ThaiAn Essential Grammar

This is a concise and user-friendly guide to the basic structures of thelanguage.

Grammatical forms are demonstrated through examples, given in bothThai script and romanised transliteration, with clear, jargon-free expla-nations. It is designed for use both by students taking a taught course inThai and for independent learners, and includes guidance on pronuncia-tion, speech conventions and the Thai writing system as well as grammar.

Topics include:

Sentence particles Negation Questions Numerals and quantication Location markers and prepositions

With numerous examples bringing grammar to life, this unique referencework will prove invaluable to all students looking to master the grammarof Thai.

David Smyth is Lecturer in Thai at the School of Oriental and AfricanStudies, University of London.

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Routledge Essential Grammars

The following titles are available in the Essential Grammars series:

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Other titles of related interest published by Routledge:

Colloquial ThaiBy John Moore and Saowalak Rodchue

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ThaiAn Essential Grammar

David Smyth

1111234567891011112111345678920111123456789301111234567894041111 London and New York

Taylor & Francis

Gr

oup

RO

UTLEDG

E

First published 2002 by Routledge11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canadaby Routledge29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group

2002 David Smyth

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted orreproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,or other means, now known or hereafter invented, includingphotocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication DataA catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataA catalog record for this book has been requested

ISBN 0415226147 (pbk)ISBN 0415226139 (hbk)

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This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.

To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledgescollection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.

ISBN 0-203-99504-X Master e-book ISBN

For Manas Chitakasem

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Preface xiii

Introduction 1

Thai and its speakers 1Romanisation 2Learning Thai 2Dictionaries 3Linguistic literature on Thai 3

Chapter 1 Pronunciation 5

1.1 Consonants 51.2 Vowels and diphthongs 71.3 Tones 91.4 Stress 10

Chapter 2 The writing system 11

2.1 Consonants 112.2 Consonants by class 142.3 Vowels 142.4 Live syllables and dead syllables 152.5 Tone rules 162.6 Miscellaneous 19

Chapter 3 Nouns, classiers and noun phrases 23

3.1 Proper nouns 233.2 Common nouns 24

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Contents

3.3 Making new nouns 253.4 Noun phrases and classiers 313.5 Word order in noun phrases 33

Chapter 4 Pronouns 39

4.1 Personal pronouns: basics 394.2 Reexive pronouns 474.3 Emphatic pronoun 484.4 Reciprocal: each other 494.5 Possessive pronouns 504.6 Demonstrative pronouns 504.7 Interrogative pronouns 514.8 Indenite pronouns 514.9 Relative pronouns 54

Chapter 5 Verbs 56

5.1 The verb to be 565.2 Stative verbs 595.3 Verb compounds 595.4 Resultative verbs 605.5 Directional verbs 615.6 Modal verbs 635.7 Time and aspect 675.8 Passives 745.9 Verbs of utterance, mental activity and perception

with wa 765.10 Verbs of emotion with thi 775.11 Causatives 775.12 To give: direct and indirect objects 805.13 Verb serialization 81

Chapter 6 Adjectives (stative verbs) and adjectivalconstructions 83

6.1 Compound adjectives 846.2 Modication of adjectives 856.3 Special intensiers 876.4 Reduplication 896.5 Comparison of adjectives 91

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Contents

viii

Chapter 7 Adverbs and adverbial constructions 96

7.1 Adverbs of manner 967.2 Modication of adverbs 1007.3 Comparison of adverbs 1017.4 Adverbs of time 1037.5 Adverbs of frequency 1047.6 Adverbs of degree 105

Chapter 8 Location markers and other prepositions 108

8.1 Location: thi and yu 1088.2 To 1118.3 For 1118.4 By 1138.5 With 1148.6 From 115

Chapter 9 Clauses and sentences 116

9.1 Word order and topicalisation 1169.2 Subordinate clauses 1189.3 Direct and indirect speech 1239.4 Imperatives 1239.5 Exemplication 1249.6 Exclamatory particles 125

Chapter 10 Sentence particles 126

10.1 Question particles 12610.2 Polite particles 12610.3 Mood particles 129

Chapter 11 Negation 138

11.1 Negating main verbs 13811.2 Negating resultative verbs 13911.3 Negating auxiliary verbs 14011.4 my dy + VERB (PHRASE) 14211.5 my chy + NOUN 14311.6 my mii 14411.7 Modifying negatives: intensifying and softening 144

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Contents

ix

11.8 Negative imperatives 14511.9 Negative causatives 14611.10 Negative questions 14811.11 Negative conditional clauses 14911.12 Saying no 15011.13 Useful negative expressions 15111.14 Two further negatives: m and haa . . . my 151

Chapter 12 Questions 153

12.1 Yes/no questions 15312.2 Wh- questions 15912.3 Alternative questions 16912.4 Indirect questions 170

Chapter 13 Numbers, measurement and quantication 171

13.1 Cardinal numbers 17213.2 Cardinal numbers with sk and tN 17413.3 Ordinal numbers 17513.4 Sanskrit numbers 17613.5 Once, twice . . . 17713.6 Fractions, decimals, percentages, multiples 17713.7 Collective numbers 17913.8 Some idiomatic expressions involving numbers 18013.9 Measurements 18113.10 Distances 18113.11 Distribution: per 18213.12 Quantiers 18213.13 Negative quantication 18413.14 Approximation: about 18413.15 Restriction: only 18513.16 More than 18613.17 Less than 18813.18 As many as 188

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Contents

x

Chapter 14 Time 189

14.1 Days 18914.2 Parts of the day 18914.3 Months 19014.4 Years 19114.5 Dates 19214.6 Seasons 19214.7 Useful expressions of time 19314.8 Telling the time 196

Chapter 15 Thai speech conventions 200

15.1 Politeness 20015.2 Thanks 20015.3 Apologies 20115.4 Polite requests 20215.5 Misunderstandings 20615.6 Socialising 208

Appendix 1 Romanisation systems 215Appendix 2 The verbs hy, dy/day and pen:

a summary 218

Glossary 223Bibliography and further reading 227Index 231

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Contents

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This volume aims to ll a long-felt need, among both teachers and studentsof Thai, for a detailed descriptive grammar which is accessible to theordinary learner with little or no knowledge of linguistic terminology.For beginners, it should prove a useful reference source that may be usedin conjunction with any introductory language course; for more advancedlearners, it will hopefully clarify grey areas in their knowledge and providesome further insight into the language.

This book could not have been attempted, let alone completed, withoutthe help and encouragement of many people, over a period of many years.I am indebted to all those Thais who, over the years, with charm, graceand tact have helped me to improve my knowledge of their language; to all those authors listed in the bibliography (and many others, toonumerous to mention); to the late Peter J. Bee, formerly Lecturer in Taiat the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, whodid much to arouse my curiosity about language in general and Thai in particular; and to those students of Thai who each year ask new and searching questions and ll me with fresh resolve not to have to bluff my way through the following year. I am especially grateful toSujinda Khantayalongkoch, Manas Chitakasem, Vantana Cornwell andRoutledges anonymous reviewer from Australia, for their careful checkingof the draft manuscript and their numerous constructive suggestions forimproving the text; their input has been invaluable. I am also grateful toWalaiporn Tantikanangkul, Andrew Simpson and Justin Watkins for somevery practical guidance. Errors, omissions and other shortcomings thatmay remain are, however, entirely my own responsibility. Finally, mygreatest debt of gratitude is to Manas Chitakasem, my teacher, colleagueand friend for nearly thirty years, for his unstinting support and encour-agement since my rst faltering forays into Thai; it is to him that thisbook is dedicated with respect and affection.

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Preface

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Thai and its speakers

Thai (formerly called Siamese) is a member of the Tai family of languageswhich are spoken by an estimated 70 million people dispersed over awide area of Asia, from northern Vietnam to northern India. Thai, withnearly 50 million rst-language speakers, is the most important languagein the Tai family, which also includes Lao, Shan (spoken in northernBurma) and some 15 million speakers in southwestern China. Despitecommon structural features, even closely related Tai languages are oftenmutually unintelligible because of phonological and lexical differences.Tai speakers were once thought to have originated from China andmigrated southwards, but today the border area between northern Vietnamand Chinas Guangxi province is regarded as a more likely origin. Fromthe eighth century AD Tai speakers began to migrate westwards and south-westwards into what is present-day Thailand.

Thai is the national language of Thailand. Distinct regional dialects ofThai are spoken in the north, northeast and south of the country, butthe language of the Central Region is regarded as the standard and isused both in schools and for ofcial purposes throughout the country.

Thai is a tonal language, with the meaning of each syllable determinedby the pitch at which it is pronounced. Standard Thai has ve tones mid, low, high, rising and falling. Thai has no noun or verb inections:a noun has a single form, with no distinction between singular and plural,while past, present and future time can be conveyed by a single verbform. Like many other South-East Asian languages, Thai has a complexpronoun system, which reects gender, age, social status, the formalityof the situation and the degree of intimacy between speakers. Much ofthe original Thai lexicon is monosyllabic; a high percentage of polysyl-labic words are foreign borrowings, particularly from the classical Indianlanguages, Sanskrit and Pali.

