Also, women should replace the word ‘krap4’ for ‘ka3’.ģ – หวัสดีครับ watdee krap (notice the ห in front of the word)Įven this however is a bit of a simplification to all the possible ways you can say Hello in Thai. Note that the last two are rarely used, given their informality and the possibility of confusing the meaning with the word for ‘good’. I’ve listed each way by order of politeness, with 1 being the most polite and 6 the least polite. But if you are a woman, you will greet saying sawadee ka. To change the politeness/formalness of ‘sawatdee’, you simply add or remove syllables. For example, hello in Thai is sawadee, and if you are a man you should greet saying sawadee kap. This phrase can prove as a lifesaver to exasperated tourists Remember to add khap or ka at the end, and you’ll successfully dissuade any more unwanted attention from the merchants. Thus, kap is more commonly used than the correct term krap. Just listen to Thais answer the phone to get the correct pronunciation. One of the Thai expressions and phrases you need to know to say is mai aow, which means I don’t want it. Kap is short for the formal term krap, but most Thais dont pronounce the letter r clearly. It is spelled ฮัลโล, but it isn’t pronounced as it is spelled. ‘hello’! Yes, Thai stole the word directly from English, and is most commonly used when answering the phone. or to overcomplicate it for you – depending on your fluency level. But never fear! I’m here to give you more options. Sawatdee is fairly polite, and can come off weird if you say it to your close friends or relatives. So as a beginner you’ve probably learned that ‘sawatdee’ meant hello ages ago. The person who transliterated the word probably didn’t realize this rule doesn’t hold true in English (or Englit, as they say). In the Thai spelling it is ‘sawasdee’ สวัสดี, but whenever an ‘s’ ส is at the end of a syllable, it makes a ‘t’ sound. Many many months later, when I started learning how to read Thai, it became clear to me that it was a transliteration mistake. Did ‘sawasdee’ have anything to do with ‘sawatdee’? What’s up with that ‘s’? A typo, maybe? At the time my Thai vocabulary consisted of a few phrases and a hundred or so words, such as ‘sawatdee krap’ meant ‘hello’, etc.Īnyway I’m on the Thai Airways flight and I see in front of me a magazine titled ‘Sawasdee’. Before my trip I started studying a little Thai, learning all the basics so I can be a more informed tourist. To correct for the problem they put me on a Thai Airways flight at no extra charge – for those who don’t know, Thai Airways is an expensive classy airline to fly on. The airline unfortunately ‘messed up’ my connecting flight. I remember being on the plane on my very first trip to Thailand.
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