Learn how to ask "When?"
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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 ask "Where" questions in Thai. |
| This time, we are going to ask questions with the question word "When?" |
| Let’s go! ไปกันเลยค่ะ(bpai gan looei khâ)! |
| Imagine you want to ask when your roommate is coming back. You will ask him คุณจะกลับมาเมื่อไหร่(khun jà glàp maa mûuea rài)? |
| [slowly] คุณจะกลับมาเมื่อไหร่(khun jà glàp maa mûuea rài)? |
| So let’s break down this answer: |
| First we had: |
| คุณ(khun) is “you”, and then we have |
| จะกลับมา(jà glàp maa) which can translate as “will come back”. And finally we have |
| เมื่อไหร่(mûuea rài) which is the basic translation of "When" in Thai. |
| So, all together it is คุณจะกลับมาเมื่อไหร่(khun jà glàp maa mûuea rài)? "When will you come back?" |
| How can you say "When did you arrive?" |
| It’s really simple since it is exactly the same pattern: คุณมาถึงเมื่อไหร่(khun maa-thǔeng mûuea rài)? Literally “You arrived when?” |
| Have you noticed a difference between the sentences khun จะกลับมาเมื่อไหร่(jà glàp maa mûuea rài)? and คุณมาถึงเมื่อไหร่(khun maa-thǔeng mûuea rài)? |
| The first one is talking about a future action – "When are you coming back?" Whereas the second one is referring to the past - "When did you arrive?" |
| So, you can use this question word เมื่อไหร่(mûuea rài) to talk about any moment, whether past or present. |
| If you want to ask a question about duration as in "Since when have you been a teacher?" Then you will have to say คุณเป็นอาจารย์ตั้งแต่เมื่อไหร่(khun bpen aa-jaan dtâng-dtàae mûuea rài)? Here too, it’s exactly the same as in English, because "since" is ตั้งแต่(dtâng-dtàae). So ตั้งแต่เมื่อไหร่(dtâng-dtàae mûuea rài)? means "Since when?" |
| Let’s see how to ask "Until when?" in Thai. It is very easy as you can translate it directly. It becomes: จนถึงเมื่อไหร่(jon-thǔeng mûuea rài)? |
| So for example, if you want to ask a friend "Until when are you going to stay here?" It will be คุณจะอยู่ที่นี่จนถึงเมื่อไหร่(khun jà yùu thîi-nîi jon-thǔeng mûuea rài)? which means “You will stay here until when?” |
| But of course there are other ways to ask about time. You can even be more specific by asking about the year, the date or the hour. |
| For example, you can ask: |
| - "Which year did you start working?" |
| คุณเริ่มทำงานปีไหน(khun rôoem tham-ngaan bpii nǎi)? |
| - "What time will we meet?" |
| เราจะเจอกันกี่โมง(rao jà jooe gan gìi moong)? |
| Now it’s time for Kittaya’s Insights. |
| To ask how long an action has been taking place in Thai, we could say นานเท่าไร(naan thâo-rài)?, and you can also add the verb in front of the sentence if you want to be more specific, for example “ต้องรอนานเท่าไหร่(dtâwng raaw naan thâo-rài)?” “How long do you have to wait?” |
| Before ending this lesson, Let’s go back and look at all the ways to translate "When" in Thai: |
| - เมื่อไหร่(mûuea rài)? is the basic "When" as in คุณจะกลับมาเมื่อไหร่(khun jà glàp maa mûuea rài)? |
| - ตั้งแต่เมื่อไหร่(dtâng-dtàae mûuea rài)? is exactly the same as in English, and means "Since when?" |
| - จนถึงเมื่อไหร่(jon-thǔeng mûuea rài)? which is the direct translation of "Until when?" As in "คุณจะอยู่ที่นี่จนถึงเมื่อไหร่(khun jà yùu thîi-nîi jon-thǔeng mûuea rài)?” |
| Ok, so in this lesson, we learned how to use the interrogative Thai word for "When", เมื่อไหร่(mûuea rài)? but also its different variations. |
| Next lesson we’ll learn more about asking questions with "Who" in Thai. |
| I’ll be waiting for you in the next Learn Thai in 3 minutes. สวัสดีค่ะ(sà-wàt-dii khâ) |
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