Similarly, you might come through the door after work and she greets you with sawat-dee (eee), holding the e in the same way. This negates the need for her to say kâ, because the person knows she is being playful. She might sustain the last syllables of the word to add cuteness to the question. Thais know other ways of displaying politeness without needing to use kráp/kâ.įor example, your girlfriend might see a friend and say Pai nai (iiii). You may be thinking that there are times you hear your partner speak with a friend or acquaintance, or even with you, and he/she doesn't use this particle. However, in the same setting, if you were to gesture to the waitress and ask her where the toilet is, you would certainly use the kráp/kâ particle. But you find this more so in Bangkok than elsewhere and, when used excessively, even Thais will note it sounds a tad false and pretentious. It's true that some Thai people do this, particularly some women. When meeting a friend for dinner, once you have said hello, how are you, and are you hungry? you don't need to carry on saying kráp/kâ after every sentence throughout the meal. But for the purpose of this article I am using kráp because it's a common transliteration. Note that you can also translate kráp in English with an h, like khráp. If they are using it, you can follow along too.Īs a final fallback, if you don't know whether to use it, then say it. You can also take a cue from the person you are speaking with. If you're speaking to an immigration official or the police, staff at a restaurant or shop, or someone older than you, always use kráp/kâ. Adding the particle at the end softens and sweetens a short, fairly abrupt question. In Thai, most people would informally say “Pai nai”? (go where). Generally speaking, everyday questions in Thai are often short and direct.įor example, in English you would ask “Where are you going?” In this situation, you would add kráp/kâ to the end of your sentence. Back home you'd probably say something like “Excuse me, how much is this please?”. If you want to know when to use kráp/kâ, just ask yourself whether the the same situation back home would require you to show politeness.įor example, let's say you want to know the price of something in a shop. Also, women should replace the word ‘krap4’ for ‘ka3’.ģ – หวัสดีครับ watdee krap (notice the ห in front of the word)Įven this however is a bit of a simplification to all the possible ways you can say Hello in Thai.Image by Mathias Huysmans. Note that the last two are rarely used, given their informality and the possibility of confusing the meaning with the word for ‘good’. I’ve listed each way by order of politeness, with 1 being the most polite and 6 the least polite. To change the politeness/formalness of ‘sawatdee’, you simply add or remove syllables. Just listen to Thais answer the phone to get the correct pronunciation. It is spelled ฮัลโล, but it isn’t pronounced as it is spelled. ‘hello’! Yes, Thai stole the word directly from English, and is most commonly used when answering the phone. or to overcomplicate it for you – depending on your fluency level. But never fear! I’m here to give you more options. Sawatdee is fairly polite, and can come off weird if you say it to your close friends or relatives. So as a beginner you’ve probably learned that ‘sawatdee’ meant hello ages ago. The person who transliterated the word probably didn’t realize this rule doesn’t hold true in English (or Englit, as they say). In the Thai spelling it is ‘sawasdee’ สวัสดี, but whenever an ‘s’ ส is at the end of a syllable, it makes a ‘t’ sound. Many many months later, when I started learning how to read Thai, it became clear to me that it was a transliteration mistake. Did ‘sawasdee’ have anything to do with ‘sawatdee’? What’s up with that ‘s’? A typo, maybe? At the time my Thai vocabulary consisted of a few phrases and a hundred or so words, such as ‘sawatdee krap’ meant ‘hello’, etc.Īnyway I’m on the Thai Airways flight and I see in front of me a magazine titled ‘Sawasdee’. Before my trip I started studying a little Thai, learning all the basics so I can be a more informed tourist. To correct for the problem they put me on a Thai Airways flight at no extra charge – for those who don’t know, Thai Airways is an expensive classy airline to fly on. The airline unfortunately ‘messed up’ my connecting flight. I remember being on the plane on my very first trip to Thailand.
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