Telling the time in Thai

A Thai friend says เจอกันสี่ทุ่ม joe-gan sìi-thûm and you write down four o'clock. You turn up at four in the afternoon and wait, because สี่ทุ่ม is ten at night. This is one of the commonest reasons foreigners here end up at the right place on the wrong half of the day, and it happens because Thai does not run one count from one to twelve and then repeat it. Thai cuts the day into blocks, and inside each block the counting starts again from one. The number you hear belongs to the block, not to the clock face. Until you know which block you are in, the number tells you almost nothing. There are seven markers to learn, and each one carries the whole meaning: ตี dtii for the small hours after midnight, โมง moong with เช้า cháo for the morning, เที่ยง thîang for noon, บ่าย bàai for the early afternoon, โมง moong with เย็น yen for the late afternoon, ทุ่ม thûm for the evening, and เที่ยงคืน thîang-kheun for midnight. เช้า and เย็น are not trimming you can leave off: ห้าโมง on its own is not yet a time, it becomes one only when เช้า or เย็น is attached. The usual explanation for where these words come from is worth knowing because it makes the system stick. ตี means to strike, as in striking a gong. โมง imitates the ring of a gong, which was sounded through the daylight hours. ทุ่ม imitates the dull thud of a drum, which was beaten after dark. Once you hear these as gong hours and drum hours rather than as random syllables, the day stops feeling arbitrary. The small hours run from one to five in the morning and use ตี, with the number after it: ตีหนึ่ง dtii-nèung, ตีสอง dtii-sǎwng, ตีสาม dtii-sǎam, ตีสี่ dtii-sìi, ตีห้า dtii-hâa. This is the one block where the spoken number is the same as the clock number, so ตีสาม really is three in the morning. The catch here is not the number, it is the date. In Thai the small hours still belong to the night that produced them, so คืนนี้ตีสอง kheun-níi dtii-sǎwng means two in the morning of the day your calendar calls tomorrow, and พรุ่งนี้ตีสอง phrûng-níi dtii-sǎwng would normally be taken as the night after that. Whenever a ตี hour is being arranged, confirm the date and not just the time. The block stops at five in ordinary modern speech, because six in the morning has normally moved into the gong hours as หกโมงเช้า. You will still hear ตีหก dtii-hòk from some speakers, so treat it as something to understand rather than something that is wrong, but say หกโมงเช้า yourself and you will never be misheard. From six to eleven in the morning you use โมง with เช้า cháo, the word for morning, on the end: หกโมงเช้า hòk-moong-cháo for six, เจ็ดโมงเช้า jèt-moong-cháo for seven, แปดโมงเช้า bpàet-moong-cháo for eight, เก้าโมงเช้า gâo-moong-cháo for nine, สิบโมงเช้า sìp-moong-cháo for ten, สิบเอ็ดโมง sìp-èt-moong for eleven, where เช้า is often dropped without risk, because there is no eleven in the evening block: that hour is ห้าทุ่ม. Six is the opposite case and the one hour where you must not drop the marker. หกโมงเช้า is six in the morning, หกโมงเย็น is six in the evening, and หกโมง on its own is genuinely ambiguous even to Thais, so a message that says only หกโมง is worth querying rather than guessing. In the oldest form of the system these morning hours were counted from one as well, so โมงเช้า was seven and สองโมงเช้า was eight. You will still meet that in old writing and now and then from an older speaker, which is a good reason to repeat a morning appointment back with the number rather than assume. What you should say yourself is the modern form with the real clock number. Noon is เที่ยง thîang, or เที่ยงวัน