Thais are without doubt the friendliest, most helpful people I have come across. However English is not widely spoken anywhere in the country. Also the written language uses Thai script which is basically totally unintelligible to those only familiar with Latin (western) script.
Unless you intend to learn the language you will likely have to rely on Thai's speaking English. I apologise in advance to any Thai's that do speak excellent English but in 15 years I have yet to meet one. Thus even a native English speaker will likely have some difficulty.
It will help you to bear in mind that there are no verb tenses in Thai. Thus the word for "come" ( "mah" in Thai ) is used in all tense situations, with additional words being added to describe the timing. Hence the common question you might be asked
"When you come to Thailand before?" Meaning: When did you last visit Thailand?
A small collection of possibly useful words
| English |
Thai |
English |
Thai |
| Yes |
Chai |
No |
Mai chai |
| Good |
Dee |
Bad |
Mai dee |
| Beautiful |
Suay |
Delicious |
Aloy |
| Left |
Sai |
Right |
Kwaa |
| to Go |
Bah |
to Come |
mah |
| to Want |
Ao |
to Eat |
ghin |
| this |
nee |
that |
nah |
Some (very) Basic phrases.
Many phrases change with the gender of the person speaking .
Below (m) indicates the phrase for Males, and (f) that for Females.
| English |
Thai |
English |
Thai |
| Hello |
Sawadee Khup (m)
Sawadee Kaa (f) |
Thank you |
Ka Phun Khup (m)
Ka Phun Kaa (f) |
| Are you well? |
Sabai Dee Mai ? |
I'm fine |
Sabai Dee Khup (m)
Sabia Dee Kaa (f) |
| I'm hungry |
Hew |
I'm tired |
Ao nhorn |
| Do you want to eat something |
Vocalising numbers in Thai is considerably more logical than most European languages. One important difference is that whereas in English we start repeating the multipliers after 1000 (e.g. 23,000 = "twenty-three thousand"), in Thai there are different words for 10,000, 100,000, and 1,000,000.
| Digits |
Multipliers |
Examples |
| 1. nueng |
10. sip |
12. sip sawng |
| 2. sawng |
100. loy |
13. sip sam |
| 3. sam |
1000. pan |
22. yisip sawng |
| 4. see |
10000 muang |
30. sam sip |
| 5. hah |
100000. saang |
50. hah sip |
| 6. hock |
1000000. lan |
65. hock sip hah |
| 7. jet |
|
200. sawng loy |
| 8. bhat |
|
275. sawng loy, jet sip hah |
| 9. gow |
|
2003. sawng pan, sam |
| 10. sip |
|
76543. jet muang, hock pan, hah loy, see sip sam |
| 11. sip-et |
|
400211. see saang, sawng loy, sip-et. |