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How to Say YES in Thai

October 16, 2018 by Leave a Comment

How to Say Yes in Thai: Understanding CHAI and Other Common Phrases

Learn the authentic ways to say ‘yes’ in Thai beyond just ‘CHAI’. Discover how to answer yes/no questions correctly in various contexts.

The word “Yes” doesn’t really exist in Thai. The first word you’ll encounter is ใช่ (chai), but that’s usually not the best choice. Typically, you say YES by repeating the key word in the question, or you negate that word to say NO. Understanding this will help you navigate Thai conversations more naturally.

As with many languages, you can’t always translate words directly. In Thai, you express YES or NO based on the context of the question, often without using pronouns. If ใช่ (chai) isn’t in the question, it’s usually better not to use it in the answer.

How to Say Yes in Thai – The Quick Answer

ใช่ (chai) – yes (*actually means “It is” or “that’s right”)

In Thai, you express YES or NO based on the question. Pronouns are often unnecessary. If ใช่ (chai) isn’t in the question, it’s usually best to avoid using it in the answer.

How to Answer Yes / No Questions in Thai

In Thai, answers are often contained within the question itself. Pronouns (you/I/he/she) are usually omitted if the context is clear.

The word MAI ( ไหม) at the end of sentence functions like a  YES/NO question marker.

Example:

Q: ไปไหม (ppai mai) – Are you going? [Go + QUESTION_PARTICLE]

Q: ชอบพิซซ่าไหม (chawp phit-sa mai) – Do you like pizza?

When to Use and Avoid CHAI

Use CHAI ( ใช่) when responding to questions that end with …CHAI MAI? ( ใช่ไหม) and you want to respond affirmatively.    CHAI (ใช่) really means “It is,” or sometimes “That is right.”  It is not used with the same level of frequency as “YES” in English.

Example:

If someone wants to confirm that you like pizza, rather than just ask you, you may hear this:

Q: ชอบกินพิซซ่าใช่มั้ย – (chawp kin pissa chai mai) – (You) like eating pizza right?

Other Common Thai Sentence Patterns:

Yes/No Question Pattern:  ___ รึยัง – Did you ____ or not yet? 

Another very common Thai question that you’ll hear everyday is …. ru yang? (รึยัง) which literally means “or not yet?” but is used ALL THE TIME.   It sounds a little strange in English if we translate it word for word, but this is is basically an additional Yes/No sentence pattern you can use when we expect the thing we are asking about to happen often and/or eventually.

Q: กินข้าวรึยัง (kin khaao ru yang?) – have you eaten yet? (lit. eat rice or not yet)

Q: มีแฟนรึยัง (mee fan ru yang?) – Do you have a gf/bf/husband/wife yet?

Now, there are many different question patterns in Thai.  Here’s another example where you would never use ใช่ (chai).

Q: พรุ่งนี้อยากไปดูหนังกันมั้ย – (phrung nee yaak ppai duu nang gan mai?) – Do you want to go see a movie tomorrow?

Want to Learn to Read Thai?

A crucial part of learning Thai is mastering the Thai script, sounds and tones.   English transliterations often fall short in capturing correct pronunciation.  If you really want to speak Thai compently and confidently, the fastest and most efficient way to do this is to learn the script first.

Sign up and receive at least 5 free lessons from the first course in my Learn Thai Inner Circle program, which teaches all the core skills you need to start speaking and reading Thai language.

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How to Eat Vegan in Thailand

April 7, 2016 by

People often wonder how I could possibly ever survive here in Thailand as a vegan. Considering I’ve been here well over 10 years and I still haven’t died, I think I’m doing fairly well. There is veggie food all around you, and I’m not just talking the salad shops that have sprung up in the last 2 years or. There are tons of veggie spots in town. On Suthep road alone, there are 3 lined up in a row each doing their own thing and there are 3 more down back roads within 5 minute walking distance from the first 3.

There are 2 main types of vegetarian/vegan eats in Thailand and while they both avoid meat entirely, there are a some important differences.

