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Useful Thai Sentences

July 1, 2008 by Leave a Comment

Expressing things such as…

  • One time…
  • I knew this one guy….
  • When I was a kid, I had this dog…
  • I have this friend….

This is fairly simple and very useful in making yer speech more ธรรมชาติ.

  • ครั้งหนึ่ง
  • มา ก่อน ไอ รู้จัก ผู้ชาย คนหนึ่ง
  • ตอนเด็ก ไอ มี หมา ตัวหนึ่ง
  • มี เพื่อน คนหนึ่ง

Theres plenty of useful ways to use this.

Try to work out how to say the following:

  1. I once had this car…..
  2. When I was in high school, there was this teacher who….
  3. There once was this little egg….

Amusing Real-Life Example

มีเพื่อนคนหนึ่ง เขากินเป็ปซี่

แบบ ว่ากินแทนน้ำเปล่าเลย เราเลยคิดว่า เราไม่อยากให้เขากินมาก กลัวเป็นอัตราย มีวิธีไหนให้เขากินน้ำเปล่าบ้าง เพราะบอกเขาแล้ว เขาบอกว่าทำไม่ได้ เขากินน้ำเปล่าวันไม่ถึงแก้วเลย

Lets break that down

มีเพื่อนคนหนึ่ง เขากินเป็ปซี่ I have this friend who drinks pepsi….

แบบว่ากินแทนน้ำเปล่าเลย like, as in ..she drinks it instead of water..

เราเลยคิดว่า      And, well…I think…

เราไม่อยากให้เขากินเยอะ  I don’t want them to drink so much (of it)…

กลัวเป็นอัตราย because I’m worried it might be dangerous(correct sp = อันตราย)

มีวิธีไหนให้เขากินน้ำเปล่าบ้าง  is there some way I can get them to drink some water

เพราะบอกเขาแล้ว because I’ve told them already….

เขาบอกว่าทำไม่ได้  and she said she can’t …

เขากินน้ำเปล่าวันไม่ถึงแก้วเลย she seriously doesn’t even drink 1 glass of water a day

Filed Under: Beyond Intermediate, By Difficulty, Sentences, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , ,

The Little Egg Who Wanted Legs

July 1, 2008 by Leave a Comment

How to go about this:

As long as you are ok on the alphabet, there is no reason you can’t start with a story like this.  If there are too many words you don’t know, just begin with one sentence a day.  You need repitition or you are wasting your time.  You can’t just exercise once and get anything out of it.  You can’t work one day and retire.  Pick up a story or 2 and read as much as you can each day.  Do 1 sentence until its easy.  Then do 2.  And go back and read sentences you’ve read before because you need to see them again anyways.  Might as well do it as you are moving along in the story.  It works.  If you need more details on a sentence or a word, please ask!

Its ok to read my translation first and then work out the Thai.  I do both in my studies of other languages.  It makes it easier to dig into tougher material if you already know the story.  Its not cheating.  You can cheat on tests, you can’t cheat at learning.  Whatever keeps you from quitting or getting bored is a good thing.

