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สวัสดี | saL watL deeM | Hello; Goodbye; Good morning; Good evening |
สบายดีหรือ | saL baaiM deeM reuuR | How are you? |
ยินดีที่ได้รู้จัก | yinM deeM theeF daiF ruuH jakL | Pleased to meet you. |
แล้วพบกันใหม่ | laaeoH phohpH ganM maiL | See you later. |
สวัส | saL watL | blessing; good fortune |
ดี | deeM | [is] good |
What do we mean when we put "is" in the definition? In Thai, most adjectives which describe states or conditions can be used without a verb. In this mode,
they take the place of a verb and they're called predicative adjectives. We don't need to worry about this too much for now, but you can click here if you're interested in the details. In Thai, attributive adjectives come after the noun that they modify, unlike English. We say "small cat," which is แมวเล็ก /maaeoM lekH/ ("cat small") in Thai. "Green shirt," is เสื้อเขียว /seuuaF khiaaoR/, or, word-for-word, "shirt green." Knowing this, we can see that สวัสดี /saL watL deeM/ means "good blessing" or "good fortune." | ||
สบาย | saL baaiM | [is] happy; comfortable; content; fine; well; cool; o.k.; good; nice |
Similarly, you can see that สบายดี /saL baaiM deeM/ means "good comfort." | ||
ยิน | yinM | to feel pleased |
And ยินดี /yinM deeM/ means "good pleasure." | ||
ที่ | theeF | for; to |
This word is a very flexible preposition in Thai; it can mean “at,” "which," "that," "where," and more. | ||
ได้ | daiF | [auxiliary verb] |
This is a very common and important verb that is usually translated as "can" or "to be able." It also used to form auxiliary verbs and indicate certain tenses. We'll be seeing a lot of this word later. | ||
รู้จัก | ruuH jakL | [of a person or place] to know |
There is different word to use for knowing a fact or piece of information; this one usually means to know a person. | ||
แล้ว | laaeoH | so then... |
This is another very common Thai word which can be used to indicate tense, or the time period you are speaking about. Usually it indicates the past, but in the phrase in this lesson, it indicates continuation into the future. | ||
พบกัน | phohpH ganM | to meet with a person |
ใหม่ | new; anew | |
You can practice distinguishing your low tone from your rising tone and falling tone with the words ใหม่ /maiL/, ไหม /maiR/, and ไม่ /maiF/. In fact, if you put the first two of them together, you have a complete
sentence, ใหม่ไหม /maiL maiH/—"Is it new?" Can you guess the meaning of ไม่ใหม่ไหม /maiF maiL maiH/? Click here for the answer. |