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Introduction

Romanisation

There is no universally recognised system for romanising Thai and Thaiscan neither write their language in the Western alphabet nor easily readWesterners romanisations of Thai. When romanising Thai, linguists useone system, librarians another and the Royal Thai Institute yet another;the average Thai, if called upon to romanise Thai words, would almostcertainly do so in a quite unsystematic way.

The system used in this book is based on the phonemic transcriptiondevised by the American scholar, Mary Haas, in the early 1940s andslightly modied in J. Marvin Browns AUA Thai course materials. Whilethis system is widely used in the linguistic literature on Thai and aca-demic writing on Thailand, commercially published courses often avoidtranscriptions that use symbols from the International Phonetic Alphabet.The system appears in full in Appendix 1.

Learning Thai

A number of readily available Thai courses can be used in conjunctionwith this grammar. The Linguaphone Thai Course (1984) by ManasChitakasem and David Smyth, and Teach Yourself Thai (1995) by DavidSmyth, both equip the learner with the necessary grammar and vocabu-lary to deal with a range of everyday situations and provide a structuredintroduction to the script; both works include cassettes/CDs.

Of earlier materials, Spoken Thai (19458) by Mary Haas and HengSubhanka, although dated in places, is an extremely solid work, whichoffers many valuable insights into the language. Foundations of Thai(1968) by Edward Anthony et al., and Thai Basic Course (1970) byWarren G. Yates and Absorn Tryon likewise provide very thorough intro-ductions to the language with comprehensive grammar notes. The AUALanguage Center Thai Course (1967), prepared by J. Marvin Brown, isdesigned for classroom use with a native speaker, rather than self-tuition,but other works produced by AUA, including Browns AUA LanguageCenter Thai Course: Reading and Writing (1979), and Adrian Palmersimaginative dialogue books, Small Talk (1974) and Getting Help withYour Thai (1977) are well worth consulting. Fundamentals of the ThaiLanguage (1957) by Stuart Campbell and Chuan Shaweewongse (althoughin the most recent reprint, authorship is now attributed to the editorsof Marketing Media Associates Co., Ltd.), has long provided the Bangkok

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Intro-duction

2

expatriate with a sound introduction to the language, despite its tradi-tional grammar-translation approach.

Two substantial books on Thai grammar addressed to English speakersare Thai Reference Grammar (1964) by Richard Noss and Teaching ofThai Grammar (1982) by William Kuo. Nosss book, based on his doctoralthesis, is a detailed and insightful descriptive grammar that no seriousstudent of Thai can fail to benet from; however, it is addressed to thosewith a background in linguistics, and its use of linguistic terminology isat best bewildering and at times simply intimidating for the majority ofbeginners. Kuos book, by contrast, is a much more down-to-earth work-book for practising key structures, but it does require a prior knowledgeof Thai script.

Dictionaries

The most useful dictionary for the learner is Thai-English StudentsDictionary (1964) compiled by Mary Haas. Each Thai script entry isfollowed by a phonemic transcription and English gloss. A particularlyuseful feature for the learner is that for every noun the appropriate clas-sier is indicated; many of the entries also include well-chosen examplesof everyday usage. George B. McFarlands Thai-English Dictionary (1944),although dated, remains a valuable reference work for the more advancedstudent of Thai, for it contains many words of Sanskrit origin and exten-sive listings of ora and fauna not found in the Haas volume. Twoimpressive recent works, which do not include pronunciation guides, butdo reect more up-to-date usage, are Domnern and Sathienpongs Thai-English Dictionary (1994) and Thianchai Iamwaramets A New ThaiDictionary with Bilingual Explanation (1993). Robertsons PracticalEnglish-Thai Dictionary (1969) is an invaluable pocket-sized aid for thebeginner, which gives Thai equivalents of about 2,500 common Englishwords in both romanised transcription and Thai script.

Linguistic literature on Thai

There is a rich English-language literature on many aspects of Thai linguis-tics, most of which is catalogued in Franklin E. Huffmans Bibliographyand Index of Mainland Southeast Asian Languages and Linguistics (1986).Much of this literature is in the form of unpublished doctoral theseswritten in American university linguistics departments during the 1970s

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Linguisticliteratureon Thai

3

and 1980s and therefore not readily available. A number of collectionsof essays produced to honour leading scholars of Thai, most notablyWilliam J. Gedney (1975), Fang-Kuei Li (1976) and Vichin Panupong(1997), include contributions which the serious learner can benet from.Anthony Dillers essays on levels of language use (1985) and the role ofCentral Thai as a national language (1991) and William A. SmalleysLinguistic Diversity and National Unity: Language Ecology in Thailand(1994), a masterful study of the relationship between the nationallanguage, regional dialects and minority languages, are accessible to thelayman and offer invaluable insights into the language and language situ-ation in Thailand.

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Intro-duction

4

Thai differs radically from English and other European languages in beinga tone language. In tone languages the meaning of a syllable is deter-mined by the pitch at which it is pronounced. The Thai sound systemalso includes a small number of consonant and vowel sounds which haveno close equivalent in English. The lists of consonant and vowel soundsin this section include, where possible, a close equivalent sound in stan-dard British English. An example of the sound in a word is given forconrmation with a Thai native speaker.

Consonants

Initial consonants

The consonants d, b, f, l, m, n, r, y, w, s, h are similar to English; thefollowing consonants, however, need further clarication:

k similar to g in get e.g. ky () chicken

kh similar to kh in khakhi e.g. khy () egg

N similar to ng in singer e.g. Naan () work

c similar to j in jar e.g. caan () plate

ch similar to ch in chart e.g. chaay () male

t similar to t in stop e.g. taam () to follow

th similar to th in Thailand e.g. thay () Thai

p similar to p in spin e.g. pay () to go

ph similar to p in part e.g. phaasaa () language

1.1.1

1.1

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Chapter 1

Pronunciation

Many Thais nd it difcult to produce an initial r and will substitute l.Thus ru (to know) is often pronounced lu.

Final consonants

A Thai syllable can end in two types of consonant sounds:

(a) the stops -p, -t, -k

The nal stop consonants are unreleased. Unreleased stops are producedwhen the airstream is closed to make the sound, but not re-opened, sothat no air is released. Examples in English include the p in the casualpronunciation of yep! and the t in rat when rat trap is said quickly.Beginners sometimes nd it difcult to hear the difference between wordslike rk (to love), rt (to bind) and rp (to receive), while in attempt-ing to reproduce these sounds, they may inadvertently release the nalconsonant.

(b) the nasals -m, -n, -N

These sounds are familiar from English and present no problem.

Consonant clusters

The following consonant clusters exist in Thai; they occur only at thebeginning of a word:

kr- as in kruN () city

kl- as in klay () far

kw- as in kwaN () wide

khr- as in khray () who?

khl- as in khlay () to resemble

khw- as in khwaa () right

pr- as in pratuu () door

pl- as in plaa () sh

phr- as in phr () monk

phl- as in phlat () to miss, fail

tr- as in troN () straight

1.1.3

1.1.2

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1Pronunciation

6

In everyday speech many Thais will omit the second consonant in acluster:

plaa () sh becomes paa

khray () who? becomes khay

pratuu () door becomes patuu

A more radical transformation, associated with Bangkok working-classspeech, is the change of initial khw- to f-:

khwaa () right becomes faa

khwaam sk ( ) happiness becomes faam sk

Vowels and diphthongs

Thai distinguishes between short and long vowels. Short vowels are tran-scribed with a single letter (e.g. -a, -e, -E, etc.) and long vowels with twoletters (e.g. -aa, -ee, -ii, etc.).

Diphthongs (combinations of two vowel sounds) are similarly distin-guished by length. Short diphthongs are represented by a single letterfollowed by w or y (e.g. -aw, -Oy, -uy, etc.); long diphthongs are repre-sented by either two different letters (e.g. -ia, -a, -ua, etc.) or two similarletters followed by w or y (e.g -aaw, -w, -EEy, etc.).