เรื่อง ไข่น้อยอยากมีขา

กาลครั้งหนึ่งนานมาแล้ว ในโรงนาของชาวนาคนหนึ่ง มีไข่ฟองหนึ่งมองดูพี่ๆของมันวิ่งเล่นอย่างสนุกสนาน แต่ไข่น้อยไม่มีขาจึงอยากได้ขาไว้วิ่งเล่นอย่างพี่ๆ ไข่น้อยจึงออกเดินทางไปตามหาคนที่จะให้ขาแก่ตนได้ ไข่น้อยกลิ้งไปเรื่อยๆ พบแม่วัวกำลังกินหญ้าอยู่กลางทุ่ง ไข่น้อยจึงเข้าไปหาและบอกแม่วัวว่า “แม่วัวจ๋า ขอขาให้ฉันหน่อยสิจ๊ะ” แม่วัวจึงบอกกับไข่น้อยว่า “ไม่ได้หรอกจ้ะ ธรรมชาติของวัวต้องมี 4 ขา ฉันจึงไม่สามารถให้ขาแก่เธอได้” ไข่น้อยจึงเดินทางต่อไป แล้วได้ไปพบกับสุนัข ไข่น้อยจึงเข้าไปขอขากับสุนัข สุนัขจึงบอกว่า “ฉันให้ขาแก่เธอไม่ได้หรอก เพราะไม่งั้นฉันก็ไม่มีขาไว้วิ่งเล่นน่ะสิ” ไข่น้อยร้องไห้เสียใจ จึงกลับไปหาแม่ แม่ของไข่น้อยจึงปลอบใจและให้มานอนกับแม่ ไข่น้อยเขาไปนอนกับแม่ และเผลอหลับไปถึง 2 สัปดาห์เต็มๆ ด้วยความอบอุ่นจากแม่ ทำให้ไข่น้อยฟักออกมาเป็นตัว ขนสีเหลือง มีสองขาที่อยากได้เหมือนพี่ๆ และได้ชื่อใหม่ว่า “ลูกเจี๊ยบ”

Important Vocab:

  • กาล a period of time
  • ครั้งหนึ่ง once; one time
  • นานมาแล้ว long ago (lit. long-came-already)
  • ในโรงนา in a barn
  • ชาวนา farmer (lit. people-farm)
  • มองดู to watch (for a while); to stare at
  • วิ่งเล่น to run (for fun)
  • สนุกสนาน merrily (this is makes the ‘running for fun’ even more fun – yay!
  • ไข่น้อย – little egg
  • ตามหา – to search for (lit. follow-search for)
  • กลิ้งไปเรื่อยๆ rolled along (continuously) *เรื่อยๆ often implies there is no hurry
  • กำลังกินหญ้าอยู่ eating grass (กำลัง Verb อยู = Verb + ing)
  • ทุ่ง pasture; meadow
  • จ๋า – an affectionate particle (usually feminine)
  • จ๊ะ – similar to above
  • ธรรมชาติ – nature; natural
  • สุนัข dog (polite version of หมา)
  • ปลอบใจ comfort; console
  • สัปดาห์ week
  • ฟักออก hatch
  • ขนสีเหลือง yellow feathered (ขน can also be fur or body hair)
  • ลูกเจี๊ยบ chick (เจี๊ยบ comes from the sound the baby bird makes as in English)

กาลครั้งหนึ่งนานมาแล้ว　Once upon a time…

ในโรงนาของชาวนาคนหนึ่ง in a farmer’s barn

มีไข่ฟองหนึ่งมองดูพี่ๆของมันวิ่งเล่นอย่างสนุกสนาน there was an egg watching his older siblings running and playing

แต่ไข่น้อยไม่มีขา But, the little egg didn’t have any legs

จึงอยากได้ขาไว้วิ่งเล่นอย่างพี่ๆ so it wanted to have some (legs) so it could run and play like its older siblings

ไข่น้อยจึงออกเดินทางไปตามหาคนที่จะให้ขาแก่ตนได้ so the little egg went out in search of someone who could give him some legs

ไข่น้อยกลิ้งไปเรื่อยๆ the little egg rolled along..

พบแม่วัวกำลังกินหญ้าอยู่กลางทุ่ง and came across a cow who was munching away on some grass out in a pasture

ไข่น้อยจึงเข้าไปหาและบอกแม่วัวว่า the little egg went into the meadow and approached the cow and said…

“แม่วัวจ๋า ขอขาให้ฉันหน่อยสิจ๊ะ” Miss Cow – can you not spare a leg or 2 for me please?

แม่วัวจึงบอกกับไข่น้อยว่า the cow answered ….

“ไม่ได้หรอกจ้ะ    “I’m afraid not dear….