เจ (jeh) Vegan versus มังสวิรัติ (Mangsawira) Vegetarian

มังสวิรัติ [mang sa wi rut] comes from the Sanskrit mamsa, which means “meat” and virat which means “without.” So this is essentially an acceptable translation of “vegetarian.” As with in English, some people may or may not eat eggs and/or dairy.
เจ [jeh] comes from the Chinese word 齋 (jai1/jaai1) which is also the source for the equivalent words in Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese.

If you happen to be reading this in October, then you are in luck, my friend. This is when the Vegetarian Festival (เทศกาลกินเจ) happens. During that time almost everybody gets on the jeh train for a bit. Some people eat jeh for the entire month, the entire 10 day festival, and most franchise restaurants (Black Canyon, MK, etc) offer at least one jeh option, but some actually have a full jeh menu during the festival. The only downside is that a lot of regular jeh restaurants don’t really do anything special during this time except get a lot more crowded than usual and in some cases raise their prices. Yay for jeh.
As far as the food goes, the main difference between Jeh and Mung is that real Jeh forbids eating food with really strong flavours and/or smells as it is believed that each one does harm to different parts of the body. This includes stuff like chives, garlic, parsley, and onions.

So what does all this mean for you? Real Jeh food will always be vegan. But, you need to be careful as some jeh places will have 1 or 2 Mung options which may contain egg. And even though jeh avoids really strong flavours, it can still taste pretty awesome. They often make all kinds of fake vegan meats to help ease the suffering of all those poor meat eaters who torture themselves by abstaining from me for a meal, a day or the entire vegetarian festival.

What are my choices?

  • Jeh – Technically vegan, but watch out for those handful of places that will have one or 2 dishes with egg. Jeh spots will almost always have one or more yellow flags posted both inside and out. The flag will either say เจ, the Chinese character the word is based on or both. They often use a Chinese-y font so sometimes the word เจ looks a bit like the number “17”.
  • Mung(sawirat) – Vegetarian w/eggs. As far as things eaten with rice, dairy is pretty rare, but pastries and other sweets sold at Mung places may contain butter, cream and/or milk.

What do I do if I can’t find a jeh place?

Some regular restaurants may attempt to accommodate you or at least make you think they are doing so.

How to Avoid Eating Animal Products in Thailand:

More than anything else, you’ll want to watch out for oyster sauce.  Vegetable dishes at regular restaurants will almost always be cooked with oyster sauce. Oyster sauce is dark, oily and gummy. And it comes from oysters! If you don’t want it in there, you gotta say so. You’ll know if it’s not in there, because they will probably only have used soy sauce and vegetable oil. So it may be bland, but vegan.
Solution: ไม่ ใส่ น้ำ-มัน-หอย (mai sai nam-man-hoi) – Don’t put in oyster sauce.

Fish sauce is another standard ingredient in a lot of (almost all!) Thai dishes.
Solution: ไม่ ใส่ น้ำ-ปลา (mai sai nam-plaa)
Soup broth – At non-jeh places, even if they say there isn’t any meat in it, it will still have meat stock so skip the soup.

Thai Dishes that usually Contain Egg:

  • ข้าวผัด – fried rice (khaao pad)
  • ผัดไทย – pad thai
  • ผัดซีอิ๊ว – pad see-yu

Notice the word ผัด (pad) appears in all 3 of the words above. ผัด = stir-fried/sauteed

How to say “Don’t put egg in”
ไม่ ใส่ ไข่ (mai sai kai) = don’t put in egg

Even if you ask for something jeh, they don’t always really know what that means so you are better off making it as clear as possible.

Full Sentence: เอา ข้าวผัด เจ ไม่ใส่ไข่ (ow kaaw pad jeh mai sai kai) – I’d like fried rice (jeh) without egg.

First thing you want to do is find out if they are willing to try to make you something jeh/mung. And just because they tell you they can, doesn’t mean they aren’t going to forget and give you something wish oyster sauce or fish sauce. Aside from being a tonal language, Thai also contains a whole lot more vowel sounds than English and when you say the vowels wrong, people probably won’t understand you. Be patient with them as you are the one who needs something from them and may not be able to
speak their language.

I remember this one time, a buddy of mine ordered a bottle of water and got a coconut, so watch out friends, watch out.

