Learn Thai, lesson by lesson

Lessons are grouped by how hard the Thai is, not by how much script you can read. Those are two separate things in Thai: you can hold a conversation long before you can read a menu, and this site treats them as separate tracks.

Survival

• The Body and What Hurts (bpùat, jèp, mêuay)Name any part of the body head to foot, say what kind of hurt it is by choosing correctly between bpùat, jèp and mêuay, add how bad it is and how long it has gone on, and recognise the questions a Thai pharmacist or doctor asks back.
• Saying Yes and OK (châi, dâi, dtòk-long)Answer any Thai question with the right yes — hand back the main verb it used, and choose deliberately between ใช่, ได้, ตกลง, เอา, ก็ได้ and โอเค — then tell a real agreement apart from a polite one.
• Monks, merit and temple etiquetteVisit a temple, join a merit-making, and share a train carriage with monks this week without a single misstep in dress, feet, shoes or contact.
• The wai: who, when and howGive the right wai at the right height to the right person, and answer service wais with a nod and a smile instead of a wai of your own.
• I and You Without Embarrassment (phǒm, chǎn, khun)Pick the right word for I and you in a market, a clinic and a visa office, hear the kinship words that stand in for both, use your own nickname the way Thais do, and know which pronouns you should recognise but never say.
• Numbers One to Ten (nèung, sǎwng, sǎam)Say every number you need in a day, hear one come back at you at full speed without asking twice, and handle the two irregular forms, halves, ordinals and a phone number without stopping to convert.
• Asking Questions (mǎi, à-rai, châi mǎi, rěu yang)Ask anything in Thai without moving a single word. You will put every question word in the slot where its answer goes, build a yes/no question with ไหม, ใช่ไหม, หรือเปล่า, หรือยัง and ได้ไหม, hear เหรอ as the one that carries surprise, know which answer each of them is asking for instead of guessing, and soften any of them so that what you have asked reads as a question rather than as an interrogation.
• Polite particles: khráp and khâAdd the right politeness particle to almost any sentence, and know which one to use as a man or as a woman.

Everyday

• Family and Relatives (phâw, mâe, phîi, náwng)Name any relative in a Thai family in the order Thai names them — age first, then side, then sex — address your partner's parents, aunts and grandparents correctly on a first visit, and answer the standard questions about your own family without stalling on the word for brother.
• How long, since when and how often (naan, dtâng-dtàe, lá)Ask and answer how long something has been going on, say since when and until when, count a span forwards as well as backwards, and give a frequency, so the question every foreigner here gets asked and every span quoted at a counter both stop being guesswork.
• Directions Stuck on the Back of a Verb (bpai, maa, khêun, long)Put ไป, มา, ขึ้น, ลง, เข้า, ออก and กลับ on the back of a verb so that every request you make says who is expected to move, stack them in the right order when more than one is needed, and tell the directional ไป apart from the ไป that means too much.
• Thai Slang You Will Actually Hear (ngong, sâep, bpang)Follow the informal Thai in a group chat, an office lunch and a bar, know which words are warm, which are only for friends and which you should recognise and never say, and stop guessing at the handful of phrases every foreigner in Thailand gets asked about.
• Love and affection in ThaiSay I love you, I like you and I miss you in Thai without overreaching, and understand the words Thai actually uses for partners, endearment and compliments.
• Eat, play, get hit, get stuck: four verbs that stretchTake medicine, excuse a late arrival, report a fine and name an addiction this week using four verbs you already know: กิน, เล่น, โดน and ติด.
• Opinions: khit waa and the hedgeGive an opinion with khít wâa or phǒm wâa, grade it with nâa jà, khong jà or àat jà, answer someone else's opinion without sounding blunt, and read a hedged Thai reply as the polite near-decision it usually is.
• Degrees: maak, goen-bpai and phawDial any adjective up, down, past the limit or exactly onto it: soften with nít-nàwy, push with mâak and loei, object with goen-bpai, approve with phaw-dii, and compare with gwàa, each in its correct slot.
• Time texture: yang, geuap and phoengAnswer gin khâaw rěu yang correctly and place yang, phôeng, gèuap, gam-lang jà, wái and khoei in your own sentences so listeners know exactly where in time you are.
• Requests: chuay, khaw and yaaAsk a Thai speaker to do something for you, ask to receive something or to be allowed to do it yourself, and read or issue a "don't" at the right level of authority and politeness.
• The linking word thiiRead the position of thîi in any sentence and tell instantly whether it means at, which, number so-and-so, or the reason for a feeling, then build all four patterns yourself.
• If and when: thâa and mêuaSay real conditions out loud this week: name a price ceiling with thâa ... gâw, hedge with phèua, warn with mâi-ngán, and put a time on a plan with dtawn.
• Because, so and the connector gawGive reasons and consequences the way Thai speakers actually say them: cause first, then gâw loei plus result, with phráw for because and gâw dâi for easy agreement.
• Songkran and Loy KrathongGet through Songkran week with your phone, your visa deadlines and your temper intact, and float a krathong correctly on the November full moon.
• Day colours, luck and the spirit houseWear the right colour on the right occasion, stand at the right moments, and behave correctly around spirit houses and lottery talk, starting this week.
• Face, jai yen and why nobody says noHear the no inside a Thai maybe, keep your voice level when something goes wrong, and make the gentle second offer that being the richer party obliges you to make.
• Hâi and its six jobsHear ให้ in a real sentence and work out in one step which of its six jobs it is doing, then use each job yourself.
• Saying where things areAsk where something is and understand the answer, using อยู่ with the full set of Thai position words, without confusing near and far.
• Want, need and mustAsk for what you want, state what you have to do, and politely decline something you do not need, using อยาก, ต้องการ, เอา, ต้อง, ควร and ไม่ต้อง correctly in shops, clinics and government offices.
• The little words at the end of sentencesYou will be able to hear and use seven of the sentence-final particles you meet every day beyond ครับ and ค่ะ, plus the commonest of the rest, so that what you say carries the tone of voice you actually meant. There is no fixed list: Thai keeps adding them, and these are the ones that earn their place first.
• Comparing thingsCompare two things out loud in a shop, a clinic or a taxi: say which is cheaper, which is best, which two are the same, and ask for a bit better.
• How to address peopleAddress any Thai person you deal with, from a waiter to your landlord to your doctor, using the right kinship term, title or name instead of reaching for a word that means "you".
• Telling the time in ThaiSay and understand every hour of the Thai day in ordinary speech, including the evening block where the number you hear is six less than the number on the clock, and read the 24-hour form used on tickets and appointment slips.
• Days, months and the Buddhist yearSay any Thai date out loud, read the month off a Thai receipt or calendar, and fill the วัน/เดือน/ปี boxes on a visa, bank or hospital form in the Buddhist year without having the form handed back to you.
• The three ways to say "can"Choose correctly between ได้, เป็น and ไหว whenever you want to say "can" or "can't", put the word where a Thai listener expects to hear it, recognise สามารถ on signs and forms, and reach for ไม่ออก, ไม่ทัน, ไม่ถูก or ไม่ลง when none of the three fits.
• Saying no: the negativesRefuse, deny and correct in Thai with the right negative, choosing between ไม่, ไม่ได้, ไม่เป็น, ยังไม่, เปล่า and ไม่ใช่ without having to think about it.
• Past, future and alreadyPlace Thai's time markers correctly, แล้ว จะ กำลัง อยู่ เคย ยัง เพิ่ง ได้ and มา, so you can say what you have done, are doing and will do, and answer the everyday "have you yet?" question without hesitating.
• The four answers to English "is"Say any English sentence containing "is" in correct Thai by choosing between bpen, kheu, yùu, or no verb at all.

