle
  • Took-kay: House gecko
  • Baan: House
  • Phone: Rain
  • Non (pronounced like Noni -as in the juice- without the I): Sleep
  • Pah-ah-tea: Sun
  • Sabaidee my ka?: How are you?

Back to Thailand

2 thoughts on “Talking Thai”

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s