thîang-wan if you want to be clear it is midday and not midnight, or เที่ยงตรง thîang-dtrong for twelve sharp. Then the afternoon block begins, and here is a second trap: one in the afternoon is บ่ายโมง bàai-moong, with no number one in it at all. Saying บ่ายหนึ่งโมง marks you out immediately. After that the number goes between บ่าย and โมง: บ่ายสองโมง bàai-sǎwng-moong for two, บ่ายสามโมง bàai-sǎam-moong for three. Notice the structure, because it is the reason people get tangled: บ่าย comes before the number, while เช้า and เย็น come after it. Late afternoon shifts to เย็น yen, the word for the cool part of the day. Four o'clock can be either สี่โมงเย็น sìi-moong-yen or บ่ายสี่โมง bàai-sìi-moong, both are normal. Five is ห้าโมงเย็น hâa-moong-yen and six is หกโมงเย็น hòk-moong-yen, and by then บ่าย has dropped out entirely. In this stretch the spoken number does match the clock, which makes four, five and six in the afternoon the easiest hours in the whole system. Seven in the evening starts the drum hours, and the number now comes before ทุ่ม: หนึ่งทุ่ม nèung-thûm for seven, which in ordinary speech usually comes out as ทุ่มนึง thûm-neung, with the number after ทุ่ม and หนึ่ง reduced to นึง, then สองทุ่ม sǎwng-thûm for eight, สามทุ่ม sǎam-thûm for nine, สี่ทุ่ม sìi-thûm for ten, ห้าทุ่ม hâa-thûm for eleven. The arithmetic is simple once you trust it: add six to the ทุ่ม number and you have the evening hour. Twelve is เที่ยงคืน thîang-kheun, literally the noon of the night. Some speakers carry the drum count straight through and say หกทุ่ม hòk-thûm for midnight, which is understood everywhere, though เที่ยงคืน is the form to use yourself. After that you are back to ตีหนึ่ง. You may also see สองยาม sǎwng-yaam for midnight in older or literary language, and ย่ำรุ่ง yâm-rûng for six in the morning and ย่ำค่ำ yâm-khâm for six in the evening, all old-fashioned and not needed for daily life, though they still surface around temples and in traditional writing. Often nobody wants to name an hour at all, and you need the part-of-day words instead. The set is small and worth having whole: ตอนเช้า dtawn-cháo the morning, ตอนสาย dtawn-sǎai the late morning, roughly nine to eleven, ตอนเที่ยง dtawn-thîang around noon, ตอนบ่าย dtawn-bàai the afternoon, ตอนเย็น dtawn-yen the early evening, ตอนค่ำ dtawn-khâm after dark, ตอนกลางคืน dtawn-glaang-kheun the night, and ตอนดึก dtawn-dèuk the small hours. ตอนกลางวัน dtawn-glaang-wan is daytime as opposed to night. ตอน dtawn itself just means at that time, and it is the word that hooks any of these, or a clock hour, onto a sentence: ประชุมตอนบ่าย bprà-chum dtawn-bàai, the meeting is in the afternoon. เจอกันตอนเย็น joe-gan dtawn-yen is a complete plan here, not a vague one. Here is the whole round. 00:00 เที่ยงคืน thîang-kheun; 01:00 ตีหนึ่ง dtii-nèung; 02:00 ตีสอง dtii-sǎwng; 03:00 ตีสาม dtii-sǎam; 04:00 ตีสี่ dtii-sìi; 05:00 ตีห้า dtii-hâa; 06:00 หกโมงเช้า hòk-moong-cháo; 07:00 เจ็ดโมงเช้า jèt-moong-cháo; 08:00 แปดโมงเช้า bpàet-moong-cháo; 09:00 เก้าโมงเช้า gâo-moong-cháo; 10:00 สิบโมงเช้า sìp-moong-cháo; 11:00 สิบเอ็ดโมง sìp-èt-moong; 12:00 เที่ยง thîang; 13:00 บ่ายโมง bàai-moong; 14:00 บ่ายสองโมง bàai-sǎwng-moong; 15:00 บ่ายสามโมง bàai-sǎam-moong; 16:00 สี่โมงเย็น sìi-moong-yen, also บ่ายสี่โมง bàai-sìi-moong; 17:00 ห้าโมงเย็น hâa-moong-yen; 18:00 หกโมงเย็น hòk-moong-yen; 19:00 หนึ่งทุ่ม nèung-thûm; 20:00 สองทุ่ม sǎwng-thûm; 21:00 สามทุ่ม sǎam-thûm; 22:00 สี่ทุ่ม sìi-thûm; 23:00 ห้าทุ่ม hâa-thûm; and back to 24:00 เที่ยงคืน thîang-kheun. Minutes are easy by comparison. ครึ่ง khrêung means half and goes on the end of whatever you just