The shape of a Thai sentence

Thai word order is the part of the language that is easier than English, not harder. The core is subject, verb, object, the order you already use, and nothing in Thai grammar forces you off it; what Thai does do freely is put the topic first and comment on it afterwards. Questions do not invert and negatives need no auxiliary: what changes a sentence is what you add at the front and the end, not what you move in the middle.

A time word takes the front slot, before the subject, though it can also sit at the end. Two things inside the sentence run backwards from English: a describing word follows its noun, so คนสวย (khon sǔay) is a beautiful person while เขาสวย (khǎo sǔay) is she is beautiful, and an owner follows the thing owned, so บ้านผม (bâan phǒm) is my house.

What Thai drops, and what it adds instead

Most of what an English speaker calls grammar is absent here, which is why Thai sentences are short. Verbs never change shape: no ate, no eaten, no third-person s, no agreement with anything. Nouns do not change either, so ห้อง (hâwng) is a room or rooms and the sentence decides, and there is no a, no the, no gender and no case ending. Quality words are verbs, so สวย (sǔay) already means is beautiful and เขาสวย (khǎo sǔay) is the whole sentence; ไม่ (mâi) negates by sitting in front of the verb, with no do support anywhere. Past, future and already, The four answers to English "is" and Saying no: the negatives take those apart.

What Thai adds in exchange is where the real work goes. An ordinary noun cannot be counted directly. The order is noun, number, classifier: น้ำสองขวด (náam sǎwng khùuat), water two bottle. The classifier names what kind of thing is being counted — ขวด (khùuat) for bottles, คัน (khan) for cars, motorbikes and bicycles, คน (khon) for people. Units are the exception, already their own measure, which is why ห้าบาท (hâa bàat) and ห้าปี (hâa bpii) need nothing in between. How you take classifiers on matters more than the list itself, and Thai classifiers says how.

In English you change your pitch to change your attitude. Thai has far less room to do that, because pitch is already busy telling มา (maa, come) from ม้า (máa, horse) from หมา (mǎa, dog): swoop the pitch up to signal surprise and you change the word. So the attitude goes at the end instead, as a syllable of its own, mood first and politeness last: นะครับ (ná khráp), เหรอคะ (rǒe khá), สิครับ (sì khráp). The same fact is why English question intonation works against you here, and why the ear work comes before the rules. See The little words at the end of sentences and Practice: hearing the five tones.

And a pronoun states a relationship rather than merely pointing, so the safest move is often to use none at all, which is not lazy learner Thai but what fluent speakers do. เขา (khǎo) covers he, she and they, and kinship words like พี่ (phîi) serve as I as well as you: a vendor older than you saying พี่ลดให้ (phîi lót hâi) is talking about herself. See I and You Without Embarrassment.

The order to learn them in

This is not the order a textbook uses. It is arranged by how soon each piece stops you being understood. Start with the polite particles, because the particle rides on almost every sentence you say to a stranger and a wrong one is audible in a single syllable. Women have one more thing to get right: ค่ะ (khâ) ends a statement and คะ (khá) ends a question, the same syllable on two tones, decided fresh in every sentence. Take the words for I and you alongside them — and note that the fluent move is often to use neither. Then the transaction kit, questions, numbers and classifiers; then the time markers, earlier than feels necessary, because learners who postpone them invent a past tense out of แล้ว. Then requests, want, need and must and the three ways to say can, and last the connectors and the tone of voice, from because and so to opinions and the hedge.

The script is a separate track: Read Thai, step by step assumes nothing from the lessons above. And none of this covers the part that decides how you are treated: Face, jai yen and why nobody says no and the wai are not grammar and they are not optional. Grammatically perfect Thai delivered with the wrong face gets you less than broken Thai delivered with the right one.

Looking for something to say right now instead? Go to phrases by situation.