Learners are likely to experience some difculty in hearing and producingdifferences between the short and long diphthongs -aw/-aaw and -ay/-aay:

raw () we raaw () about

khw () to enter khaw () rice

tay () liver taay () to die

say () clear saay () late morning

When reading Thai script it is essential to be able to distinguish betweenlong and short vowel symbols, as vowel length inuences tone (see Chapter2):

-a similar to u in run e.g. yaN () still

-aa similar to a in father e.g. maa () to come

-e similar to e in let e.g. dk () child

1.2

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1.2Vowels anddiphthongs

7

-ee similar to ay in may e.g. thee () to pour

- similar to er in number e.g. Nn () money

- similar to er in her e.g. c () to meet

-E short vowel, similar to air in hair e.g. khE N () hard

-EE long vowel, similar to air in hair e.g. mE E () mother

-i similar to i in bin e.g. bin () to y

-ii similar to ee in fee e.g. mii () to have

-O short vowel, similar to or in corn e.g. tO N () must

-OO long vowel, similar to or in corn e.g. bOOk () to say

-o similar to o in Ron e.g. con () poor

-oo similar to o in go e.g. too () big

-u similar to oo in book e.g. yk () era

-uu similar to oo in coo e.g. ru () to know

- short vowel, with no equivalent in English; e.g. nN () one

- long vowel, with no equivalent in English; e.g. m () hand

-ia similar to ear in hear e.g. sa ( ) to lose

-ua similar to oer in doer e.g. ra () fence

-a long diphthong with no equivalent in English; e.g. ba ()bored

-iaw similar to io in Rio e.g. diaw () single

-uay similar to ou in rou e.g. ruay () rich

-ay diphthong with no equivalent in English; e.g. nay () tired

-uy similar to ewy in chewy e.g. khuy () to chat

-ooy long diphthong with no equivalent in English; e.g. dooy () by

-y long diphthong with no equivalent in English; e.g. ny ()butter

-Oy similar to oy in boy e.g. bOy () often

-OOy similar to oy in boy e.g. rO Oy () hundred

-ay short diphthong, similar to ai in Thai e.g. thay () Thai

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1Pronunciation

8

-aay long diphthong, similar to ai in Thai e.g. taay () dead

-iw similar to ue in hue e.g. hw () hungry

-ew short diphthong, similar to ayo in Mayo e.g. rew () fast

-eew long diphthong, similar to ayo in Mayo e.g. leew () bad

-Ew short diphthong with no equivalent in English; e.g. thEw ()row

-EEw long diphthong with no equivalent in English; e.g. lE Ew ()already

-aw short diphthong, similar to ao in Lao e.g. raw () we

-aaw long diphthong, similar to ao in Lao e.g. raaw () about

Tones

Each syllable in Thai is pronounced with a specic tone. Standard Thaihas ve different tones, which are represented in the transcription systemby an accent over the rst vowel in the syllable. They are mid tone (noaccent), high tone ( ), low tone ( ), rising tone ( ) and falling tone ( ).

a Mid tone (saN saaman): normal voice pitch:

pay () to go maa () to come phEEN () expensive

b High tone (saN trii): higher than normal voice pitch:

rt () car s () to buy lk () small

c Low tone (saN ek): lower than normal voice pitch:

sp () ten cak () from yy () big

d Rising tone (saN cttawaa): starting from a lower than normal voicepitch with a distinctive rising contour:

khO ON () of suay () pretty phO Om () thin

e Falling tone (saN thoo): starting from a higher than normal voicepitch with a distinctive falling contour:

thi () at chO^Op () to like phut () to speak

1.3

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1.3Tones

9

Tone change

There are a few common words which have a different tone in normalconversation to when pronounced slowly and deliberately in isolation.For example, khw () he, she, they, chn () I and my ()(question particle) are all pronounced with a high tone in normal conver-sation but a rising tone when pronounced in isolation.

In one form of adjectival reduplication (see 6.4), the rst element is pro-nounced with a high tone for the purpose of emphasis or intensication:

suay () beautiful

say suay () so beautiful!

In certain situations tones may also change; the unstressed rst syllablein a two-syllable word is usually pronounced with a mid tone (see 1.4),while when two syllables with rising tones follow one another, the rstis often pronounced as a high tone:

nNs () book

sO ON saam khon () two or three people

Stress

In words of two syllables, unlike in English, it is the second syllable whichis stressed. When the vowel in the rst syllable is -a, it is normally reducedto -E and in normal speech the tone is mid:

pratuu~prtuu () door

sadak~sdak () convenient

When the vowel -aa occurs in both the rst and second syllable, it iscommonly shortened in the rst syllable:

aahaan~ahaan () food

phaasaa~phasaa () language

1.4

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1Pronunciation

10

Thai is written in a unique script. This has evolved from a script whichoriginated in South India and was introduced into mainland South-EastAsia during the fourth or fth century AD. The neighbouring Lao andCambodian scripts bear some close similarities to Thai. The rst recordedexample of Thai writing is widely believed to be a stone inscription foundby the future King Mongkut (Rama IV, 185168) at Sukhothai in 1833,and dated 1283 AD. In this inscription, the author, King Ramkhamhaeng,records that he actually devised the script. In recent years there has beenlively debate in academic circles about its authenticity; much of this canbe found in Chamberlain (1991).

The Thai writing system is alphabetic. It is written across the page fromleft to right with no spaces between words; when spaces are used, theyserve as punctuation markers, instead of commas or full stops. There isgenerally a close match between spelling and pronunciation. The followingsections outline the key features of the Thai writing system:

Consonants

The Thai alphabet has forty-two consonants which are arranged accordingto the traditional Indian alphabetic order, beginning with velar stops,then palatals, dentals, bilabials and nally, sonorants.

All consonants are pronounced with an inherent -OO vowel sound. Eachconsonant has a name, rather like a-for-apple, b-for-bat, which childrenlearn in school. For the foreign learner, knowing these names can beuseful when asking how to spell a word, but is not necessary for learningto read.

Many consonant symbols change their pronunciation at the end of a wordbecause of the very limited number of nal consonant sounds that exist

2.1

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Chapter 2

The writing system

in Thai (1.1.2); thus, the letters representing initial kh, c, ch, d, th, b,ph, s and f sounds are each channelled into one of just three possiblesounds k, p, t when they occur at the end of a word. The followingtable lists the consonants in dictionary order with their names and pronun-ciations, both as initial and as nal consonants:

Name Initial Final

kOO ky (chicken) k k khO O khy (egg) kh k khOO khwaay (buffalo) kh k khOO rakhaN (bell) kh k NOO Nuu (snake) N N cOO caan (plate) c t chO O chN (small cymbals) ch t chOO chaN (elephant) ch t sOO so (chain) s t chOO (ka)ch (tree) ch t yOO yN (girl) y n dOO chdaa (theatrical crown) d t tOO patk (goad) t t thO O thaan (base) th t thOO monthoo (Indras Queen) th t thOO thw (old person) th t nOO neen (novice) n n dOO dk (child) d t tOO tw (turtle) t t thO O thuN (bag) th t thOO thahaan (soldier) th t thOO thoN (ag) th t nOO nuu (mouse) n n bOO bay may (leaf) b p pOO plaa (sh) p p phO O ph N (bee) ph p

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2The writing

system

12

fO O faa (lid) f p phOO phaan (tray) ph p fOO fan (tooth) f p phOO samphaw (sailing ship) ph p mOO ma (horse) m m yOO yk (giant) y y rOO ra (boat) r n lOO liN (monkey) l n wOO wE En (ring) w w sO O saalaa (pavilion) s t sO O rsi (ascetic) s t sO O s a (tiger) s t hO O hip (box) h - lOO culaa (kite) l n OO aN (bowl) zero* - hOO nk huk (owl) h -

*See 2.3.

The following table summarises the representation of nal consonantsounds; although there are theoretically fteen ways of writing a nal -t sound, less than half of these are likely to be encountered in normalusage.

Final consonant sound Thai consonant symbol

-p -t -k -m --n -N -y -w

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2.1Consonants

13

Consonants by class

Thai consonants are divided into three classes: high, mid and low. Theclass of the initial consonant is one factor in determining the tone of aword or syllable. In order to be able to read, the learner has to memo-rise the class of each consonant; the easiest way to do this is to memorisethe shorter lists of mid-class and high-class consonants so that everythingnot on those lists can be assumed to be low class.

Low class: n m N r l y w

kh ch s th ph f

kh th ph y n

ch th t l h

Mid class: k c d t b p zero d t

High class: kh ch th ph f s h th

Vowels

Vowel symbols can only be written in combination with a precedingconsonant; they can appear after, before, above, or below a consonant,and even surrounding the consonant on three sides; in the following table,a dash is used to indicate the position of the consonant. When a wordbegins with a vowel sound, the zero or glottal consonant symbol isused. (Note that the Thai letter representing zero consonant and the -OO vowel are identical.) Vowel length is important in Thai because itplays a part in determining the tone of a syllable; short vowels are indi-cated by a single letter in the transcription (e.g. -a, -i, -, -E) and longvowels by two letters (e.g. -aa, -uu, -); the diphthongs -ua, -ia, -a are

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regarded as long vowels. The following table lists the vowel symbols inalphabetical order:

Live syllables and dead syllables

Thai syllables are either live or dead. A live syllable (kham pen) endswith either a long vowel, or an m, n, N, w, or y sound; a dead syllable(kham taay) ends with either a short vowel, or a p, t, or k sound:

Live syllables: maa duu wan ram kN aw khaay

Dead syllables: t k d rp ct bOOk

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15

- -OO - -- -a - -e- -a- - -aw- -ua - -O- -aa - -- -am - -ia- -i - -ia- -ii - -a- - - -EE- - - -E- -u - -E- -uu - -oo- -ee - -o- -e - -ay- -y - -ay- -

Tone rules

The tone of a syllable is determined by a combination of three differentfactors: (i) the type of syllable (live or dead); (ii) the class of the initialconsonant (high, medium or low); and (iii) the length of the vowel (longor short).

Dead syllables

The following table summarises tone rules for dead syllables with examples:

Live syllables and tone marks

Live syllables with no tone mark are pronounced with a mid tone if theinitial consonant is either low class or mid class, but a rising tone if itis a high-class consonant.

