Thailand Culture

Posts Tagged ‘Thai Language’

Lesson Three: Thai Language Classes: Using Thai Question Words

The question words in the Thai Language are sometimes put at the end of Thai sentences and sometimes put at the beginning of Thai sentences depending on the context. 

What

Example: What are you playing? 

What	are	you	playing?
อะไร	-	คุณ	เล่น
Aa-rai	-	khun	len

The above table shows a direct translation of an English sentence into Thai words. However, the sentence above is meaningless in the Thai Language. You need to rearrange the sentence structure as follows. 

Note that in the Thai Language, there is no verb to be so in a simple Thai sentence, it is omitted totally. In the Thai Language, tenses are indicated by time words such as now, tomorrow, yesterday, etc. 

คุณ	เล่น	อะไร
You	play	what

Thai sentence structure when there is a question word in the Thai sentence is as follows:

Without adding time indicative words to indicate when the action is taking place such as now, in the past, yesterady, tomorrow, etc… all you need to do to add a question word making a Thai sentence into a question sentence is putting the question word after the verb. The question word refers to the action so its place in a Thai sentence is after the action verb. In the above example, you are playing something. The question is about what you are playing, therefore, the word ‘what’ or ‘Arai’ follows the verb. 

Subject + Verb + Question Word

In another word, instead of saying: 

• What you are playing?, you say:
• You play what + (present tense indicative word)?