Book a call

Author: Kru Smuk

Categories
Uncategorized

20 common words and phrases that includes รัก (rák) “love” in Thai

Blog Image_Thai words with Love รัก

Let’s expand Thai vocabulary from learning 20 compound words and phrases that include the word รัก (rák) or to love in Thai.

Tips to learn Thai

Every time I want to look for a word or translation of a word in Thai, I normally visit the website http://thai-language.com.  To make more of this, I like to search Thai words to find synonyms and words that are related or contained the word you put in.

Many of these 20 words are also from the result of my search. I handpicked these phrases to teach you. So you can be sure that they are up-to-date and commonly used. 

Word and phrase list

 

1. รักแรก rák râek = first love

2. รักแรกพบ rák râek pób = love at frist sight

3. รักคุณเท่าฟ้า rák kun tâo fáa = My love for you is as big as the sky.

4. รักชาติ rák châad = to be patriotic

5. รักเดียวใจเดียว rák diiaw jai diiaw = to be faithful to one’s spouse or lover

6. รักแท้ rák-táe = true love

7. รักนวลสงวนตัว rák-nuan sà-ngǔan-dtua = to be reserved; shy; modest (traditional Thai value for ladies)

8. รักพี่เสียดายน้อง rák-pîi sǐa-daai nóorng = to be unable to make a choice; to be in two minds 

9. รักร่วมเพศ rák-rûam-pêd = homosexual

10. รักวัวให้ผูก รักลูกให้ตี râk wua hâi pùuk, râk lûuk hâi dtii = “Spare the rod, and spoil the child.” (Thai idoim)

11. รักสามเส้า rák sǎam sâo = triangle love 

12. รักสนุก rák sà-nùk = pleasure-loving

13. รักสบาย rák sà-baai = lazy

14. รักหลับ rák làb = to caress (someone) to sleep or while (he or she is) sleeping

15. รักใคร่สามัคคี rák-krâi sǎ-mâk-kii = to be united

16. รักแท้แพ้ระยะทาง rák-táe páe rá-yá-taang = Distance deteats true love

17. เรื่องราวความรัก rûeng-raaw kwaam-rák = Love story

18. รักร้าว rák-ráaw = broken love

19. ตกหลุมรัก dtòk lum rák = to fall in love

20. ความรักบังตา kwaam-rák bang-dtaa = to be blinded by love\

Categories
How to say this in Thai Situational Thai Uncategorized

Common New Year Wishes in Thai คำอวยพรวันปีใหม่

Cover Blog _ New Year Wishes
Cover Blog _ New Year Wishes

As many of you are celebrating the New Year and spending quality time with family and loved ones in Thailand, I would love to teach you how to say “Happy New Year!” in Thai. You will also learn some common phrases to wish your Thai friends, colleagues, and family during this joyful time.

Continue reading "Common New Year Wishes in Thai คำอวยพรวันปีใหม่"
Categories
Uncategorized

The most common gift ideas for Thai people – What to buy for Thais?

gifts for Thai people

Christmas and New Year are coming. You might wonder what to buy for your Thai friends, colleagues, and family. Here are the tips with the 5 common gift ideas for New Year that Thai people enjoy.

Continue reading "The most common gift ideas for Thai people – What to buy for Thais?"
Categories
Special Guests Thai Podcasts

Talk Thai with Dr.Donna Robinson from MedConsult

Great news! I am launching a new podcast series “Farangs Talk Thai” and The special guest for October is Dr.Donna Robinson from MedConsult. She will share her experiences of living in Thailand for more than 30 years, as well as the experience of learning Thai in order to pass Thai exams for a medical license. Let’s get to know her.

Continue reading "Talk Thai with Dr.Donna Robinson from MedConsult"
Categories
Situational Thai

Extra polite Thai phrases used with a service staff

speak thai polite hotel

I am now Traveling in Phuket for 2 weeks and it’s been an amazing time here. The city started to feel more alive. I also enjoyed the beaches, hiking, coconut, and of course, the hotel I am staying in.

One thing I recognized is that the staffs are so well trained and polite. They speak such a nice and polite Thai here, even though it’s might be too polite to talk to friends. In this post, I would like to give you example sentences of extra polite Thai.

Continue reading "Extra polite Thai phrases used with a service staff"
Categories
How to say this in Thai Thai Podcasts

10 Sentences for Thai learners to use in the Thai class

Whether you’re attending a Thai language class or just learning Thai on your own, being curious or being enthusiastic to learn more is a great personality to have as a student.

