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How to Say Good Morning in Thai

October 5, 2020 by

“Good morning” greetings work differently in Thai. Most cultures say different things at different times of day. But Thai people don’t really use “good morning” phrases.

You might hear them in Thai movies or TV shows. But if you want to know how Thai people REALLY greet each other in the morning, keep reading.

**The best phrases are at the end!**

good morning in thai

How to Say Good Morning in Thai

Textbook Thai (Don’t Use These!)

⚠️ Warning: These Sound Weird!

Thai textbooks teach these phrases. But real Thai people don’t say them. You’ll get strange looks!

= Good morning (too fancy)
= Good morning (sounds like a robot)

😄 Fun Fact

If you say อรุณสวัสดิ์, Thai people will laugh! It’s like speaking Shakespeare in English. Too fancy for daily life.

What Thai People Actually Say (Polite)

1

Standard Hello

สวัสดี + ครับ[/speech] (Male)
OR สวัสดี+ ค่ะ (Female)
(sawat-dee khrap/kha)
= Hello
When to use: Any time of day. Works with everyone. Safe choice.
2

Polite Food Question

(taan khaao rue yang?)
= Have you eaten yet?
When to use: With older people, customers, or formal situations.

📝 Quick Note

ทาน (taan) is the polite word for “eat.” กิน (gin) is the casual word. Restaurant staff use ทาน with customers.

What Thai People Actually Say (Casual)

1

Casual Hi

หวัดดีครับ (not found)
/
หวัดดีค่ะ (not found)
(wat-dee khrap/kha)
= Hi
When to use: With friends and family. More relaxed.
2

Casual Food Question

(gin khaao rue yang?)
= Have you eaten yet?
When to use: With friends. Shows you care about them.

🍽️ Why Food Questions?

“Have you eaten yet?” is the #1 Thai greeting! It shows care. Thai people use this more than any “good morning” phrase. Learn more in our “How to Say How Are You in Thai” guide.

Simple Summary

🌅 What to Say in the Morning

✅ USE THESE:
• สวัสดี (sawat-dee) = Hello
• กินข้าวรึยัง (gin khaao rue yang?) = Have you eaten?
❌ DON’T USE:
• อรุณสวัสดิ์ = Too fancy
• สวัสดีตอนเช้า = Sounds weird

More Thai Greetings to Learn

Now you know morning greetings! Learn more Thai greetings:

Final Thoughts

Thai people don’t say “good morning” like we do in English. Use **สวัสดี** (hello) and **กินข้าวรึยัง** (have you eaten?) instead. These sound natural and Thai people use them every day.

Want to learn more Thai? Check out my online course here or get free lessons below.


Filed Under: Beginner, Learn Thai, Learn Thai Online, learn to read thai, Sentences, Where to start? Tagged With:

Top 5 Thai Phrases You Need to Know

April 1, 2019 by
Bangkok

อยู่ไหนเนี่ย

Top 5 Thai Phrases

If I were to start learning Thai from the beginning all over again, these are the most useful 5 Thai phrases that I wish my first phrase book taught me. You can use all 5 of these phrases every single day and you’ll hear Thai people say them all the time.  Start with these super useful Thai phrases.

How to Say Hello in Thai

You probably have heard of sawasdee (สวัสดี), but in real life you don’t usually use this word with you friends. It’s much more common to ask them if they’ve eaten yet. If you see them out, you’d ask them where they are going or where they are coming back from. So the next time you run into one of your Thai friends, try one of these:

ไปไหน ppai nai Where are you going?
ไปไหนมา ppai nai maa Where are you coming (back) from?
กินข้าวรึยัง gin khaao ru yang Did you eat yet?

 

How to Say “What are you doing?” in Thai

This is another short, simple and super useful Thai phrase that you should learn right away.

ทำอะไรอยู่ (thum a-rai yuu) – What are you doing?

**Notes:

How to Say “Where are you?” in Thai

Whether or not you are planning to meet up with someone, it’s pretty common to ask where people are in any language. In Thai, you’ll hear it all the time and it’s a super easy phrase.

If you are speaking to a friend online/phone you just say:

อยู่ไหน (yuu nai) – where are you? / Where is it?

If you need to be more polite, such as if you are speaking to someone older or someone you don’t know well, you should add the polite gender particle at the end.

If you want to ask where something is or in cases where you need to specify a person, you put it/them before the phrase above:

How to Say OK in Thai

There are a few options in Thai for saying ok. You can always just say OK like we do in English, but using Thai pronunciation โอเค (ohh-kay), the main difference being that the Ohh sound tends to be longer than how you might say it in English. While this works fine in many situations, there’s a special phrase you should definitely learn.

ก็ได้ (gaw dai) – ok; I’m ok with that; that works; sounds good to me

A: วันนี้กินอะไรดี (wan nee gin a-rai dee) – What should we eat today?
B: อยากกินพิซซ่า (yaak gin pit-saa) – I want to eat pizza.
A: พิซซ่าเหรอ กินก็ได้ (pit-saa raw … gin gaw dai) – Pizza huh? Yea, I could eat (pizza) / that works

It doesn’t always translate exactly as “ok,” but it express that you are satisfied with or accepting of whatever is being talked about.

