Did you know that it’s very easy to convert the Christian Era or the Common Era (CE: ค.ศ. คริสต์ศักราช, [krítsàkkaràat]) to the Buddhist Era (BE: พ.ศ. พุทธศักราช, [pútthasàkkaràat])? You can do that just by adding “543” to the Christian era.
For example,
2016 + 543 = 2559
ค.ศ. 2016 = พ.ศ 2559
ค.ศ. 2017 = พ.ศ 2560
Note that in Thai, we shorten คริสต์ศักราช, [krítsàkkaràat] to just ค.ศ. (kaw sǎw) and พุทธศักราช, [pútthasàkkaràat] to just พ.ศ. (paw sǎw). So, to say what year it is now, we would say as follows;
ปีนี้ปีค.ศ. 2016
[pii níi pii kaw sǎw sǎwng pan sìp hòk]
ปีนี้ปีพ.ศ 2559
[pii níi pii paw sǎw sǎwng pan hâa rói hâa sìp gâao]
In informal language, You can also read the years as 2-0-1-6 (sǎwng sǔun nèung hòk) and 2-5-5-9 (sǎwng hâa hâa gâao). It is also possible to shorten them to just 16 (nèung hòk) and 59 (hâa gâao).
Fun Quiz – – – – – – – – – – (^ 3 ^)
ครูยูกิเกิดปีพ.ศ. 2528
[khru Yuki gèrd pii paw sǎw 2528]
Khru Yuki was born in 2528 B.E.
ครูมิกิเกิดปีพ.ศ. 2530
[khru Miki gèrd pii paw sǎw 2530]
Khru Miki was born in 2530 B.E.
What Christian years were we born in? 🙂
Scroll down to see the answers
Answers: 1985 and 1987.
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