Ket Chop

Seen in the restaurant of a nice hotel in Udon Thani:

Click on the image for a larger one

- Is it because there is no official transliteration in Thai language and because one can write Thai words phonetically in Latin alphabet, that some people think they can do the same in English?

- Is it a wordplay with the word “Chop” that in Thai means “to like” (but not for food)?

- Or is it a good idea to preserve the local culture and the local language by transforming foreign words into new Thai words?

We’ll never know… (I don’t care, I had mustard instead!).

Learning Thai with Bart: Lesson23 – Phone Number

How to ask someone’s phone number?

Thohrasap = phone
Ber = number (pronounced B”er” like in “After”)
Arai = what

- Ber Thohrasap Khun, ber arai khap = What is your phone number? (phone number you, number what?)

- Ber Thohrasap Phom, ber 08 89 84 94 43 = my phone number is: 08… (phone number me, number: 08…).

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More Thai lessons here.

Learning Thai with Bart: Lesson5 – Greetings

Is it because the gender can quickly change in Thailand that they have decided to specify whether the person who speaks is a male or a female?

I don’t know. But the thing is that if you are a man you will use “Phom” for “I” or “me” and if you are a woman you will use “Dichan”. Men can use also “Dichan” in some cases but I am not really sure when (and not only when they feel like a woman).

From there, here is a Greetings situation where a boy meets a girl:

(Boy) – Sawadee Khrap (Hello) (Khrap being the polite form here)

(Girl) – Sawadee Kha (Hello) (Kha being the polite form here)

(Boy) – Khun sabaidee mai Khrap (How are you?) (sabaidee = I am ok ; mai = question)

(Girl) – Dichan sabaidee Kha (I am fine). KhawpKhun Kha (Thank you). Khun la Kha (And you?)

(Boy) – Phom sabaidee khrap (I am fine).

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More Thai lessons here.

Learning Thai with Bart: Lesson1 – Transliteration

As I am not able to learn Thai by myself, I will try to learn it with you

This is the first lesson of a new category: learn Thai with Bart. This is to get the basics, not to become fluent!

Let’s start with a difficulty of learning Thai (beside the 5 tones): The absence of official transliteration from Thai alphabet to Roman alphabet. This means that there is no universal method to write a thai word in roman alphabet. Therefore people use phonetic. Therefore the same thai word may be written in different ways depending on who writes it.

Even a simple word like hello can be written Sawadee or Sawat dii or in any other slightly different versions.

This makes it difficult to recognize a word from one thai lesson book to the other. Therefore, lesson number one will be: choose one lesson book and stick to it! And don’t be surprised to see the same word written in very different ways.