How to Say “I don’t understand” in Thai

You may have heard of mai khao jai ไม่เข้าใจ which means “I don’t understand,” but I’m going to give you a more fun phrase that you can use when you REALLY have no idea what’s happening. If you can pronounce that เอือ vowel correctly, you can get some good laughs with this one.

Thai Pronunciation Tip:

The secret to being able to say เอือ is to first conquer the อือ vowel.  

How to Say “I have no idea” or “I don’t understand at all”

ไม่รู้เรื่อง (mai ruu rueang) – I have no idea what you are talking about / I have no clue / I don’t understand at all

You use this phrase when you didn’t understand a word of what was just said, or in cases where you have no idea what someone is going on about.

Now get out there and practice these phrases. You can use them all the time forever.

Filed Under: Beginner Tagged With: , ,

How to Say Cute in Thai

March 11, 2019 by
how to say cute in Thai

น่ารักอ่ะ

Want to know how to say “cute” in Thai? Just like in English, the Thai word for cute can be used both with people you find attractive as things, animals and children.

The Thai Word for Cute

The word for “cute” in Thai is น่ารัก (naa rak) and it consists of two parts.

น่ารัก naa rak cute

The 2nd part: รัก (rak) means “to love.”  If, you want to go deep on Thai love phrases, read “How to Say I Love You in Thai.”

The 1st part: น่า – is placed in front of certain words to express that the target is worthy of or looks good to (eat, drink, watch, etc). Have a quick look at the examples below to get an idea how it works:

  • น่าไป (naa ppai)- looks like it’d be worth going to (if someone shows you a picture from a trip they took you might say this)
  • น่ากิน (naa gin) – looks good (for food)
  • น่าดู (naa duu) – looks like it would be worth watching or fun to watch

If you follow the above pattern, then น่ารัก (naa rak) ends up meaning something like “worthy of loving/love.”

how to say cute in Thai

น่ารักจัง

How to Say Someone/Something is Cute in Thai

Examples:

how to say cute in thai

สวยหรือน่ารัก

Cute vs Beautiful in Thai – น่ารัก vs สวย (naa rak vs soo+ay)

This is tough to answer in any language as everyone has a different idea of how these two concepts differ. “Cute,” tends to be used with young or seemingly young people and big-eyed, round-faced, puffy-cheeked and/or fluffy people, animals or things.

People will use น่ารัก to describe attractive men or boys, but not สวย.

น่ารัก can also be used to describe someone’s actions. For example, if a man buys a woman flowers for Valentine’s Day, or surprises a girl with a birthday gift, girls might respond with ขอบคุณนะ น่ารักจัง “thanks, that’s so cute.” Here they are referring to the act rather than the person.

Cute Items and Objects in Thai

Objects can both be called น่ารัก or สวย. Clothing, shoes, bags and the like can all be described using these words.

If you are talking about views, nature and most large naturally occurring things, you need to use สวย. A mountain, a view or an ocean can be สวย, but not น่ารัก. There are exceptions, of course. If someone drew a face on a small rock, for example, that could be น่ารัก.

Should You Learn to Read the Thai Script?

Learning to read the Thai script is the fastest and easiest way to understand the fairly complex sound system that the Thai language uses. It is the single most important part of learning to speak Thai well. It requires a 10-20 hour time investment to grasp everything you need to know and a fair bit of practice afterwards to master it, but until you learn those core skills, your Thai will forever be severely handicapped.  We strongly recommend learning the Thai alphabet.  It’s easier than it looks and it is definitely worth the small time investment if you want to be able to speak Thai well.

Filed Under: Beginner Tagged With: , , ,

How to Say Congratulations in Thai

March 24, 2019 by
Congrats

ดีใจด้วยนะมึง

If you ever want to say congratulations or praise a friend in Thai for a job well done, some meaningful event or success in their life, you may want to do it in Thai. These are all the phrases you are going to need.

In Thai, there are 2 main phrases you’ll usually congratulate people with, but as is often the case in this language, you may need to adjust or change the phrase you use depending on who you are speaking with, your relationship to them and what you are congratulating them for.

How to Congratulate your Friends in Thai (Informal)

There are a two main phrases you should use and there are a few variations that are worth noting.  While they all mean the same thing, the particles we add at the end can change the feeling behind the sentence. Please note that age does matter here. If someone you are close to is considerably older than you, in most cases, you should add on the polite gender particle at the end of the sentence ครับ/ ค่ะ (khrap/kha).

This can get a little tricky if you are unfamiliar with particles.  Particles are usually single words that don’t mean anything by themselves, but add some color or feeling to the sentence they are modifying much in the way intonation works in a non-tonal language.

Best Choice for Congrats

ดีใจด้วย (dee jai doo-ay) – Congrats!

Variations of Congrats:

Very Close Friends

If you are really close to someone, you may reach a point where you call each other มึง (mung).  Be very careful with this word as it will come across as very rude if you aren’t sufficiently close.  I’d recommend not using this at all until someone uses it with you.  But, keep your ears open as you’ll hear it when Thai friends speak to each other.