said, so หกโมงครึ่ง hòk-moong-khrêung is half past six in the morning, บ่ายโมงครึ่ง bàai-moong-khrêung is half past one in the afternoon, สองทุ่มครึ่ง sǎwng-thûm-khrêung is half past eight at night, and เที่ยงครึ่ง thîang-khrêung is half past twelve. Other minutes follow in the same position. From ten upward นาที naa-thii, the word for minute, is often dropped: บ่ายสองโมงสิบห้า bàai-sǎwng-moong sìp-hâa is 2:15pm. With single-digit minutes keep it, because บ่ายสองโมงห้า does not sound like a time on its own: say บ่ายสองโมงห้านาที bàai-sǎwng-moong hâa naa-thii for 2:05pm. Thai has no word for a quarter of an hour, so quarter past and quarter to are simply สิบห้านาที and there is nothing to look for. ตรง dtrong on the end means exactly or sharp. To count down to an hour, use อีก ìik: อีกสิบนาทีจะเที่ยง ìik sìp naa-thii jà thîang, ten more minutes to noon. For approximate times, which is how most arrangements here are actually made, put ประมาณ bprà-maan, about, or ราวๆ raao-raao, roughly, in front: ประมาณบ่ายสามโมง bprà-maan bàai-sǎam-moong. เกือบ gèuap means nearly and points just short of the hour: เกือบเที่ยงแล้ว gèuap thîang láew, it is nearly noon. Keep ชั่วโมง chûa-moong separate in your head: that is an hour as a length of time, so สองชั่วโมง sǎwng-chûa-moong is two hours long, while สองโมง on its own is a point on the clock. Seconds are วินาที wí-naa-thii. Alongside all of this there is a clean 24-hour system using นาฬิกา naa-lí-gaa, which is also the ordinary word for a clock or a watch. You say the hour number then นาฬิกา, then the minutes with นาที: สิบสามนาฬิกาสามสิบนาที sìp-sǎam naa-lí-gaa sǎam-sìp naa-thii for 13:30. Midnight is ศูนย์นาฬิกา sǔun naa-lí-gaa. You will meet this form constantly in writing and in announcements: bus and train tickets, flight boards, hospital appointment slips, government office hours, TV schedules, station and airport tannoys. In print it is usually written with a dot rather than a colon and abbreviated to น., so a sign reading 08.30 น. means half past eight in the morning. On a door or a board the digits almost always follow เวลา wee-laa, the word for time: เวลา 08.30 - 16.30 น. means open from half past eight to half past four. เวลาราชการ wee-laa râat-chá-gaan means government office hours. Look also for พักเที่ยง phák-thîang, the noon break, because many counters really do shut from twelve until one, though some of the larger immigration offices now work through it; if the trip matters, ask rather than assume. To say a range out loud, ตั้งแต่ dtâng-dtàe means from and ถึง thěung means until: เปิดตั้งแต่แปดโมงเช้าถึงห้าโมงเย็น bpòet dtâng-dtàe bpàet-moong-cháo thěung hâa-moong-yen. You will rarely hear นาฬิกา used to arrange a coffee with a friend, though soldiers, police and plenty of workplaces do say it out loud. Everybody reads it. In practice, ask กี่โมงแล้วครับ gìi-moong láew khráp, meaning what time is it now. กี่โมง gìi-moong works at any hour, including at two in the morning when the answer will come back as a ตี hour. To ask when something happens, use กี่โมง as well: ร้านเปิดกี่โมง ráan bpòet gìi-moong, what time does the shop open. When somebody gives you a time you are not sure of, repeat it back in the 24-hour form or write the digits down and show them, because staff at a clinic or a garage will happily confirm digits even if their English stops there. For the first few months, understanding beats production: learn to hear the block words instantly, and let your own speech lean on the ones you are sure of. Getting the block right and the minutes vague is fine. Getting the block wrong costs you an afternoon.