Five Minute Guide to Thai

1. Thai grammar is much simpler than English, or any European language.

2. The articles "a", "an", and "the" do not exist.

3. Adjectives always follow the noun: "dog brown". They do not change spelling due to sex or singular/plural.

4. Verbs do not conjugate. Tense is shown by using an adverb of time, or by using a helper word to indicate "will/shall" or "already". Future tense: "I go market tomorrow" and "I will go market" are both correct. Past tense: "I go market already" (I went to the market). "Will/shall" is "ja" and always precedes the verb; "already" is "lay-oh", and is always at the end of the sentence.

5. Negative verbs use the word "my!" in front of the verb to indicate "not". "I not go tomorrow."

6. Adverbs follow the verb. "He go quickly market already" = "He went quickly to the market".

7. Emphasis is done by doubling the adjective or adverb: "He go quickly quickly already" = "He went very quickly"; you can also use "mahk!" (very), as in English, but it is placed after the adjective or adverb. "He go quickly very".

8. Generic plurals are formed by doubling the noun. "Faan" = "tooth"; "faan faan" = "teeth".

9. Specific plurals must use the construction "noun quantity classifier". "I have three children" is "I have child three person". "Child" is the noun, "three" is the quantity, "person" is the classifier (the group to which the noun belongs). When you don't know the group, use "ahn" (thing) or repeat the noun.

10. Like other Asian languages, Thai is a social language; that is, you must be conscious of your level or status in society, and of your family relationships. When speaking to a superior (your boss at work, a police officer, etc.), or simply to be polite, you must use a "polite word" at the end of a sentence. Male speakers use "krup", female speakers use "ka". This word has no direct translation in English, but "sir", "madam", or "please" would be reasonable approximations. Note that it is your sex that is important, not the sex of the person to whom you are speaking. There are many family-oriented words, and again your relationship is important. There is no word for "brother", for example; you must say "older brother" or "younger brother".

11. There is no word for "yes" or "no"; you can use the polite word ("krup" or "ka"), or "chy" (correct), or repeat the verb of the question you were asked. Sometimes, you can also use "tok-long" ("I agree", or "agreed"). For example, if the question is "You go market already?", you can say "krup" (or "ka" if you are female) to indicate "yes"; you can also say "go already" (meaning "yes, I went"). If the answer is "no", you must say "not go" or "not go already". All of the constructions used in English to mean "yes" do not exist: "cool, man", "fine by me", "righty-oh, mate" do not exist; just say "krup" (or "ka").

12. Thai does not use spaces between words, nor punctuation. Where we would use a question mark, Thai uses a conjunction ("what", "where", "when", etc.) and places it at the end where the question mark would be, except that "lay-oh" is always at the very end. "What did you eat?" becomes "you eat what already". "When are you going?" becomes "you go when".

13. Thai is a tonal language; that is, each word has one of five tones: high, middle, low, falling, or rising. We use tones in English on the sentence, but not on the individual words. For example, "you're going to the market?" has a rising tone, and "you're going to the market!" has a falling tone and means something quite different. We use a high tone for exclamatory questions: "what?" is higher than "what is your name?". We use a low tone for negative replies: "Are you going shopping?" "No." You must be careful not to use a tone on a Thai sentence; that is, when asking a question, do not raise the tone as the sentence progresses, as you would in English. It is the use of the question word near the end of the sentence that makes it a question. When memorising vocabulary, it is important to hear the word spoken by a native Thai speaker, or you will not get the tone of the word right. For example, "clothing" and "tiger" are the same word, but have different tones. So if you haven't got the tone right, when you say "my clothing is tight" it could come out "my tiger is tight", which means something entirely different, and a Thai will not likely understand what you mean. This is why my Thai dictionary has each word spoken by a real Thai person.