 

How to Congratulate Someone Older/Higher Status in Thai

In most cases, you can use the same 2 phrases, but you’ll want to be sure to always include the polite gender particle.  I feel like ยินดีด้วย (yin dee doo-ay) is slightly more appropriate than ดีใจด้วย (dee jai doo-ay) in this situation as the latter feels slightly more informal.

ยินดีด้วย (yin dee doo-ay) + ครับ/ ค่ะ/นะคะ (khrap/kha/na-kha)

How to Say Congrats for * in Thai?

While often times a discussion will play out with someone telling you about their news or accomplishment and then you congratulate them, there will inevitably be times when you hear thew news second hand and want to indicate what you are congratulating them for.  We’ll still use the same phrases above, but we’ll need to add ที่ (thii) + event.

Want to REALLY Learn to Speak Thai?

A really important part of learning this language is mastering the Thai script and sounds.  It’s very difficult to learn the correct pronunciation using any type of English transliteration and spending a lot of time learning to pronounce sentences incorrectly is just plain silly. If you are going to learn a language, is it worth 10 hours of your time to master the sounds if it makes the rest of the journey much easier?

Try a couple free lessons from my Thai foundation course which teaches everything you need to know about the script, sound system and tone rules of Thai.

Filed Under: Beginner Tagged With: , , ,

How to Order Coffee in Thai

March 16, 2019 by
Thai iced coffee in glass with traditional cafe setting - how to order coffee in Thai language

เอากาแฟเย็นแก้วหนึ่ง

If you’re a coffee or tea drinker, learning a few simple Thai phrases for ordering food and drink is going to make your life a lot easier when in Thailand. Many Thai cafes will automatically add sugar and the staff may not speak English very well so if you want to avoid your drinks being sweet or make sure there’s no milk in it, learn these Thai ordering phrases.

How to Say Coffee in Thai

First off, let’s learn how to pronounce coffee in Thai correctly.

กาแฟ (gah-fae) consists of 2 syllables. กา (gaa) + แฟ (fae) – If you can read a little bit of the Thai script, it’s easy to identify the 2 very distinct vowel sounds happening in this word. However, when we try to write it in English using transliteration we are left with something like gaa-fae which can be very misleading so I highly recommend you click on both syllables a few times and try to remember the correct vowel sound.

If you can pronounce กาแฟ (gaa-fae), then you’re halfway to saying cafe or coffee shop. As with many types of shops in Thai, you just add the word ร้าน in front which means store or shop.

Ordering Coffee in Thai

เอา (ow) + FOOD/DRINK + (# + classifier)

If you don’t know much or any Thai yet, just start by learning the shortest easiest version. Once you’ve said this a few times and are comfortable with it, come back and learn how to add in additional informationใ

*Staff at cafes often shorten the names of the coffee drinks:

Can't read Thai yet? Try a few free lessons from my basic Thai course.

Thai cafe sweetness level sign showing options from a little sweet to super sweet in Thai language

ไม่หวานเลย

How to Say “No Sugar” or “Not Sweet” in Thai

It’s Thailand and Thai people like their drinks SWEET so if you go to one of the many cafes that automatically adds sugar or syrup, you need to let them know if you don’t want any. You generally don’t need to use these on things like an americano at places that make real barista-type coffee, but watch out at the big Thai franchises as well as small shops which tend to automatically add sugar unless you tell them not to.

How to Say “Don’t put in milk or sugar” in Thai

If your pronunciation isn’t good yet (because you haven’t learned the script) it’s a really good idea to have a backup sentence just in case you are having trouble getting understood.
These sentences say to not add in any sugar/syrup.

Non-Dairy Alternatives for Your Coffee/Tea

Apart from hipster cafes and Starbucks, it’s still not very common in Thailand for cafes to have non-dairy milk alternatives. It doesn’t hurt to ask, but you may get clueless stares back.

How to Say “I’ll have the usual” in Thai

One of the more useful phrases in Thai is เหมือนเดิม which depending on the context means something like “the usual,” or “the same as last time,” or “the same as before.” You can use this phrase once you are known to the staff a particular place. If you go to the same place a lot, they’ll likely start asking you at some point: เอาเหมือนเดิมมั้ย or เหมือนเดิมมั้ย.

เอาเหมือนเดิม (ow muan doem) – I’ll have the usual / I’ll have the same as last time

Thai Phrases for Ordering Food/Drink:

Here are a few common Thai phrases you might need while ordering food or drink at a cafe or restaurant.

Thai Vocabulary for Ordering Food/Drink

Sizes in Thai

You can use these

Starbucks Sizes in Thai

If you’re planning to explore more Thai food vocabulary, you might also want to learn how to say delicious in thai – food vocabulary.

For more dining-related phrases, check out our guide on how to say how much in thai – shopping phrases.

Speaking of being polite in restaurants, learning consistency is key is equally important.

Filed Under: Beginner Tagged With: , , ,
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