ธรรมชาติของวัวต้องมี 4 ขา  It is natural for cows to have 4 legs

ฉันจึงไม่สามารถให้ขาแก่เธอได้” and I’m unable to spare any for you”

ไข่น้อยจึงเดินทางต่อไป And so the little egg continued on

แล้วได้ไปพบกับสุนัข until it came across a dog

ไข่น้อยจึงเข้าไปขอขากับสุนัข so it went and asked the dog for legs

สุนัขจึงบอกว่า and the dog said….

“ฉันให้ขาแก่เธอไม่ได้หรอก “I’m afraid I can’t give you any of my legs….

เพราะไม่งั้นฉันก็ไม่มีขาไว้วิ่งเล่นน่ะสิ” because then I wouldn’t have any legs to run and play with”

ไข่น้อยร้องไห้เสียใจ The little egg began to cry in its despair

จึงกลับไปหาแม่ so it went home to its mother

แม่ของไข่น้อยจึงปลอบใจและให้มานอนกับแม่ the eggs mother consoled it and invited the egg come sleep with her

ไข่น้อยเขาไปนอนกับแม่ and so the egg did (go sleep with its แม่)

และเผลอหลับไปถึง 2 สัปดาห์เต็มๆ and it stayed in a deep sleep for a full 2 weeks

ด้วยความอบอุ่นจากแม่ And from its mother’s warmth

ทำให้ไข่น้อยฟักออกมาเป็นตัวขนสีเหลือง came forth a yellow feathered body

มีสองขาที่อยากได้เหมือนพี่ๆ and it had 2 legs just like its older siblings

และได้ชื่อใหม่ว่า “ลูกเจี๊ยบ” and it received the name ‘chick’

Filed Under: Intermediate, Short Stories Tagged With: , , ,

Thai Alphabet – High Class Consonants

July 3, 2008 by Leave a Comment

ผี ฝาก ถุง ข้าว ส่ง ให้ ฉัน

That was a somewhat strange sentence which makes use of the main 7 high class consonants of Thai.  See if you can pick them out in the words above: ผ ฝ ถ ข ส ห ฉ

First up – ข [ขอ ไข่] This is the 2nd letter of the Thai alphabet. Yes the one right after ก [กอ ไก]่. What does this letter’s name mean? Well, ไข่ is an egg. Its pronounced much like a ‘k’. Along with its vowel, it sounds a something like ‘kai’. Can’t think of any words in English that have it. How about the last syllable in the name Malachai (that guy that chills behind the rows). As you no doubt remember ไก่ means chicken and ไข่ is egg. 1st and 2nd. The debate is over. The chicken came first.

Rules of the high class are kind of interesting. Any time there is no tone mark and no hard ending (endings that are like k/g, p/b or t/d) the words will take on a rising tone.  This applies for both long and short vowels.  Too easy eh?  Let’s go over 3 letters and then try some simple words.

ห [ หอ หีบ]  This letter is the closest thing to an ‘H’ that you’ll find in Thai.  But remember its not an ‘H’, so its gonna do some things the English ‘H’ version doesn’t do.

ฝ [ฝอ ฝา] Here we have one of the ‘F’ – like letters.   Also, high class so rising tone on open endings.

  • หา – haa (long vowel + rising tone) to look for
  • ฝา – faa  (long vowel + rising tone) lid; cover

Now then, we need to learn some new vowels. These 2 are related and look very similar so lets learn ’em together.  Remember that อ is just a placeholder which you need in order to read the vowel.  The vowels are the semi-circle-ish shapes on top.  The only difference is that the long vowel has a line sticking up from it.

  • อิ /i/  as in ‘he’ but usually a bit shorter then English
  • อี /ii/ as in ‘he’ but usually a bit longer than English

ผี Remember this from above?  ผ is much like a ‘p’ – As this one is high class and we are throwing on that อี above, we are getting a sound just like when they say ‘P’ on Sesame Street.  Well its a long vowel, so make it a bit longer than normal. Um with a rising tone.  Lets change that …think something along the lines of …”I gotta peeee” and send that tone up high.

ผี means ghost btw

ฝี VS ผี – Notice that these letters are mighty similar.  Long vowels, rising tones.

