Hi guys! Welcome back to our Thai Talk where we teach you a little tiny bit of Thai Language every week. We’ll go easy and simply for you so don’t worry, though Thai is totally different from other western languages.
By the way, my name is Krista. I’m the writer and the teacher of this Thai Talk article. How clumsy of me forgetting to introduce myself last time.
Today lesson is more about greeting, asking how people are doing. I’m going to tell you 2 ways of asking this. The formal one and another one is a speaking language one. Let’s begin!
- Here is the proper way to say “how are you?” In Thai we say “sa-bai-dee-mai”. By breaking it down you will know that “sa-bai-dee” is feeling good or good. And “mai” is an ending after yes-no questions. So the literal meaning of “sa-bai-dee-mai” is “Are you feeling good?” And again to be polite you add at the end “Ka” if you’re female and “Krap” if you’re male. * see our last week article
- Next is a really simple way to greet someone. It’s more like a saying Hi but it also means “how are you?” Just only say “ngai”. I know that’s a bit hard for you to pronounce “ng” at the beginning of the word. “ngai” is a short term of saying “how?” That’s right…we omit both the verb and the pronoun “are” and “you”. Isn’t that cool about Thai language?
That’s quite enough for today. I don’t want to load you with lots of Thai in a day. Slower the better, unless you already familiar with the lingo.
Alright, practice saying those every day. My trick is to pronounce it out loud or if you have a Thai friend, let him or her check your pronunciation for you. That will help you improve fast and talk like a real Thai.
See you next time with me at Thai Talk that will teach you how to talk Thai here at MuayThaiSport.com/blog!