you just want to talk to Thais on a day-to-day basis, you're going to have to break out of that strict grammar mould You're going to listen more, become receptive to language and be more aware of the earthier currents in your communication. We all know what benefits you'll gain from following these true and tried tips. This book will guide you in your quest, and give you a taste of Thai tones too. So read on...
INFORMATION
As you see from the difference between suay and sŭay, Thai is a tonal language. It has five tones: mid or level, low, falling, high and rising—this is the order the Thais use. While the tone on an individual word can be vitally important, in general context, tones are not something to worry about. You can give the context by carefully noting then pronouncing the phrases in this book. The section on pronunciation tips will help you do this. As for the tones, you'll learn those next, but try to find a Thai friend who has a few hours free first.
Now the good news. You can forget general verb tenses and the complicated grammar of European languages. Past tenses are replaced with time words, often given at the start or finish of the phrase, while future is simple: add ca before the verb to mean "will." Thai also has a relatively simple grammar that's similar to English: subject, verb, and object/predicate. But note that an adjective follows the noun it describes (khon sŭay means a beautiful person)—this isn't hard when you use the phrases given here.
There's also no need to bother with "a" and "the" as you don't really need them in Thai. Thais will often omit subjects such as "I" or "you" and just use a verb and an object—where this is the case, we have shown the words that can be omitted in parentheses ( ).
You will hear Thais using khráp and khâ/khá at the end of sentences (as well as several other words!) These are called polite particles that will help you if you get used to using them all the time. They can be used with nearly every sentence in this book, so use them often. If you do, Thais will see you as a person with manners, even speaking the everyday language here—and yes, it does sound like "crap" but you want to get (it) on with Thais don't you? Males use khráp, and females khâ at the end of statements, and khráp and khá after questions. You'll see men have it easy! In this book, male words are shown with
Here are a couple of examples:
|
(khun) Ca pai năi khráp |
Where are you going? |
|
(chán |
I'm going shopping. |
khráp
|
Ca pai dûai mái (khráp |
Wanna go too? Sure. |
Another word that varies according to gender is the first-person pronoun (I or me). Men use phŏm
TONE TIPS
As you've seen, Thai has five tones: mid, low, falling, high and rising. In this book we've used a simple but general system to show them as marks above the words. Have another look at the examples above in INFORMATION to get an idea. Let's use an example—if we take the word maa (to come), the tones would be written as:
mid—maa (the level or plain tone—no mark)
low—màa (the mark points low:
falling—mâa (the mark shows you throwing a stone over a cliff
high—máa (the mark points high:
rising—măa (the mark shows you scooping water out of a well
Ask a Thai friend to give you some "tone practice." Be careful if you can, because máa maa means a horse is coming, but măa maa means a dog is coming (and Thais think dogs are low life!) Still, in context you won't have too many problems.
PRONUNCIATION TIPS
Vowels
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