  • ฝี – /fii/ Like the English ‘fee’
  • ผี – /pii/ ‘peeee’

Mnemonicalafrageous time – You hopefully remember from 3-5 seconds ago that ผี means ‘ghost’ – Um …maybe when you were a kid and you saw a ghost you had to ‘peeee’ or something?  Not great, but it might work.

ฝี – this means ‘boil’ as in the pus-filled kind – so lets say that the long part sticking up is a pus-filled abcess just waiting to burst.  And we can even take that a step farther and imagine that the boil is just so friggin large that if it does burst (and the long part falls off) you die and become a ghost.

Not working?  Go back and read the above again, but this time visualize it in your mind. Imaginative memory is an extremly powerful tool.  You won’t need to remember this stuff forever, but the quickest way to get through an alphabet is by making sure its stuck in your short-term memory until you can process the letters fast enough to graduate to basic reading.

Moving along…consider the following word

ฝาก Do you remember that last letter?  It’s our old friend the CHICKEN, a middle class consonant.  ก [กอ ไก่]

How about the vowel อา ?

ฝ + า = ฝา  lid – see above.  But if we throw on that last letter, everything changes!

ฝาก – Now that we have thrown a hard [k, p, t, b] ending on the tone is gonna change.  Remember I said only open vowels are rising.  With hard endings, we need to switch to a low tone.  The low tone is created in your chest as opposed to your neck or head.  You should feel it in your upper chest if you are producing the sound correctly.  It is difficult to say this tone loudly especially at first.

ฝาก /faaak/ all k + g- like letters in Thai end with the same sound.  An unaspirated ‘k’ – This means you need to cut off the air before it comes out.

Think of how you say ‘Duck, duck, duck Goose’ to find that cut off ‘k’  and you’ll catch on.

ฝาก – to deposit

So if we refer to that stuff at the top we now hopefully can read the first 2 words!  Wow, we sure are amazing.

ผี ฝาก – ghost /piii/long vowel, rising tone + deposit /faaak/ long vowel, low tone

What is this ghost trying to deposit?  We’ll get there in a sec.  Be patient.

First we need more vowels!  Did I mention that the Thai alphabet has over 30 vowels?  Don’t worry, they each have only one sound so it’s not really that bad.

อุ VS อู  –  As you may have already guessed, these vowels are also related.  The first one is of course the short vowel.

  • อุ is a short /u/ like in ‘where to?’
  • อู is a long /uu/ similar to ‘cool’ but your lips should be pursed into a fishy ‘o’ and hold it for a tad longer.

Now lets make some words.

Remember ง [งอ งู]  ?  Yea, well me neither, but we are going to need to if we are ever going to be able to talk about snakes.  Anyways, ง is like the /ng/ in sing and thing and bring.

งู (not a high class consonant!) is pronounced /ngoo/ refer to this post if you need a refresher on the wonders of the งู (snake).  If you still can’t figure out how to pronounce it, do tell me and I can explain in better detail how to find your งู.

Back to High Class – ถ [ ถอ ถุง] This letter is just like the T in ‘Mr. T’.  Well almost.

ถ /taw/ /u/ /ng/ = ถุง /toong/ (like the ‘too’ in too much with an ‘ng’ attached to it)  rising tone

ถุง means ‘bag’  as in the paper or plastic variety – not backpacks or luggage.

ผี ฝาก  ถุง – /piii/ /faaak/ /toong/  Ghost deposits bag

Letters letters letters!  Too many letters!  Gotta keep moving..

This next word is one of those you will here every day in Thailand.

ข้าว –  ข [ขอ ไข่] + า = ขา + ว = ขาว +    ้ = ข้าว

kaw + า  = kaah (rising tone because high class and open ending) +  ว = kaaaow **Imagine an excited kid saying “Wooow!” Now imagine that he is dyslexic, stutters and occasionally slips up with a lisp – erm..just change the ‘w’ sound to a ‘k’ might be easier.  So…

Wait, did I mention ว yet?  ว [วอ แหวน] is a semi-vowel.  Distant cousin of the ‘W’.  แหวน means ‘ring’.  When it comes at the end of a word it ‘w’-afies the word before it.  Think about what your mouth must do to change the word ‘Ho’ to ‘How’ and you should have a pretty good idea of what it does.