In This blog post, I gathered 10 sentences for you to use in order to expand your Thai knowledge and to ask important questions.

(more…) "10 Sentences for Thai learners to use in the Thai class"
Categories
How to say this in Thai Thai Podcasts

Making a Comparison in Thai language (with podcast)

comparison in Thai

You might already know the word มากกว่า (mâak-gwàa) as “more than,” but there is more to learn. Listen to my Thai podcast and learn from this blog post.

(more…) "Making a Comparison in Thai language (with podcast)"
Categories
Read and Write Thai Uncategorized

Challenges to learn Thai scripts and ways to overcome them

Many people started learning Thai scripts but gave up because of a few painful challenges.  BUT, no worries. I will help you go through all of them and give you useful tips and techniques in this blog post, just step-by-step.

(more…) "Challenges to learn Thai scripts and ways to overcome them"
Categories
Read and Write Thai

Read Thai 101: Thai Ending Consonants

In the last blog post, I introduced you to 44 Thai consonants in which there are 21 initial consonant sounds (as some of them share the same initial consonant sound), today we will still be around the topic of Thai consonants as I will be talking about ending consonant sounds. 

Continue reading "Read Thai 101: Thai Ending Consonants"
Categories
Read and Write Thai

Read Thai 101: Learn Thai consonants

learn thai consonant thai script

Read Thai 101: Learn Thai consonants

Picture of Kru Smuk
learn thai consonant thai script

To begin learning the Thai script, the first thing you need to focus on is the “Thai consonants.” There are a total of 44 unique consonants in the Thai language.

For some learners, the large number of consonants may seem overwhelming and challenging. However, in this blog post, I will provide you with essential information, including tips and techniques for mastering Thai consonants. Let’s get started!

Table of Contents

44 Thai consonants

In the Thai language, there are a total of 44 Thai consonants. However, there are 2 consonants that are obsolete or no longer used, which are ฃ (khoor-khuad) and ฅ (khoor-khon). You cannot even find these two on a Thai keyboard.

Thai alphabet

💡 Tip: Round Heads

Many of them have a head. You normally start writing from head to tail. However, there are 2 consonants without a head which are ก and ธ (start writing from left to right).

How to call a Thai consonant?

To call each Thai consonant, there are 2 parts in a consonant name:

1. Initial consonant sound with “-oor” sound
2. Example word that represents the consonant

For example
This ก consonant letter is called goor-gai

  • Part 1: “goor”: the initial consonant is “-g sound”, plus the “-oor” sound
  • Part 2: “gai ไก่” means chicken as an example word.

how to call consonant name ก ไก่

Common questions regarding how to call a Thai consonant

Question:
Is the consonant always a “-oor sound”?

Answer:
Yes, always -oor sound, such as goor (ก), khoor (ข), or ngoor (ง)

Question:
Can I use other example words instead of “gai” or chicken? Like goor-gaa (a crow) instead

Answer: 
No, there is only one specific example word of each Thai consonant. We have learned to call consonants in the same way for more than a hundred years.

Question:
Can I only call it “goor” without “gai”?

Answer:
Yes, you can. However, I would not recommend it as some consonants share the same initial consonant sounds. (I will talk about it in the session below)

 

Initial Consonant Sounds

Some consonants share the same initial sounds

Even though there are 44 Thai consonants in the Thai alphabet, there are only 21 consonant sounds. It means that some consonants share the same initial consonant sound!

As you can see from the photo below, consonants are grouped by initial consonant sounds with a special colour. 

For example:

  • Black: Unique sounds
  • Red: -k sound
  • Dark green: -ch sound
  • Light green: -n sound
  • Yellow: -s sound
  • Pink: -t sound
Thai consonant sounds
Photo by Ultimate Guide to Thai Reading Course

Another way to take a look at Thai consonants is to group them by initial consonant sounds in English. The consonants that are in orange are the on that are more commonly used than the ones in white. 

groups of initial consonant sounds
photo by Ultimate Guide to Thai Reading Course
 
❓ Question:
Do I have to learn all 44 consonants and 21 sounds? 
Answer: 
Well, if you can, why not? But if you’re a total beginner, learning all 44 consonants in a row might feel overwhelming. I highly recommend learning the ones that are highlighted in orange (per photo above). You pretty much cover 80% in our daily Thai. 
 