To represent live syllables with high, falling and low tones (such as thewords tON must and my not), tone marks are used, which are writtenabove the initial consonant. The two most common tone marks are myek (-) and my thoo (-). Unfortunately for the learner, because of aradical change in the tone system that occurred centuries ago, these tonemarks do not indicate one specic tone each; again, it is the class of theinitial consonant which determines how the tone mark will be interpreted.

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Initial Short Longconsonant vowel vowel

Low class HIGH TONE FALLING TONE

rk mak

Mid class LOW TONE LOW TONE

tt bat

High class LOW TONE LOW TONE

khp sOOp

The following table summarises rules for live syllables with examples:

Two further tone marks, my trii (- ) and my cttawaa (-) are also used,although they are much less common. The former always produces a hightone, the latter, always a rising tone.

t ppsi ke

daw caa kuay taw

Silent initial consonants: and

When the high-class consonant occurs before the low-class consonants,, , , , , , , , it is silent but has the effect of transforming thelow-class consonants into high-class consonants; such words then followthe tone rules for words with initial high-class consonants (2.5.1, 2.5.2):

yt lOOt ni yN nN

The mid-class consonant occurs silently before the low-class consonant and has the effect of transforming the low-class consonant into a mid-class consonant. There are only four words in this category, all of whichare pronounced with a low tone:

yak ya yaN yu

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Initial (no tone my ek my thooconsonant mark)

Low class MID TONE FALLING TONE HIGH TONE

maa my ma

Mid class MID TONE LOW TONE FALLING TONE

taam tOO tO^N

High class RISING TONE LOW TONE FALLING TONE

khO O khy khaN

Consonant clusters

Consonant clusters occur only at the beginning of a syllable in Thai. In syl-lables beginning with a consonant cluster, the class of the rst consonantin the cluster is used for determining the tone of the syllable. The follow-ing chart summarises possible consonant cluster sounds with examples:

kr- ( krOOk) kl- ( kly) kw- ( kwaN)khr- ( khray) khl- ( khlay) khw- ( khwaa)tr- ( trat)pr- ( prap) pl- ( plk)phr- ( phr) phl- ( phlat)

Unwritten vowels

Monosyllables

Syllables consisting of two consonants with no written vowel symbol arepronounced with an inherent o vowel sound:

khon yk cp hk mt

Two-syllable words

Many two-syllable words in Thai have an unwritten a vowel in the rstsyllable. The rst syllable is unstressed and pronounced with a mid tonein normal speech; the tone of the second syllable is determined by thesecond consonant in the word (i.e. the initial consonant of the secondsyllable), unless that consonant is either , , , , , , or , inwhich case the rst consonant over-rules it and determines the tone:

sabaay sathaan saphap sank talk

There are a small number of words beginning with the letters -, inwhich the unwritten vowel sound is O:

bOrist bOriween bOrikaan bOrihaan bOriphok

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Miscellaneous

Mismatch between spelling and pronunciation

Overall, the match between spelling and pronunciation in Thai is remark-ably close; if you know the rules, you can almost guarantee that you willbe able to read a word correctly. However, two common types of mismatchbetween spelling and normal pronunciation, are:

1 Tone suggested by the spelling is not reected in pronunciation

Words written with rising tones but pronounced with high tones:

(he, she, they) written khaw but pronounced khw

(I) written chan but pronounced chn

(question particle) written may but pronounced my

Words written with falling tones but pronounced with low tones:

^ (advantage) written prayot but pronounced prayot

(sentence) written prayok but pronounced prayok

(history) written prawt but pronounced prawt

2 Vowel length in the written form is not reected in pronunciation

Words written with long vowels but pronounced with short vowels:

(must) written tOO^N but pronounced tON^

(money) written Nn but pronounced Nn

(you) written than but pronounced thn

Words written with short vowels but pronounced with long vowels:

(can, able to) written dy but pronounced day

(nine) written kw but pronounced kaw

(wood) written my but pronounced may

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Linker syllables and double-functioning consonants

A number of words that appear to consist of two syllables are joined bya linker syllable consisting of the nal consonant of the rst syllable withan unwritten a vowel between them:

skkaprk khunnaphap phonlamay ratchakaan

Silenced consonants

Thai words that have been borrowed from Sanskrit, Pali and Englishusually try to retain as much of the original spelling as possible; as thiswill often produce pronunciations that are impossible or misleading, akiller symbol is placed above the redundant consonant to indicate thatit may be ignored:

^ ^ ^ ^ ^bia b cOOn saw aatht

Sometimes the killer sign, called kaaran in Thai, cancels out not onlythe consonant above which it appears, but also the one immediatelypreceding it:

^ ^can sat

Sometimes, even though there is no kaaran sign, the nal consonant isnot pronounced:

bt samk

Silent nal vowels

A number of words of Indic origin are spelt with a nal short vowelwhich is not pronounced:

chat yat het

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Irregular

The letter , normally pronounced as an inital r and nal n, occurs in anumber of irregular combinations:

-

These two letters together at the beginning of a word behave like lowclass s:

sap saay soN

-

The letter is not pronounced in words that begin with these two letters:

saN suaN s

Final

As a nal consonant the letter is normally prounced n; in words wherethere is no immediately preceding written vowel, it is pronounced OOn:

phOOn nakhOOn lakhOOn

-

When the letters occur at the end of a syllable, they are pronouncedan; if they are followed by a nal consonant they are pronounced a:

san banthk kam phk

The letter is ignored in the pronunciation of the word (ciN).

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2.6.5.4

2.6.5.3

2.6.5.2

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The symbols | and &

The symbol | indicates the abbreviation of a word and occurs mostcommonly in the word kruNthep, the Thai name for Bangkok. The symbol& indicates the reduplication of the preceding word:

| & &kruNthep ph an ph an lk lk

Consonants . . . or what?

The four symbols below are listed in dictionaries as if they were conso-nants. Despite this, Thais tend to think of the Thai alphabet as having44 consonants, including 2 obsolete consonants in addition to the 42listed in 2.1, but excluding the symbols below.

r r l l

The rst symbol occurs in only a very small number of words (butincluding English where it has the value ri), while the latter three areunlikely to be encountered.

aNkrt English r duu season

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Nouns can be divided into two broad categories: proper nouns andcommon nouns.

Proper nouns

Proper nouns refer to unique things, such as personal names, place namesand names of institutions.

Personal names

Names of individuals follow the same order as in English, with the personalname preceding the family name. People are addressed, referred to andknown by their personal name rather than their family name; familynames are used primarily for administrative purposes. Most Thais willalso have a nickname, by which they will be known within the familyand among friends.

The polite title khun is used before the personal name, and sometimesthe nickname, to address both males and females of similar or higherstatus. Thus, Mr Suchart Boonsoong and Mrs Yupha Saibua will beknown as khun suchat and khun yuphaa respectively. Thais will oftenuse khun followed by the surname when addressing Westerners in formalsituations.

Place names

Individual place names, names of rivers, mountains and other geographicalfeatures, institutions, organisations, buildings, and so on, follow the noun

3.1.2

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Chapter 3

Nouns, classifiers andnoun phrases

identifying the type of place; an exception is Thailands oldest university,Chulalongkorn University, which deliberately reverses the order:

caNwt nakhOOn phanomNakhorn Phanom Province

phak iisaanNorth Eastern Region

mE E nam cw phrayaaChao Phraya River

maN thayThailand

thanon sukhumwt Sukhumwit Road

sanaam bin dOOn maNDon Muang Airport

mahaawtthayaalay thammasat^Thammasat University

culaaloNkOOn mahaawtthayaalay^Chulalongkorn University

Common nouns

Common nouns are traditionally divided into concrete nouns, which areobservable, such as house, and abstract nouns, which are not, such aslove.

Common nouns in Thai have a single xed form. Unlike many Europeanlanguages, no sufx is added to indicate plural or to show whether thenoun is the grammatical subject or object in a sentence; nor are nouns

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classied by gender. The word phan thus means either friend or friends,depending on the context. Usually the context provides sufcient infor-mation for there to be no confusion. When it is necessary to be morespecic, numbers or indenite quantier words, such as many, every, afew, can be used; a very small number of nouns may be reduplicated asa means of indicating plurality:

phom pay kp ph anI went with a friend/friends.

phom pay kp ph an sO ON khonI went with two friends.

phom pay kp ph an laay khonI went with several friends.

phom pay kp ph an ph an&I went with friends.

Making new nouns

Common nouns make up the largest part of the languages vocabularyand are an ever-growing category. New nouns have, and continue to,come into the language through borrowing from other languages andfrom the Thai languages own means of generating new words, chieythe process of compounding.