Look for the yellow flag!

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How to Determine the Tone of a Thai Word

January 12, 2015 by 3 Comments

How to determine tone of a Thai word?

Each syllable gets its own tone and there are a few steps we need to take to find out the tone of a word in Thai.  If you aren’t yet familiar with what tones there are in Thai or how a tonal language works, start here.

First, we need to determine the CLASS of the syllable or word.  We do this by having memorized the Middle and High Class letters so we can identify them instantly.  If it’s not Middle Class or High Class, it must be Low Class.  If you haven’t already done so, start with the MIDDLE CLASS STORY which will help you tie together the 7 most important middle class consonants.

  • Step #1: The class of the first letter determines the the class of the word.  This rule applies even if the first letter of the word is silent.
  • Step #2: Check the word for any “modifiers.”  There are 2 types of modifiers: TONE MARKS and HARD ENDINGS.
  • Step #3: Apply rules for consonant CLASS + STATE.

There are 3 possible “states” for a Thai word or syllable.  Each “class” or group has a formula to follow once you know the state of the word.  Remember, CLASS = the group of letters of which there are 3 in Thai.  STATE refers to whether or not the word/syllable has any modifiers.  There are 2 types of modifiers: TONE MARKS and HARD ENDINGS.  If a word has no modifiers, it will always take the DEFAULT tone for its consonant CLASS.  If it has a modifier, you will need to apply the rule for that consonant CLASS + the corresponding rule.  Read this paragraph a couple of times.  It’s not as hard as it sounds, but you probably won’t get it on your first read through.

  1. Default
  2. Has Tone Mark
  3. Has Hard Ending

The tricky part is that each class has its own default starter tone and its own set of rules.  Middle and High class are very similar which is why we want to master them first.  Low class turns everything upside down and is considerably more difficult so it’s a good idea not to even get into it until you have completely mastered the middle and high class rules. If you want to do it the easy way, than at least have a look at my course which holds your hand and guides you though all of this.

Default tones for each class: =

  • Middle Class = Mid Tone
  • High Class = Rising Tone
  • Low Class = Mid Tone

Did you ever study trigonomotry?  I didn’t until I was at university here in Thailand and I was very surprised to see that Thai works in a similar way.  When you look at a word, you have to determine which of the 3 classes(groups of letters) that the word is a part of.  This is based on the first letter of the word (even if it is a silent letter).  Then, you go follow the formula for that CLASS.  So if we take a couple middle class words as  examples:

บ้าน = house

  1. What class is บ ? = Middle Class
  2. Does it have a tone mark? = Yes (middle class + 2nd tone mark = Falling Tone)

ไก่ = chicken

  1. What class is ก? = Middle Class
  2. Does it have a tone mark? = Yes (middle class + 1st tone mark = Low Tone)

ตาย = to die

  1. What class is ต? = Middle Class
  2. Does it have a tone mark? = No
  3. Does it have a hard ending? = No
  4. Default tone = Mid Tone (We checked for 2 modifiers.  There were none so we apply the default tone for Middle Class)

จาก = from

  1. What class is จ? = Middle Class
  2. Does it have a tone mark? = No
  3. Does it have a hard ending? = Yes (Middle Class + Hard Ending = Low Tone)

Now practice it until your eyes bleed!  Mastering the process =  Mastering the tone rules

Want to read more about Thai tones?  Check out this post for more examples:

Thai Tones

  • จาน
    จาน
    mid tone
  • แจก
    แจก
    low tone
  • จ้าง
    จ้าง
    falling tone
  • จอด
    จอด
    low tone
  • จ่าย
    จ่าย
    low tone
  • จน
    จน
    mid tone

  • All Done!

 

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How to say FOR in Thai

June 26, 2009 by 4 Comments

When I first wanted to know the word for “for” in Thai,  my Lonely Planet Phrasebook said สำหรับ or samrap.  While สำหรับ does mean “for,” in many cases, it is not the best answer.

for in thai

Samrap you, samrap me?

There are 3 main ways to say “for” in Thai.   Luckily, there is often some overlap with their English equivalents, but it may take a bit to get used to which word you’ll need to use in each situation.  I’ll include some key examples in this post so you can get an idea which is which.

