“รู้ [rúu]” is a Thai word for “to know.” “ทราบ [sâap]” has the same meaning but is more polite and formal. Therefore, “ไม่ทราบ [mâi sâap]” means “I don’t know.” It’s used as a response to a question you don’t know the answer to and used with older people or people of a higher status as it’s more polite than saying “ไม่รู้ [mâi rúu].”…

อดเปรี้ยวไว้กินหวาน [òd prîao wái gin wǎan] is a Thai proverb that is used to teach or encourage delayed gratification, which is the act of resisting an impulse to take an immediately available reward in order to obtain a more valued one in the future. It’s usually said to someone to encourage them to not take what they want now and wait for what they want more in the future.…

The word “แทนที่” [tan tîi] is a verb meaning “to replace” or “to substitute for.” However, “แทนที่จะ” [tan tîi jà] is used as an idiom. It’s usually followed by a verb and it means “instead of (doing something).” For example,

1. ปริ๊นท์เตอร์เราเสีย แทนที่จะปริ๊นท์ออกมาเป็นสี กลับออกมาเป็นสีดำ
[Printer rao sǐa, tan tîi ja print àwk maa pen sǐi, glàp àwk maa pen sǐi dam]
My printer is broken.…

“ถ้า [tâa]” means “if” and “อย่างนั้น [yàng nán]” means “so.” The literal meaning of “ถ้าอย่างนั้น [tâa yàng nán]” is “if so….” In spoken language, we often say อย่างงั้น [yàng ngán] instead of อย่างนั้น [yàng nán] as it’s easier to pronounce.

“ถ้าอย่างงั้น [tâa yàng ngán],” “ถ้างั้น [tâa ngán],” and “งั้น [ngán]” are informal variations of the idiom “ถ้าอย่างนั้น [tâa yàng nán].”…

When you want to say that something is free of charge in Thai, it’s very simple. Just use the English word “ฟรี [free].” The opposite of “ฟรี [free]” is “ไม่ฟรี” [mâi free] or “ต้องเสียตังค์ [tâwng sǐa tang],” of which the literal meaning is “have to pay.”

However, the word “free” can also be used as an idiom together with a verb to imply that one’s effort was made in vain or for nothing.…

Everyone who has learned Thai probably knows that “ไป” [pai] means “to go” and “มา” [maa] means “to come.” But have you ever heard a Thai person say “ไป…มา [pai…maa]” and wondered what it means?

Thai people commonly use the structure “ไป…มา [pai…maa]” when they want to say that they went somewhere or did something somewhere in the past.…

Most Thai learners probably know what “จะ” [jà] means. It means “will.” At least, most of the time it does get translated as “will,” a modal verb expressing future tense. But what you may not know is that, in spoken Thai, we also use “จะ” [jà] to say “almost,” or to express that something is going to happen in the near future or about to happen, instead of the words “เกือบ [geùab]” or “ใกล้ [glâi].”…

The word “ต้อง” [tâwng] in Thai is equivalent of the verb “must” in English. And like “must,” apart from expressing obligation, strong recommendation or necessity, “ต้อง” [tâwng] can also be used to make a deduction or a conclusion about something that is very likely to be true. But for the latter use, we don’t just say the word “ต้อง” [tâwng] by itself, we use the structure “ต้อง…แน่(เลย) [tâwng…nâe (loei)].”…

“~ให้ได้” [hâi dâai] is one of the commonly used idioms in spoken Thai. It functions as an adverb modifying a verb. Thus, it generally follows a verb and often appears at the end of a sentence.

Although this idiom doesn’t have an equivalent in English and translations of this word may vary, its overall meaning is “absolutely,” “no matter what,” “at any cost,” or “without fail.”…

The expression “…ไปอย่างนั้น(แหละ)” [pai yàang nán (làe)]” is a commonly used colloquial idiom. It’s used to imply that the action was not done for any purpose. The nearest meaning in English may be “for the sake of it” or “for no particular reason” but it can be translated in many ways depending on the context.…

Did you know that in Thai we also have a word that has a similar usage to that of the filler word “like” in English? That’s the word “แบบ” [bàep]. The formal meaning of “แบบ” [bàep] is model, style, way, form or pattern. But it’s also used in the same way as the word “like” in English when used as a filler word, that is, it does not carry any meaning but it’s simply used to mark a pause or hesitation in speech.…

When you are obsessed with something you have just obtained or something new in your life, in Thai we use the verb เห่อ “hèr” to describe the obsession. It can be used with either an object, an animal or a person, as long as they are new. Let’s take a look at the examples below.…

“ก็ต่อเมื่อ [gâw tàw mêua]” is a conjunction quite commonly used by the Thais to express that something will not happen unless something else happens or something else is true. It can be translated as “only if,” “on the condition that,” “unless” or “when,” depending on how you structure the sentence. It’s often used together with the word “เท่านั้น” [tâo nán], which is placed at the end of the sentence to emphasize the meaning.…