“Traveling In Thai” User Guide: Arrival & Taxi Conversation

In this simple User’s Guide I would like to introduce you some basic Thai that can make it easier for you to get along on your next holiday in Thailand.

The Thai alphabet is not related to any roman language so it will be spelled out in roman letters to make it readable for everyone without the need of using phonetics.

Imagine:

If you ever find yourself just arrived on an airport somewhere in a tropical country, tired after the discomfort of a long and exhausting trip, try to take it easy. It’s your holiday. As you’re stumbling out of the plane, exhaustedly waiting for your luggage to arrive you’ll try not to panic. Your bag will most likely arrive in the next 30 min.

There are you standing now. Dehydrated from too much coffee on the plane all you want to do is to stretch out and arrive at the hotel. You can’t wait to throw your bags in a corner and put your feet up. And so far, the hardest part is almost over.

Taking the first step out of the air condition powered airport halls is next. The electric door swipes open and the humidity swallows you instantaneously. A crowd of taxi drivers wearing pilot sunglasses welcomes you and begs for your attention…  Huge double decker tourist busses hauling through the heat, never getting tired of picking up tourist flocks armed with camera gear and camping hats.

What is our location? Bangkok, Thailand. At this point you may ask yourself how on earth you are going to get along.

What is the Thai Language?

Thai or Siamese, is the national and official language of Thailand. It is a member of the Tai group of the Tai–Kadai language family. Over half of its words are borrowed from Pali, Sanskrit, Mon, and Old Khmer. It is a tonal language with five different tones. You read right. 5 different tones make words differ from another.

The tones are:

Thai also has a complex orthography and system of relational markers. Spoken Thai is very similar with Laotian, the language of Laos; the two languages are written with little differing scripts but are linguistically very similar.

In the Thai Language, female and male speakers use different pronouns and articles.

“ฉัน - Chan” for female speakers and “ผม – Pom” for males is both the subject pronoun.

Add “ค่ะ - Ka” for female speakers and “ครับ - Krap” for males as polite particle at the end of a sentence.

Example Scenario:

You (Y) are a female bargaining with the male taxi driver (D for Driver) and having a general conversation. You are at Survanabhumi Airport Bangkok (สนามบินสุวรรณภูมิ).

Desired destination: Khao San Road (ถนนข้าวสาร). 

You (Y):  Hello, Are you free?

Taxi Driver (D):  Hi, where would you like to go?

Y: To Khao San road, please.

D: Let’s go! That’s about 1000 THB.

Y: That’s very expensive! Please turn on the meter.

D: Alright. I will turn on the meter.

Y: Is the traffic bad today?

D: Very bad traffic, indeed.

D: We just arrived.

Y: Thank you.

Vocabulary used:

Execution

Now, I can understand that you still feel insecure about what to say and how to communicate well when English is not spoken by the people around you. Nevertheless, luck is when preparation meets opportunity and skill is learning and execution repeated. Whenever you are ready to go out and take action to execute you will learn the most.

I hope this simple travel guide showed some insights into the Thai language and I hope it will help you to find your way in Thailand. Hope you’ll have a great holiday!  

Sa-wat-dee krap.

สวัสดีครับ

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Disclaimer: I’m not a native Thai speaker nor am I a Thai language teacher but I live in Thailand since two years and I’m learning the language at the same time, while teaching English in Chiang Mai. 

Ask Chris for more Thai Phrases

(Otherwise learn English or German from him!)

Hero Image by Sven Scheuermeier on Unsplash