Borrowings

The Thai lexicon includes a considerable number of loan words, borrowedover the centuries from Khmer (Cambodian), the classical Indian lan-guages, Sanskrit and Pali and, more recently, English. In some instances aword of Indic (Sanskrit or Pali) origin is used in preference to a pure Thaiword to convey a sense of politeness, renement or formality:

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Informal Formal(Thai origin) (Indic origin)

phua saamii husband

mia phanrayaa wife

hua sis head

maN prathet country

maa sunk dog

There has been a huge inux of English borrowings over the past ftyyears, including scientic, technical and business terms and words asso-ciated with food, dress, arts, sports and other leisure activities. Thaispronunciation of English loanwords will depend very much on their levelof education and exposure to English; some English borrowings (e.g.pttk, the uneducated pronunciation of plastic, or bOn, the abbrevi-ated pronunciation of football) may be scarcely recognisable to an Englishnative speaker when adapted to the Thai sound system and assigned tones.Here is just a tiny sample of English words in everyday use in Thai:

kO p ^ golf

phlastk, pttk plastic

im ^ lm

satE m ^ stamp

khOmphiwt^ ^ computer

ftbOn, bOn football

ii-mee ^ email

mOOtsay ^^ motorcycle

Compounds

Compounding involves joining two or more words together to make anew word. The rst word or head noun may be followed by either anoun attribute or a verb attribute, which qualies or restricts themeaning of the head noun; in some compounds, a verb attribute is followedby a grammatical object:

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HEAD NOUN + NOUN ATTRIBUTE

rt fay train (vehicle + re)

ran aahaan restaurant (shop + food)

Nn dan salary (money + month)

chN fay fa electrician (mechanic + electricity)

HEAD NOUN + VERB (+ OBJECT) ATTRIBUTE

nm khE N ice (water + to be hard)

bt rian lesson (text + to study)

kham nE nam introduction (word + introduce)

khon khp rt driver (person + to drive + car)

khr aN sk pha washing machine (machine +to wash + clothes)

Some common head nouns

A number of head nouns occur either normally or exclusively in com-pounds; some common examples include the following:

nk (one skilled in . . .) + VERB or NOUN

nk sksaa student (sksaa to study)

nk khan writer (khan to write)

nk kiilaa sportsman, athlete (kiilaa sport)

nk thrkt businessman (thrkt business)

nk nNs phim ^ journalist (nNs phim newspaper)

phu (one who . . .) + VERB (but note last two examples with noun)

phu yy adult (yy to be big)phu chaw expert (chaw chaan to be

chaan skilled)

3.3.3.2

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3.3.3

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phu ray criminal (ray to be bad)

phu chaay man (chaay male)

phu yng woman (yng female)

bay (a sheet of paper) + VERB

bay rp rOON guarantee (rp rOON to guarantee)

bay sanyaa contract (sanyaa to promise)

bay anyat permit (anyat to permit)

bay khp khi driving (khp khi to drive)licence

bay st rp receipt (st rp Nn nish Nn receive money)

rooN (a large building) + NOUN or VERB

rooN rt garage (rt car)

rooN Naan factory (Naan work)

rooN naN cinema (naN lm, movie)

rooN rEEm hotel (rEEm to stay overnight)

rooN rian school (rian to study)

kaan (matters of . . . ) + NOUN; kaan (act of . . . )+ VERB

kaan ban homework (ban house, home)

kaan fay fa Electricity (fay fa electricity)Authority

kaan Nn nance (Nn money)

kaan maN politics (maN city, country)

kaan rksaa care, (rksaa to care for)preservation

kaan sksaa education (sksaa to study)

3.3.3.5

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kaan chay assistance (chay l a to assist)l a

kaan dn travel (dn thaaN to travel)thaaN

The pattern kaan + VERB in many instances corresponds to the Englishgerund, or verbal noun, and it occurs commonly in written Thai:

kaan kin eating (kin to eat)

kaan rp ghting (rp to ght)

kaan rian studying (rian to study)

kaan phut speaking (phut to speak)

In normal spoken Thai, however, the English gerund construction is morenaturally conveyed simply by the verb without kaan:

kin taam ran aahaan phEENEating in restaurants is expensive.

rian nNs my sankStudying is not fun.

phut phaasaa thay yakSpeaking Thai is difcult.

khwaam (used to form abstract nouns ) + VERB

khwaam rk love (rk to love)

khwaam ru knowledge (ru to know)

khwaam kht idea (kht to think)

khwaam samrt success (samrt to complete)

khwaam sk happiness (sk to be happy)

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thi (person whom one . . . , place where . . . , thing which . . .) + VERB

thi prksaa adviser (prksaa to consult)

thi ph N benefactor (ph N to depend, rely on)

thi rk darling (rk to love)

thi yu address (yu to live)

thi tham Naan place of (tham Naan towork work)

thi nN seat (nN to sit)

thi cOOt rt car park (cOOt rt to park car)

thi ral k souvenir (ral k to think of)

thi cO kradat paper punch (cO kradat to punchholes paper)

thi p t khat bottle (p t khat to openopener bottle)

Co-ordinate compounds

Two or more nouns can occur together to make a new noun in a co-ordinate compound where the second noun does not modify the rst:

phO O mE E parents (father mother)

phi nO ON brothers and sisters (older sibling younger sibling)

s a pha clothes (upper garment lower garment)

Often such compounds involve a four-syllable pattern, which may involveone or more of the following features: duplication of the rst and thirdelements, internal rhyme, alliteration or the insertion of a meaninglesssyllable to preserve the rhythm.

pu ya taa yaay grandparents(paternal grandfather paternal grandmother maternalgrandfather maternal grandmother)

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chaaw ry chaaw naa farmers(people dry rice eld people wet rice eld)

chaaw khaw chaaw dOOy mountain people (people hill people mountain)

nm phk nm rEEN ones own effort/labour (water rest water energy)

khruu baa aacaan ^ teachers(teacher rhyming nonsense syllable teacher)

wt waa aaraam wats/temples(temple alliterative/rhyming nonsense syllable temple buildings)

Noun phrases and classiers

When a noun is accompanied by one or more modifying words, such asthree cars, that car or the red car, it is called a noun phrase. Nounphrases in Thai frequently involve the use of a class of words called clas-siers.

Classiers are an obligatory component of noun phrases containingnumerals. In both English and Thai, uncountable nouns, such as rice,beer and silk may be counted by the kilo, the bottle or the metre; inThai these measure words are regarded as classiers. Thai differs fromEnglish in that it uses classiers for countable nouns such as friends,dogs and books, where English simply places the number before thenoun. A rare exception in English is cattle which are counted by thehead; head functions like a Thai classier. Every noun in Thai is countedby a specic classier; thus khon is used for counting people, tua foranimals and lm for books:

ph an sO ON khontwo friends (friends two classier)

maa ha tuave dogs (dogs ve classier)

nNs sp lmten books (books ten classier)

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Some of the most common classiers, and the nouns they are used with,are:

an small objectsbaan doors, windows, mirrorsbay fruit, eggs, leaves, cups, bowls, slips of paper,

documents

chabp letters, newspapers, documentschant types, kinds, sorts (of things)chn pieces (of cake, meat, cloth, work)cht sets of thingsch ak elephantsdOOk owers, keysduaN stamps, stars, lamps, lights, heartsfOON eggshEN placeshOO packages, bundleshO N roomskhabuan trains, processionskhan vehicles, spoons, forkskhon people (except monks and royalty)khO O items, clauses, points (e.g. in a contract or

formal statement)

khu pairs (e.g. shoes, socks, married couples, butnot trousers)

khr aN telephones, TVs, radios, computers, etc.lam boats, aeroplaneslaN houseslm books, kniveslOOt light bulbs, tubes (e.g. toothpaste)luk fruit, ballsmt seeds, pills, buttons

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muan cigarettes, cigarsman cassettes, videos, reels of lm, rolls of paperoN ^ members of royalty, Buddha imagesphEn at objects, sheets of paper, recordsrup pictures, monksran clocks, watchesr aN storiessaay bus routes, railway lines, roadssn long, thin items; strands of hair, necklaces,

noodles

si teethtn trees, plantstua animals, chairs, tables, items of clothing,

including trousers

yaN types, kinds, sorts (of things)

In addition, measure words such as kilo, inch and month, and containerssuch as bottle, bowl and bag also function as classiers.

Classiers occur not only with cardinal numbers, but also with otherquantiers (ordinal numbers, indenite quantiers and how many?),demonstratives (this, that, these, those and which?) and adjectives.

Word order in noun phrases

The following list is not exhaustive but covers the most common patternsof noun phrase:

NOUN + CARDINAL NUMBER + CLASSIFIER

For cardinal numbers, see 13.1.

luk saam khonthree children

3.5.1

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ban si laNfour houses

nNs hk lmsix books

The word nN (one) can occur either before the classier or after it; whenit occurs before the classier it functions as the numeral one, and whenit occurs after the classier it can be treated as the indenite article a,describing the noun:

luk nN khonone child

luk khon nNa child

NOUN + QUANTIFIER + CLASSIFIER

For quantiers, see 13.12; note that some quantiers do not occur withclassiers.

farN baaN khonsome farangs (Westerners)

plaa thk chantevery kind of sh

ctmaay my ki chabpnot many letters

NOUN + CLASSIFIER + ORDINAL NUMBER

For ordinal numbers, see 13.3.

luk khon thi saamthe third child

3.5.3

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ban laN thi sO ONthe second house

nNs lm rE Ekthe rst book

NOUN + CLASSIFIER + DEMONSTRATIVE

Demonstratives are words like ni (this/these), nn (that/those), non(that/those over there) and the question word nay? (which?):

luk khon nithis child

s a tua nnthat blouse

ban laN nonthat house over there

nNs lm nay?which book?