ข้าว is pronounced kaaow (becomes a falling tone due to the tone mark).  If it didn’t have the tone mark it would be a rising ขาว because its a high class consonant with a soft or open ending.

Filed Under: learn to read thai Tagged With: , , ,

Top 5 Rules for Learning Thai Language

June 5, 2008 by 13 Comments

Here are 5 important rules to remember when learning Thai language.

Rule #1 You need to learn the Thai script.  It’s not so much about reading as it is about having a way to separate all the different sounds in your mind so your brain can separate them from your native language. You need to learn the consonant classes, and the tone rules.  By mastering this entire system, learning Thai becomes so much easier and will save you heaps of time in the long run.  Try the free lessons from my course to get an idea of how easy + possible it is for you to learn the script in 2 weeks.

Rule #2 You should practice reading a little every day. It will be painfully slow in the beginning so start small. Even one sentence is better than nothing. Just read it a couple of times.  If you aren’t good at sitting still (like me), then aim to do a couple of short 5-15 min study bursts each day.  I’ve always found this to be very effective.

Rule #3 Listen everyday, as much as possible.  Anything that is real language.  Your brain needs to hear the sounds a lot.  Listen to music, podcasts, radio or whatever.  You want as much exposure as possible and this requires you to be fairly active.

Rule #4 REVIEW things you want to remember. Occasionally you’ll see something once and it will stick forever, but most things will require some form of repetition and or real usage in a social situation to embed itself forever in your mind.

Consider using an SRS (Spaced Repetition System). This is just a fancy name for FLASHCARDS that have a built-in algorithm which makes studying more efficient by showing you cards that you are bad at more often than ones you are good at.  I recommend Anki.  It has a bit of a learning curve which will turn some people off, but it can be very useful.

Rule #5 Carry a small notepad and write it in all the time.  Sometimes you will hear a word a few times, but it hasn’t clicked yet.  Write it down and find out what it is.  If you are speaking the language and you want to say something that you don’t know yet, write it down and find out how to say it later.  Next time you want to say that particular phrase/sentence, it will be in your pocket. We don’t have much control over what we remember and what we don’t so write it down!  *Bonus – Keep track of your expenses/meals/daily activities/exercise in the language.  You will quickly get good at spelling the things that you do everyday.  This is how I broke into being able to write (and SPELL) in Thai when I was a beginner.

Filed Under: Learn Thai Tagged With: , , ,

Thai Alphabet – Middle Class Consonants Part 3

May 31, 2008 by Leave a Comment

The Thai alphabet has oodles of vowels. We need to cover more of them so you can begin to work out the names of some of the other middle class consonants.

What vowels do we know so far?

อา

ไอ ใอ *Remember, these have the exact same sound.

เอ เอา

Let’s throw 2 more into the mix.

อุ and อู. Think of these vowels as siblings. They are essentially the same sound, but the longer shaped vowel, has um, the longer sound. Remember that the actual vowel symbols are simply ุ and ู while the อ is just a place holder we use to spell the vowels. Note that they go under the letter they are modifying.

While we’re at it, I should mention the long อา vowel sounds sidekick อะ. So the อ [ออ อ่าง] along with those sperm or comma-like symbols give us the short vowel อะ. This is one of those sounds you are going to need to hear. Kinda like the ‘a’ in about.

Oh and if you want to really learn the Thai script, check out my Learn Thai Inner Circle which teaches you all the core skills needed to get started in Thai.

If you aren’t looking to try my paid program, you can always sign up on the home page to get a bunch of free more in-depth lessons about the script and basic Thai phrases.  I also send out weekly downloadable pdf lessons for reading Thai signs.

Filed Under: learn to read thai Tagged With: , ,
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