Learn how to ask about someone's nationality
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| สวัสดีค่ะ ดิฉันกิตติยาค่ะ (sà-wàt-dii khâ. dì-chǎn Kittaya khâ) |
| Hi everybody! I’m Kittaya. |
| Welcome to ThaiPod101.com’s “Learn Thai in 3 minutes.” The fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn Thai. |
| In the last lesson, we learned how to talk about your plans. In this lesson, we are going to deal with the verb, bpen, which is “to be” in Thai. We will also go over how to talk about your nationality. Are you ready? Then let’s begin! |
| When you meet someone in Thailand, they might ask you คุณเป็นคนสัญชาติอะไร(khun bpen khon săn-chăat à-rai)? which is the equivalent of "Where do you come from?" [slowly] คุณเป็นคนสัญชาติอะไร(khun bpen khon săn-chăat à-rai)? |
| Let’s break this phrase down. In the last lesson, we learned the word คุณ(khun), the formal word for "you." เป็น(bpen) means “to be” and คน(khon) is person. สัญชาติ(săn-chăat) is "Nationality" and finally, อะไร(à-rai) means " what?" |
| All together it's คุณเป็นคนสัญชาติอะไร(khun bpen khon săn-chăat à-rai)? |
| [slowly] คุณเป็นคนสัญชาติอะไร(khun bpen khon săn-chăat à-rai)? |
| Answering this question is really easy! If you are a man, just say ผมเป็นคน(phǒm bpen khon) and if you are a woman, it’s ดิฉันเป็นคน(dì-chǎn bpen khon). These phrases mean "I am...” when talking about your nationality. Let’s try it out together. |
| To say “I am American”, A man will say |
| ผมเป็นคนอเมริกัน(phǒm bpen khon-à-mee-rí-gan) |
| [slowly] ผมเป็นคนอเมริกัน(phǒm bpen khon-à-mee-rí-gan) |
| A woman will say |
| ดิฉันเป็นคนอเมริกัน(dì-chǎn bpen khon-à-mee-rí-gan) |
| [slowly] ดิฉันเป็นคนอเมริกัน(dì-chǎn bpen khon-à-mee-rí-gan) |
| If you’re from another country, just replace “อเมริกัน(à-mee-rí-gan)” with your nationality. Here are a few examples. |
| "I am German" is ผมเป็นคนเยอรมัน(phǒm bpen khon yooe-rá-man) |
| "I am English" is ผมเป็นคนอังกฤษ(phǒm bpen khon ang-grìt) |
| "I am French" is ผมเป็นคนฝรั่งเศส(phǒm bpen khon fà-ràng-sèet) |
| To return the question you can simply say แล้วคุณละ(láaeo khun lâ)? which is "And you?" in Thai. |
| Now it’s time for Kittaya’s Insights. |
| Thais sometimes use the country’s name instead of nationality. For example, you might hear, เป็นคน(bpen khon) “Sweden” instead of |
| เป็นคน(bpen khon) “Swedish” . This means, “You are the person who comes from Sweden.” |
| In this lesson we learned how to talk about nationalities. |
| Next time we’ll continue to study the verb yùu which means “to be located” and we'll see how to use it to talk about locations. By the way, do you know how to ask someone where they are in Thai? I'll be waiting for you with the answer in the next Learn Thai in 3 minutes. สวัสดีค่ะ(sà-wàt-dii khâ) |
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