The noun is often dropped in spoken Thai when the context is unambig-uous, as in the response below:

aw s a tua nay?Which blouse do you want?

tua nn That one.

The classier is also often dropped in spoken Thai:

s a nn my suayThat blouse isnt pretty.

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NOUN + CARDINAL NUMBER + CLASSIFIER+ DEMONSTRATIVE

luk saam khon nithese three children

s a sO ON tua nnthose two blouses

NOUN + ADJECTIVE

aahaan phtspicy food

nNs kwan old book

ban yya big house

NOUN + ADJECTIVE + CLASSIFIER + DEMONSTRATIVE

nNs kw lm nnthat old book

ban yy laN nnthat big house

NOUN + ADJECTIVE + CARDINAL NUMBER + CLASSIFIER (+ DEMONSTRATIVE)

nNs kw sO ON lm (ni)()(these) two old books

3.5.8

3.5.7

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ban yy ha laN (nn)()(those) ve big houses

NOUN + ADJECTIVE + CLASSIFIER + ORDINAL NUMBER

nNs kw lm thi sO ON

the second old book

ban yy laN thi saamthe third big house

NOUN + CLASSIFIER + ADJECTIVE

This pattern is used to distinguish the noun referred to from other membersof the same class:

s a tua mythe new shirt

nNs lm kwthe old book

NOUN + NOUN

Some nouns can be used adjectivally to modify the preceding noun:

tamrat phu sOOp suanthe investigating police ofcer (policeman one who investigate)

kharatchakaan chn phu yya high-ranking civil servant (civil servant rank senior person)

3.5.11

3.5.10

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37

NOUN + (khO ON) + POSSESSOR

In possessive phrases, khOON (of ) is optional and is very frequentlyomitted:

ban (khO ON) chn()my house

luk (khO ON) khw()his child

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Personal pronouns: basics

Thai has many more personal pronouns than English; age, social status,gender, the relationship between the speakers, the formality of the situ-ation and individual personality all play a part in helping a Thai to decidethe most appropriate way to refer to him/herself and address and referto others in any situation.

Kin terms (aunt, older brother), status/occupation terms (teacher, doctor)and personal names or nicknames are also commonly used as personalpronouns.

As a starting point for learners, the personal pronoun system can besimplied to the following:

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Chapter 4

Pronouns

phom I/me (male)chn I/me (female; informal)dichn I/me (female; formal)

raw we/us

khun you (sing. and plur.)

thn you (sing. and plur.); he/him, she/her,they/them. To address or refer to people ofsignicantly higher social status

khw he/him; she/her; they/them

man it

Note that male and female speakers use a different word for I/me, whilea single third person pronoun in Thai covers he/him, she/her, they/them. Usage of these and other pronouns is discussed in more detail inthe next section.

Pronouns have a single form for subject and object:

phom chO Op khwI like him/her/them.

khw chO Op phomHe/she/they like(s) me.

The plural reference of a pronoun can be claried or made explicit by(a) a number or other quantier expression or (b) the pluralizer wordphak (group):

raw saam khonthe three of us

khun thN sO ON (khon)()the two/both of you

khw thN laayall of them

phak rawwe, us, us lot

Pronouns are frequently omitted when it is clear from the context whois speaking, being addressed or being referred to:

pay phrN ni

Im/were/hes/shes/theyre going tomorrow. (lit. go tomorrow)

chO Op my?

Do you/do they/does he/she like it? (lit. like + question particle)

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In these and many of the other examples in this book, an arbitrary choiceof pronoun is supplied in the English translation. Since pronouns reectrelative status and intimacy, a speaker can, by omission, avoid the possi-bility of using an inappropriate pronoun. But the omission of pronounsis not simply a strategy for the cautious to avoid linguistic faux pas; itis also a means of denying or avoiding the behavioural or attitudinalexpectations of intimacy or deference implicit in the use of any pronoun.

More personal pronouns

Thais will use a much wider range of pronouns than those given in theprevious section. Some of these are given below with an indication ofwhether they are specically male (M) or female (F) pronouns and thecontext in which they are used; certain rst person pronouns are normallypaired with a specic second person pronoun. Note that some pronouns(e.g. thn and thEE) function as both second and third person pronouns:

phom M 1st person; general pronoun that can be used in most situations,ranging from polite to intimate; notused with young children.

kraphom M 1st person; highly deferential.dichn F 1st person; very formal, often

avoided because it creates distancebetween speaker and addressee.

chn M/F 1st person; commonly used by female speakers as a less formal,more friendly variant of dichn; alsoused by males as an expression ofintimacy, when it is paired with th,and when speaking to children.

khaphacw M/F 1st person pronoun used formally in public statements and ofcialdocuments.

raw M /F 1st person plural; also used as 1stperson singular pronoun in informalspeech by both males and females.

4.1.1

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41

nuu M/F 1st/2nd person pronoun used bychildren talking to adults; literallymeans rat; used by girls and youngwomen to superiors, for example,female students to teachers,secretaries to bosses, etc.

kuu M/F 1st person pronoun used mainly bymales as a male-bonding pronoun ininformal situations, such as drinkingand brothel visits; also used to showanger; paired with mN ().

a M 1st person pronoun, from Teochiudialect of Chinese; used mainly bymales with close friends as aninformal pronoun; paired with l ().

kha M 1st person pronoun; used mainly by males with close friends as aninformal pronoun; paired with eN ().

ay M/F 1st person pronoun; from English I;infomal, paired with yuu ().

kan M 1st person pronoun; used among close male friends; paired with kEE().

khun M/F 2nd person, sing. and plur.; polite,formal use among equals; also usedas a polite title before names, kinterms and certain occupations.

thn M/F 2nd/3rd person, sing. and plur.; to address or refer to people ofsignicantly higher social status; alsoused as a deferential title with certainhigh status positions.

th M/F 2nd/3rd person, sing. and plur.; as a 2nd person pronoun it is paired withchn and signals a relationship ofcloseness; as a 3rd person pronoun itusually refers to a female.

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khw M/F 3rd person, sing. and plur.; also a 1stperson pronoun, used among girlsand between husband and wife, whenit is paired with tua ().

kEE M/F 3rd person, sing. and plur.; also as a2nd person intimate pronoun amongmembers of the same sex, when it ispaired with chn (F) or kan (M).

man it; regarded as unrened and oftenavoided in polite, formal speech andwriting; used widely in informalsituations including to refer topeople, either derogatively orfamiliarly.

Kin terms as personal pronouns

Kin terms are commonly used as pronouns. A father, for example, willrefer to himself as phOO (father) rather than phom (I) when talking tohis son and address his son as luk (child) rather than khun (you):

phO O my chO OpI (father speaking) dont like it.

luk pay nay?

Where are you (parent addressing child) going?

Kin terms can be used as rst, second or third person pronouns; thus,depending on the context, the sentence phOO maw lw can mean (a) I(father speaking) am drunk; (b) You (addressing father) are drunk; or (c)He (referring to father) is drunk.

The use of kin terms extends to include those who are not blood rela-tions; by addressing an elderly man as luN (uncle) or a friend or colleagueas phi (older brother/sister) the speaker immediately creates an atmos-phere of congeniality. Thus phi has a particularly wide range of use,which includes wives addressing their husbands, service-industry workersaddressing customers and complete strangers striking up a conversationwith someone older.

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Kin terms are often followed by personal names or nicknames (see 4.1.3).They can also be preceded by the polite title khun as a sign of furtherrespect; thus children may address and refer to their parents as khunphOO and khun m (or collectively, as khun phOO khun m) and addressa younger friend of their father as khun aa (uncle/aunt).

The kin terms most commonly used as personal pronouns are:

phO O father

mE E mother

phi older brother/sister

nO ON younger brother/sister

luk child

laan grandchild; niece/nephew

pa aunt (older sister of parents)

luN uncle (older brother of parents)

na aunt/uncle (younger brother/sister of mother)

aa aunt/uncle (younger brother/sister of father)

pu grandfather (fathers father)

ya grandmother (fathers mother)

taa grandfather (mothers father)

yaay grandmother (mothers mother)

Personal names as personal pronouns

Personal names or nicknames are also commonly used as personalpronouns. Using ones name or more commonly, nickname instead of anI word is characteristic of female speech but much less common amongmen. When used as second or third person pronouns, names and nick-names can be preceded by khun or a kin term, such as phi, as a signof deference:

tO y my sap kh

I (Toi speaking) dont know.

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khun suwannii waN my? Are you (addressing Suwannee) free?

khun an klp ban lE Ew(Khun) Uan has gone home.

phi s ca pay day my?

Is (older sister) Su going too?

Occupation and status terms as personal pronouns

A number of occupation terms are commonly used instead of pronouns.In the medical and education worlds the following occupation terms areused not only as second or third person pronouns, when addressing orreferring to individuals, but also as rst person pronouns to mean I:

aacaan ^ teacher, university lecturerkhruu teachermO O doctorphayabaan nurse

Note that when addressing teachers or doctors, the polite title khuncommonly precedes khruu and mOO.

