Vocabulary

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Lesson Transcript

Intro

Hi everybody! Jay here. Welcome to Ask a Teacher, where I’ll answer some of your most common Thai questions.
The Question
The question for this lesson is: How do I use เลย looei in Thai sentences?
Explanation
The word เลย looei has various meanings in Thai and is used differently depending on the context of the sentence. Today we’ll learn about its meanings and how you can use them in sentences and everyday conversations.
The first use of เลย looei is for emphasis in a statement sentence. This is when you want to exaggerate one part of your sentence. For instance, ไม่มีเลย mâi mii looei (“(I) don’t have any.”), or in proper sentence, หมาไม่กินข้าวเลย mǎa mâi gin khâo looei (“The dog is not eating anything”). This is put at the end of a statement to make the sentence sound more extreme and to put stress on the action of “not eating.” Compare this to หมาไม่กินข้าว mǎa mâi gin khâo (“The dog is not eating”), which is a plain statement without any stress on the action.
Another use of the word is to mean “further” or “beyond.” This is usually when you’re asking or giving directions. For example, someone asked ห้องน้ำอยู่ไหน hâawng nám yùu nǎi. (“Where is the toilet?”) The answer might be เลยร้านนี้ไป looei râan níi bpai. (“It’s further down this shop.”) Notice how we put เลย looei at the beginning and before the noun, ร้านนี้ (“this shop”). This changed the meaning of the word to mean “further” or “beyond” contextually. When using this เลย, it’s always followed by a noun or place. The noun doesn’t necessarily have to be at the beginning of the sentence. For example, ขับรถเลยทางออก khàp rót looei thaang àawk (“(I) drive beyond the road exit”).
The last use of เลย looei is to use it as a result of something. Let me clarify: เลย looei can be used as a conjunction word. For example, ร้านทำผมปิด ฉันเลยไปตลาดแทน râan tham phŏm bpìt chǎn looei bpai dtà-làat thaaen (“The salon was closed so I went to the market instead”). Now in this sentence, เลย looei is put in between two statements to mean “as a result of something.”

Outro

Pretty interesting, right?
If you have any more questions, please leave a comment below!
Bye! สวัสดีค่ะ (sà-wàt-dii khâ)

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