Example of consonants that share "-s" initial sound

In the photo below, the three consonants ส (soor-seua), ษ (soor rue-sii), and ศ (soor-saa-laa) share the same “-s” initial consonant sound. 

same Thai consonant sounds
Photo by Ultimate Guide to Thai Reading
💡 If you say ‘soor’, it can be ส (soor-seua), ษ (soor rue-sii), or ศ (soor-saa-laa). That’s why there is an example word representing each consonant. 

3 Classes of Consonants

One important thing that you have to learn from the beginning is that the 44 Thai consonants are classified into 3 classes, which are:

  1. High Class
  2. Middle Class
  3. Low Class.

Classes of Thai consonants

Classes of consonants define the tone rule

Since Thai is a tonal language, which means a word can be pronounced with 5 different tones, with totally different meanings.  Classes of consonants are one of the things that determine the tones of a word. 

Different classes of consonants = different tones = different meanings. 

That’s why it’s important to learn consonants based on 3 classes of consonants. Let me show you!

Example:

Let’s say ก (goor-gai) is a middle-class consonant while ส (soor-suea) is a high-class consonant. We will combine this two consonant with the vowel สระอา (-aa vowel sound):

  • กา (g-aa) with a flat tone
  • สา (s-ãa) with a rising tone

As you can see, they are in different classes of consonants and have different tone rules. So learning the consonants in each class is the easiest way to master Thai tones.

Common Questions

❓ Question:
Is there anything else that defines tones? 

Answer:
Yes. Not only classes of consonants, but also vowels (short/long sound), ending consonants, and the tone marks.

I know it sounds difficult to understand, but you can master Thai tone rules easily with a constructive guide from our Ultimate Guide to Thai Reading Course. 

 

❓ Question:

Do we really need to remember the classes when learning consonants? 

Answer:

The only use of the consonant classes is to define tone based on tone rules. If you’d like to be able to write Thai and learn how the tone rule works systematically, you need to know the classes of consonants. 

We Thais, as kids, also learned the classes of consonants to be able to read and write Thai. However, we no longer need it because we know how to pronounce, read, and write words by heart. 

Ending Consonant Sounds

In Thai, there are only 8 ending consonant sounds. It means there are many consonants that share the same ending consonant sounds. Only ห, อ, and ฮ cannot be ending consonants.

8 ending consonant sounds

Even though there are 44 Thai consonants in the Thai alphabet, there are only 8 ending consonant sounds. It means there are many consonants that share the same ending consonant sounds, which are:

  1. -ก (-k sound)
  2. -ด (-d sound)
  3. -บ (-b sound)
  4. -น (-n sound)
  5. -ม (-m sound)
  6. -ง (-ng sound)
  7. -ว (-w sound)
  8. -ย (-y sound)

The 8 consonants representing 8 different ending consonant sounds have direct ending sounds, while the other consonants have nondirect ending consonant sounds. Let’s take a look at the pictures below:

Thai Ending Consonants

Why do you need to learn ending consonants? 

As mentioned above, the ending consonants also define the tones of a syllable. Besides, it also helps with pronouncing Thai words. 

We adopted many words from other languages (loan words), and we usually write them according to the original words, however, we pronounce them in the Thai way. 

For example: 

The name of a shopping mall in Bangkok, Central World. We write it “เซ็นทรัลเวิล์ด” but we pronounce it “cen-tân wuen”.

Tral = ทรัล (pronounced ทรัน / tran) because in Thai, ล ending consonant has “น” (-n) ending sound. 

💡 Many of Thai consonants don’t have the same initial and ending sounds. When learning a consonant, you need to remember both initial sound and ending sound. 

Learn about the ending consonant sounds <<Read Blog>>

Related Articles for Thai Reading

Recommended Course

Learn to read basic Thai from scratch! I have designed this crash course to help you master Thai consonants, vowels, tones, and reading rules step by step. The course is well-structured and simplifies topics to make them easy to understand.

Reading Thai is achievable with the new course, Basic Thai Reading!

A course includes:

  • 30+ video lessons 
  • Downloadable book
  • Downloadable audios
  • Exercises and online games
  • Flashcards
  • Certificate of course completion 
  • Student support + Q&A session
See Course
Join 5-day Easy Thai Challenge

Get a basic Thai lesson sent to your mailbox daily for 5 days. Sign up for free.

Categories
Current Promotion

Get a FREE Thai Pronunciation Series! (Worth 3,900 THB)

Recent Posts
Find Thai Teachers

Join 1-on-1 or Group Lessons with our professional native Thai teachers. Start from ฿350/hour.