Taxi drivers, however, do not refer to themselves as thksi; the followingoccupation terms are used only as second and third person pronouns:

krapaw bus conductorsaamlO O pedicab driverthE ksi taxi drivertk tk motorized pedicab driver

The occupants of certain high-ranking positions, such as ambassadors,director generals, rectors, ministers and prime ministers are often addressedand referred to using the deferential title thn before their position, oran abbreviated form of it:

thn thut Ambassadorthn thbOdii Director General

4.1.4

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thn thkaan | (University) Rectorthn rtthamontrii Ministerthn naayk | Prime Minister

Monks and monarchs: sacred pronouns

When speaking to monks or royalty, further complicated sets of pronounsare used, which vary according the ecclesiastical or royal rank of the indi-vidual. The learner needs to be aware that an ordinary monk will addressa non-monk as yoom and will refer to himself as attamaa. The non-monk should use the polite formal rst person pronouns phom, (males)or dichn (females) and address or refer to the monk as luaN phOO orluaN taa (for older monks), luaN phi or luaN na (for younger monks),or simply by the deferential second person pronoun, thn:

attamaa I (monk speaking)yoom you (monk speaking)luaN phO O you/he (layman addressing/referring to a monk)luaN phi you/he (layman addressing/referring to a monk)

Using the complex system of royal pronouns correctly is a dauntingprospect even for the vast majority of educated Thais. At the simplestlevel, one should refer to oneself as khaphraphtthacw (Your Majestysservant) when addressing the King or other high-ranking members ofroyalty, and use tayfalaOONthliiphrabat as a second person pronounto the King and tayfalaOONphrabat to other high-ranking members ofroyalty; both terms can be translated as dust under sole of royal foot.Members of royalty, unlike monks, do not use special pronouns whentalking to ordinary people.

khaphraphtthacwI (to King)

tayfalaOONthliiphrabatyou (to King)

tayfalaOONphrabatyou (to high-ranking royalty)

4.1.5

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Reexive pronouns

The reexive pronoun, tua (body) is used with rst, second and thirdpersons. It occurs in such verbs as:

ciam tua to be self-effacing

khaay tua to sell oneself

khayaay tua to expand

khO O tua to excuse oneself

ln tua to play hard to get

lm tua to forget oneself

prp tua to adapt oneself

ru tua to be aware

san tua to put oneself forward

sa tua to lose ones virginity

sa sal tua to sacrice oneself

sO On tua to hide oneself

tEN tua to get dressed

triam tua to prepare oneself

thOOm tua to be self-effacing

th tua to be aloof

The verb to kill oneself/commit suicide is irregular, translating literallyas kill body/self dead:

kha tua taay to commit suicide

For a smaller category of verbs, the reexive pronoun must be followedby the emphatic pronoun eeN (self ):

chay tua eeN to help oneself

duu lEE tua eeN to look after oneself

mn cay tua eeN to be self-condent

mOON tua eeN to look at oneself

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phuum cay tua eeN to be proud of oneself

ph N tua eeN to rely on oneself

thaam tua eeN to ask oneself

wat rup tua eeN to draw a picture of oneself

The idea of doing something by oneself uses either day (by) tua eeNor day ton eeN; the latter is less common in speech and carries a slightlyformal or literary avour:

phom sO Om rt day tua eeNI mended the car by myself.

raw tham day tua eeNWe did it by ourselves.

khw rian day ton eeNHe studied by himself.

Emphatic pronoun

The emphatic pronoun eeN (self ) is used with rst, second and thirdpersons; it occurs in the following patterns, each conveying a slightlydifferent shade of emphasis:

PERSONAL PRONOUN + eeN + VERB

phom eeN thamI myself did it.

PERSONAL PRONOUN + VERB + eeN

phom tham eeNI did it myself.

4.3.2

4.3.1

4.3

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PERSONAL PRONOUN + eeN + pen khon + VERB

phom eeN pen khon thamI myself was the one who did it.

tua + PERSONAL PRONOUN + eeN + VERB

tua phom eeN thamI myself did it.

eeN also occurs after demonstratives to convey the sense of the very same(one), precisely:

ph an khon ni eeNthis very friend

wan nn eeNthat very day

daw ni eeNright now

saam rO Oy bat thwnn eeNjust three hundred baht

Reciprocal: each other

The reciprocal pronoun each other/one another is expressed by thepattern SUBJECT + VERB (PHRASE) + kan (together):

khw rk kanThey love each other.

raw tO N chay kanWe must help one another.

4.4

4.3.4

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4.4Reciprocal:each other

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Possessive pronouns

The possessive pronouns mine, yours, his, etc. are formed using khOON(of) + PERSONAL PRONOUN:

khO ON chnMine.

khO ON khun suayYours is pretty.

rt nn khO ON khwThat car is his.

Demonstrative pronouns

There are three demonstrative pronouns, ni (this one), nn (that one)and non sometimes pronounced nun (that one over there):

ni my suayThis one isnt pretty.

non khO ON khray?Whose is that one over there?

Demonstrative pronouns also occur in these common idiomatic expres-sions:

ni yaNNayHere you are (when giving someone something).

nn n sExactly! Thats right!

tEE nn lEeven so; nevertheless

4.6

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Interrogative pronouns

For the use of interrogative pronouns (listed below) in questions, see 12.2:

khray? who?

aray? what?

m ary? when?

thi nay? where?

nay? which?

yaNNay? how?

thwry? how much?

Indenite pronouns

Interrogative pronouns also act as the indenite pronouns, somebody,something, somewhere, etc.

Somebody, anybody, nobody

khray as an indenite pronoun means somebody, anybody, whoever;my mii khray (there is not anyone) means nobody:

phom khuy kp khray khon nNI chatted to somebody.

chn my dy phop khrayI didnt meet anybody.

mii khray ca kin my?Is anybody going to eat?

khray st pay dayWhoever is nished can go.

4.8.1

4.8

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4.8Indenitepronouns

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my mii khray ru

Nobody knows.

Something, anything, nothing

aray as an indenite pronoun means something, anything, whatever,my mii aray (there is not anything) means nothing:

khw yak s aray baaN yaNShe wants to buy something.

khun yak kin aray my?Do you want to eat anything?

phom my dy phut arayI didnt say anything.

my mii aray na son cay

There is nothing interesting.

Whenever

mary as an indenite pronoun means whenever; it can occur eitherbefore or after the verb in the rst clause:

kin m ary kO thO ON sa

Whenever I eat it, I get diarrhoea.

m ary waN thoo maa haaWhenever you are free, phone me.

Somewhere, anywhere, nowhere

thi nay as an indenite pronoun means somewhere, anywhere, wher-ever; note that when it immediately follows the verb pay (to go) theword thi is frequently dropped:

4.8.4

4.8.3

4.8.2

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chn yak pay yu thi nay thi N ap N ap

&I want to go and live somewhere quietish.

yak pay nay my?Do you want to go anywhere?

my yak pay nayI dont want to go anywhere.

Whichever

nay as an indenite pronoun means whichever one; it always follows aclassier and normally occurs with kO day (4.8.7):

phom ca s an nay kO day thi my phEENIll buy whichever one is not expensive.

However

yaNNay as an indenite pronoun means however, whatever way; italways follows a verb:

tham yaNNay kO phlat thk thii

However I do it, I always make a mistake.

Indenite pronouns with kO^ day

Indenite pronouns occur before kO day to show amenability or indif-ference, as in expressions such as whoever/whenever/whatever you like.Note that the vowel in day is long although it is written in Thai scriptas a short vowel:

sN aray kO day

Order whatever you like.

4.8.7

4.8.6

4.8.5

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bOOk khray kO dayTell whoever you like.

raw php kan m ary kO dayWell meet whenever you like.

raw pay nay kO day

We can go anywhere you like.

s an nay kO day

Buy whichever one you like.

kin yaNNay kO day

You can eat it however you like.

hy thwry kO day

You can give however much you like.

Relative pronouns

A single relative pronoun thi is used to refer to people, places and things:

khw pen khon thi cayHe is the one who paid.

ban thi khw yu lkThe house where they live is small.

klay thi khw s phEENThe bananas which she bought are expensive.

sN can be used interchangeably with thi but it is a rather formal-soundingword and much less common in spoken Thai:

chaN s N mii sO ON praphet . . . . . .Elephants, of which there are two kinds, . . .

4.9

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an also functions rather like a relative pronoun, in a formal, stylisedlinking of noun and adjective (or stative verb); it cannot link a noun andan action verb:

rt an suay Naama beautiful car

lok an kwaN yythe wide world

Naan an nk naaa heavy task

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Thai is a verb-oriented language, often using verbs where English usesnouns (3.3.3.5) or prepositions. Verbs have a single form: they are notinected for number or tense. Thus pay can mean go, went, will go,etc.; ambiguity can be avoided by the addition of time expressions, suchas yesterday or next week or auxiliary verbs and particles (5.3), butoften the context alone is sufcient to clarify the situation. A commonfeature of Thai is verb serialization (5.13).

