Learn some basic question words in Thai
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Intro |
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| 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: What are some basic question words in Thai? |
| Explanation |
| Learning to ask questions in Thai can be very beneficial for you. It’ll help you build up your language ability and can help in your everyday life in Thailand. Today, I’ll teach you some very useful words for asking questions in Thai. |
| Just like English language, in Thai we have different words for “who,” “what,” “where,” “when,” “why,” and “how.” If you’re familiar with the English form, it’ll be very easy to learn these in Thai. There’s only one minor difference in usage. |
| These question words in Thai are อะไร (“What”) à-rai, เมื่อไหร่ (“When”) mûuea rài, ที่ไหน (“Where”) thîi-nǎi, ทำไม (“Why”) tham-mai, ใคร(“Who”) khrai, แบบไหน(“How”) bàaep năi, อย่างไร(“How”) yàang rai, and finally บ่อยแค่ไหน (“How often”) bòi kâe năi. |
| Grammatically, when asking questions in Thai, we put most of these words at the end of the sentence. There are two exception words. We put อะไร àrai and ทำไม tham-mai at the beginning of the sentence. For example, |
| ทำไมเธอถึงวิ่งตอนเช้า (tham-mai thooe tĕung wîng dton-châo) “Why do you jog in the morning?" เธอไปกับใคร (thooe bpai guuap khrai) “Who are you going with?” |
| We can see that in the first sentence, ทำไม tham-mai is used at the beginning of the sentence to ask question. However, in the second sentence เธอไปกับใคร (thooe bpai guuap khrai), ใคร khrai is used at the end to ask “who?” If we cut out the word ใคร khrai in this sentence, we'll get เธอไปกับ…(thooe bpai guuap) "She goes with…." This can be changed to a general sentence just by adding a name or noun at the end. For example, เธอไปกับสมคิด thooe bpai guuap Somkid. Thus, by adding ใคร or ที่ไหน, เมื่อไหร่ will change the sentence to a question. |
| For example, มึงกินข้าวที่ไหน (mueng gin khâo thìi nai “Where are you eating?”) คุณจะไปเมื่อไหร่ (Khun ja bpai mûuea rài “When are you leaving?”) |
Outro |
| Pretty interesting, right? |
| If you have any more questions, please leave a comment below! |
| Bye! สวัสดี ค่ะ (sà-wàt-dii khâ) |
18 Comments
HideWhat Thai learning question do you have?
Hi Derek,
Thank you. bàaep năi in Thai means "what kind?, what type? and what style?" not "how". Hope that helps. Please let me know if you have any future questions. I will be glad to help.
Have a good day.
ปริษา Parisa
Team ThaiPod101.com
I have a question about the example in the following:
คุณชอบเบียร์แบบไหน?
khun châawp biia bàaep năi
In the video, bàaep năi is "How" but how come the sentence translates to "What is your favorite kind of beer?"
Hi Jarood,
Yes, in speaking "r" become "L" and "L" mostly disappear. อย่างไร become ยังไง yang-ngai in spoken Thai. Hope that helps. Please let me know if you have any future questions. I will be glad to help.
Have a good day.
ปริษา Parisa
Team ThaiPod101.com
สวัสดีครับ
Usually, I hear people say "a-lai" instead of "a-rai".Same in some words written with ร.
the same thing happens from the previous comment about อย่างไร?
Hello Nita Avi Shaby,
Thank you for your comment. I will suggested. For your question, there are consonant cluster between คร "kr" so ใคร is spell this way. Right that the two way of spelling making the same sound but the way we spell is ใคร not ใค Hope that's help. Please let me know if you have any future questions. I will be glad to help.
Have a good day.
ปริษา Parisa
Team ThaiPod101.com
question about ใคร khrai
ใค should be khaii shouldn't it ?
so why ใคร is not actually khaiir but khraii ?
does the ใ take the second letter in this case ? how can I know that ?
when I create a note for some lesson, could you please flash it so I can know later on that I wrote a note?
Hello Priya,
Thank you very much for your comment and question. There are two different version of the word you ask. First, "yaang-rai" is a writing version of the word and "yang-ngai" is a speaking version of the word so you will hear and use this second one more often in daily life conversation. Hope that's help. Please let me know if you have any future questions about Thai I will be glad to help. We wish you will have a good progress with Thai.
Have a nice day.
Parisa
Team ThaiPod101.com
What is correct way to say how?
yaang ngai or yaang rai?
Hello Abel,
Thank you very much for your comment exception means they can be at the beginning or at the end of a sentence but the meaning won't changed. Hope that's help. Please let me know if you have any future questions. I will be glad to help. We wish you will have a good progress with your Thai.
Have a good day.
Parisa
Team ThaiPod101.com