“FOR” in Thai

The first version of “for” that we will look at is “ สำหรับ” (sam-rap).

This version of “for” is often used when talking about what the purpose of a thing is or what it’s intended use is. Let’s look at the sentence “games for kids”.  The “for” in this sentence essentially means “intended to be used by”.  This is how the word สำหรับ (sam-rap) is used in Thai.

สำหรับ (sam-rap) + NOUN = for (use by/of)

สำหรับ can also be attached to a verb phrase.  This is similar to how we would say a phrase like “a pen for ipad.”  The “for” means something like “for the purpose of.”

The usage is just sap-rap สำหรับ  + the verb:

สำหรับ (sam-rap) + VERB = “intended to used to do X”

Here are some more examples:

For in Thai  (for the benefit of)

The next Thai version of “for” that we’re going to look at is the word เพื่อ (phuea).  เพื่อ (phuea) means something like in order to; for the benefit of; for the purpose of someone or something.  For example “to work for my family”.  The “for” in this sentence means something like “for the benefit of”.

This word is used for all the organizations and foundations.  School for the blind, for the people, etc.

เพื่อ (phuea) – for the benefit/purpose of someone/something; in order to

For in Thai (on behalf of/ in case of)

The third version of “for” that we will look at is เผื่อ (phuea).  This can mean something similar to the English “in case of something” or “on behalf of”  

In these examples, เผื่อ works like “in case.”

While in these very commonly used examples, เผื่อ functions as “on behalf of”

These are often used when you are telling someone you are going to do something…go eat, go out, go on a trip, etc and the person you are speaking to says this to mean something like “do it/one for me too!”

English example, you are heading out to the pub, but your friend is sick or has to stay home in work – they might say ‘Drink one for me!”

เผื่อ (phuea) –

Thai Tone Tip:

Although the word เผื่อ (phuea) and เพื่อ (phuea) above share the same vowel and same initial consonant sound, they are spoken with a different tone.  As Thai is a tonal language, this can change the meaning of a word.  Click on the audio for both words again and pay attention to tones of each word. เพื่อ (phuea) is spoken with a falling tone – meaning the tone rises and then falls again, while the word เผื่อ (phuea) is spoken with a low tone.  

These 2 words take different tones because of 2 factors: their initial consonant AND the tone mark.

  • เผื่อ – Is a LOW tone, because it begins with the because class consonant ผ and has the 1st Tone Mark.
  • เพื่อ – takes a FALLING tone because it’s a low class consonant with the first tone mark.

While you need to know the 4 tone marks in order to determine the tone of a word or syllable in Thai, you ALSO need to know the CONSONANT CLASS of the word as each of the 3 classes has slightly different tone rules that you’ll need to master in order to learn to speak Thai fluently.

It does take a bit of work, but you can learn to read and speak Thai.  Sign up below and we’ll send you some free lessons from our Learn Thai Inner Circle program.

For in Thai: Bonus Round ให้

ให้ (hai) is a very versatile word which has lots of different uses.  Depending on the sentence it can mean: to give; to allow; to make someone do something; and it can also be used as the preposition, “for.”   If this sounds intimidating, try to explain to a non-native English speaker what “get” means.

 Sentences Where “For” Isn’t Used in Thai

Even though there are lots of ways to say “for” in Thai, there are a number of sentences where “for” is not used.

Below are some situations where we use “for” in English but not in Thai.

Situation 1: When talking about how long something has been or will be done for.

Example sentences:

Even though in English we need to use the word “for” in these sentences, in Thai there is no equivalent version of “for” used.

Situation 2: When thanking someone or saying sorry for doing something.

Example sentences:

Once again, there is no version of “for” used in these Thai sentences.

Farang Tip:

We understand that trying to memorize all of this will be impossible for most people.  Just bookmark this page and come back to reference it as needed.   Whenever you run into a situation where you want to say something and you don’t know how, make a note somewhere and look it up, send us a message, or ask on a app like HiNative.

Filed Under: Beginner, Learn Thai, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , ,
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