The verb to be

Thai uses several different verbs to translate English is/are, was/were,etc; the most important are pen, kh, mii and yu.

pen

When pen means to be it is always followed by a noun or noun phrase;it cannot be followed by an adjective (see 5.2):

khw pen ph anHe is a friend.

mE^E pen khon thayMy mother is Thai.

phi saaw pen khruuHer sister is a teacher.

5.1.1

5.1

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Chapter 5

Verbs

When pen means to be, unlike other verbs, it cannot be negated byplacing the negative word my immediately before it. Instead, the nega-tive form is not is either my chy or my dy pen; of these, the formeris neutral in tone, while the latter conveys the sense of contradicting aspoken or unspoken assumption:

khw my chy khon ameerikanHe isnt American.

my chy phomIt wasnt me.

khw my dy pen ph anHes not a friend.

For a summary of different usages of pen, see Appendix 2.

kh

kh means is equal to or namely and it is used when giving expla-nations, clarications and denitions; it is also used as a hesitation device.kh does not occur in the negative:

saam bak kp si kh ctThree plus four is seven.

mii panhaa saam yaN kh . . . . . .There are three problems, namely . . .

kham maN kh phaasaa thi khon chiaNmy phutKham Muang is the language people in Chiangmai speak.

kh yaN ni n . . .Its like this, right?

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5.1The verb to be

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In some instances, such as introductions and identifying people inphotographs, pen and kh are interchangeable:

ni kh/pen saamii chnThis is my husband.

somchaay pen/kh khray?Who is Somchai?

Note, however, that pen, not kh, is used in the contrastive construc-tion my chy . . ., pen . . . (its not . . ., its . . .):

my chy yaN nn, pen yaN ni Its not like that, its like this.

my chy fEEn pen nO ON saaw She is not his girlfriend. She is his younger sister.

mii

mii (to have) is also used to translate there is/there are; often, espe-cially in written Thai, it occurs after the topic (9.1):

mii nk rian si rO Oy khonThere are four hundred pupils.

my mii weelaaThere isnt time.

khon thay thi phut phaasaa farNset day dii mii nO OyThere are few Thais who can speak French well.(people Thai who speak language French can well there are few)

5.1.3

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yu

yu (to be situated at) is used to describe the location of things:

ban khun yu thi nay?Where is your house?

yu nay tu yenIts in the fridge.

Stative verbs

Adjectives in Thai also function as stative verbs (verbs which describe astate rather than an action). Thus lk is both the adjective small andthe verb to be small:

ban lka small house/The house is small.

s a suaya pretty blouse/The blouse is pretty.

aahaan phEENexpensive food/The food is expensive.

Adjectives occur only rarely with the verb pen (to be); the followingidiomatic expressions are exceptional:

pen haN to be concerned

pen sot to be single, unmarried

pen yy to be in charge of

Verb compounds

Many verbs, such as tN Naan (to get married), are made up of twowords and are called verb compounds. Verb compounds in Thai canconsist of (a) VERB + NOUN; (b) NOUN + VERB; or (c) VERB + VERB:

5.3

5.2

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5.3Verbcompounds

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VERB + NOUN

khw cay to understand (to enter + heart)

dii cay to be happy (good + heart)

tEN Naan to marry/be married (to arrange + work/party)

tham Naan to work (to do + work)

NOUN + VERB

cay dii to be kind (heart + good)

cay yen to be calm (heart + cool)

pak ray to be malicious (mouth + bad)

hua khE N to be stubborn (head + hard)

VERB + VERB

plan plEEN to change (change + change)

prap thap to compare (compare + compare)

t yak to be starving (go without + want)

duu lEE to look after (see + watch)

tk loN to agree (fall + descend)

dn ln to go for a walk (walk + play)

phut ln to joke (speak + play)

Verb compounds are negated by the pattern my + VERB COMPOUND(11.1):

phom my prap thapIm not comparing.

Resultative verbs

A number of verbs, such as nOOn lp to sleep (lie down + sleep) andmOON hen to see (look at + see) resemble verb compounds as they consist

5.4

5.3.3

5.3.2

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5Verbs

60

of two verbs. They differ in that the second verb describes a state thatresults from the action of the rst verb; thus, sleep results from lyingdown and seeing from looking. Verb compounds and verb + resultativeverb constructions are negated differently (11.1, 11.2).

lp and hen occur as resultative verbs only with nOOn and mOONrespectively. Other verbs have a much less restricted role as resultativeverbs. These include the completive verbs, st (to nish), cp (tocomplete), mt (to be all used up/gone), the directional verbs khn(to rise), loN (to descend), khw (to enter) and OOk (to leave) (see5.5), and words such as than (to be in time) and thuk (to be correct,accurate):

chn tham aahaan st lE EwIve nished cooking.

khw an nNs cp lE EwHes nished the book.

phom chy Nn mt lE EwIve spent all my money.

khun ca pay than my?Will you get there in time?

Resultative verbs are negated by the pattern, VERB (PHRASE) + my +RESULTATIVE VERB (11.2):

chn mOON aray my henI cant see anything.

Directional verbs

The verbs pay (to go) and maa (to come) are used after a number ofverbs or verb phrases as direction markers to indicate whether the actionof the verb is directed towards or away from the speaker. They commonlyfollow such verbs as dEEn (to walk), klp (to return), yay (to movehome), thoo(rasp) (to telephone), aw/phaa (to take), plan (to

5.5

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change), and sN (to send). Some verbs conveying a sense of loss, suchas haay (to disappear) and lm (to forget) occur only with pay:

raw yay maa yu kruNthep tNtEE chn yaN dk|We moved (here) to Bangkok when I was still a child.

wan saw na raw ca khp rt pay hua hn^Next Saturday well drive to Hua Hin.

phrN ni khw ca aw nNs maa hy duuTomorrow hell bring the book to show me.

khun ca phaa luk saaw pay day l ?Youre taking your daughter with you, then?

chn lm pay lE EwIve forgotten.

m a chaw ni chn thoo(rasp) pay khuy kp phi saaw(^)I phoned your sister this morning.

Note, however, that in the expression, Ill ring you back, the directionalverb is maa:

yen yen chn ca thoo(rasp) maa my & (^)Ill ring you back in the evening.

pay and maa sometimes occur in the pattern VERB + pay + VERB + maa,where the same verb is repeated, to convey the idea of the action occur-ring repetitively back and forth:

phom dn pay dn maa sp naathiiI walked back and forth for ten minutes.

raw khuy pay khuy maa thN khn

We chatted (back and forth) all night long.

khw chO Op plan pay plan maaHe likes chopping and changing.

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Other common directional verbs are khn (to rise), loN (to descend),khw (to enter) and OOk (to leave):

khw piin kh n tnmay

He climbed up the tree.

chn wN loN bandayI ran down the stairs.

raw dn khw hO N

We entered the room.

khw rip OOk payHe hurried out.

In negative sentences directional verbs are not negated; note, how-ever, that khn, loN, khw and OOk also function as resultative verbs(11.2):

khw yk my kh n

He cant lift it.

chn kin my loNI cant eat it.

phom phut my OOk

I cant put it into words.

phom sy my khwI cant put it in.

Modal verbs

Modal verbs are auxiliary verbs which express such ideas as possibility,probability, ability, necessity, volition and obligation. Most Thai modalverbs can be followed by the particle ca; they are negated according toone of three different patterns (11.3).

5.6

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5.6Modal verbs

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Possibility and probability

The main modal verbs used for expressing possibility and probability are:

at (ca) () may/might

khoN (ca) () will probably, sure to

yO m (ca) () likely to

mk (ca) () tends to, usually

hen (ca) () seems that

They all occur before the main verb and are negated by the patternMODAL VERB (+ ca) + my + VERB (PHRASE):

raw at (ca) pay duu naNWe may go to see a lm.

khw khoN (ca) my maa()He probably wont come.

Ability and permission

The word can can be translated by three Thai modal verbs day, penand way. All three verbs occur after the main verb and are negated bythe pattern VERB (PHRASE) + my + MODAL VERB.

VERB (PHRASE) + day

day conveys the sense of both ability and permission:

raw klp maa phrN ni dayWe can come back tomorrow.

phom chay khw my dayI cant help her.

khO O ym rt khun day my?Can I borrow your car?

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5.6.2

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5Verbs

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The following idomatic expressions are also commonly used when talkingabout possibility:

pen pay day Its possible.

pen pay my day Its impossible.

pen pay day my? Is it possible?

Note that day, although written with a short vowel in Thai, is pronouncedwith a long vowel.

VERB (PHRASE) + pen

pen conveys the sense of knowing how to do something:

khw phut phaasaa thay penHe speaks/can speak Thai.

phom tham aahaan my penI cant cook.

khun khp rt pen my?Can you drive?

VERB (PHRASE) + way

way conveys the sense of being physically able to do something:

klay pay chn dn my way

Its too far. I cant walk.

rawaN nk n yk way my? Be careful, its heavy. Can you lift it?

Necessity: must and need

Necessity can be expressed by the following modal verbs which all occurbefore the main verb:

(ca) tO N () must

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5.6Modal verbs

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tO Nkaan (ca) () need

campen (ca) () necessary to

campen tO N necessary