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Lesson Transcript

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 "When" questions in Thai.
This time, we are going to ask questions with the interrogative word "Who?"
Imagine you want to ask your friend who the attractive girl just behind him is.
Here, the question you can ask is “ผู้หญิงที่อยู่ข้างหลังคุณคือใคร(phûu-yǐng thîi yùu khâang-lǎng khun khuue khrai)?”
[slowly] “ผู้หญิงที่อยู่ข้างหลังคุณคือใคร(phûu-yǐng thîi yùu khâang-lǎng khun khuue khrai)?”
So let’s break this down:
First we had:
ผู้หญิง(phûu-yǐng) is “Woman” in Thai
ที่อยู่(thîi yùu) means "which (located)
ข้างหลัง(khâang-lǎng) means behind" and
คุณ(khun) is “you”
คือ(khuue) means "to be".
And finally ใคร(khrai) which is the basic translation of "Who" in Thai.
All together it is “ผู้หญิงที่อยู่ข้างหลังคุณคือใคร(phûu-yǐng thîi yùu khâang-lǎng khun khuue khrai)?”
Who is the woman behind you?
So in Thai, "Who" is mainly translated as ใคร(khrai) to ask about someone's identity.
For example, if you want to ask "Who are these people?" You will say คนเหล่านี้คือใคร(khon lào-níi khuue khrai)? when talking about a group of unknown persons.
ใคร(khrai) only works for people, so you can't use it to ask information about things or places. As a question word, ใคร(khrai) can also be used to ask who did something, for example.
If you are in a museum for instance, you can ask ใครวาดภาพนี้(khrai wâat phâap níi)? This means "Who painted this painting?"
Another question word with ใคร(khrai) that is used quite a lot, is ของใคร(khǎawng khrai)? In this case, the meaning is different as it can be translated to "Whose"
So if you want to ask "Whose pen is this?" you will have to say ปากกาของใคร(bpàak-gaa khǎawng khrai)? If we break down this question, it is:
ปากกา(bpàak-gaa) which is "pen" and
ของใคร(khǎawng khrai)? which is the pronoun Whose
You can also use the word ใคร(khrai) to ask "for which person is it?" In Thai, we use the formula สำหรับใคร(sǎm-ràp khrai)?
So if you want to know "For which person is this piece of cake?" It will be เค้กชิ้นนี้สำหรับใคร(khéek chín níi sǎm-ràp khrai)?
Now it’s time for Kittaya’s Insights.
If someone that you didn't expect is knocking at your door in Thailand, the common question you can ask is นั่นใครคะ(nân khrai khá) or นั่นใครครับ(nân khrai khráp)? before opening the door.
This literally means "Who is that?" in a polite way.
Before ending this lesson, Let’s go back and look at all the ways to translate "Who" in Thai:
- ใคร(khrai) is the basic "Who" as in ใครวาดภาพนี้(khrai wâat phâap níi)?
- ของใคร(khǎawng khrai) is insisting on the ownership, it is the equivalent of "Whose", as in "Whose pen is this?" ปากกาของใคร (bpàak-gaa khǎawng khrai)?
- สำหรับใคร(sǎm-ràp khrai)? which is the direct translation of "For who?" As in "For who is this piece of cake?" เค้กชิ้นนี้สำหรับใคร(khéek chín níi sǎm-ràp khrai)?
In this lesson, we learned how to correctly use the interrogative word for "Who" which is ใคร(khrai) in Thai, but also its variations.
Now you can easily know who is who!
The next lesson will be the last of this series!
We will deal with the last but not least common interrogative word ทำไม(tham-mai) which means “why”. I’ll be waiting for you in the next Learn Thai in 3 minutes. สวัสดีค่ะ(sà-wàt-dii khâ)

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