Study Focus: Expressing Feelings

• We can express feelings and emotions quite easily in Thai. There are many adjectives that describe feelings that can go after nouns.

  • ผมหิว (phǒm hǐu) ➤ "I'm hungry."

• As is common in Thai, we can leave the subject out of the sentence if it is obvious or understood from the context.

• So, if you are speaking to someone and you just said the single word หิว (hǐu), it will be understood that you mean "I'm hungry."

• In this way, it is very common to hear one-word sentences when people are talking about how they feel at the present moment.

• If you said to the same person หิวไหม (hǐu mǎi), it will be understood that you are asking them "Are you hungry?"

• Here is a list of common feeling adjectives:

• เบื่อ (bûuea) means "bored," but we also use it in other situations to mean "frustrated," "fed up," or "annoyed."

  • If there is a girl who keeps getting pestered by one of the boys in her class, she might say to her friend เบื่อคนนี้เลย (bûuea khon níi looei) "I'm so sick of this person."

• หิว (hǐu) is often followed by the word ข้าว (khâao), meaning "rice."

  • The phrase หิวข้าว (hǐu khâao) then means "hungry for a meal."

• ง่วง (ngûuang) by itself means "sleepy," but we often combine it with the verb นอน (naawn) ("to sleep").

  • The whole phrase ง่วงนอน (ngûuang-naawn) has the exact same meaning of "sleepy."

• ดีใจ (dii-jai) means "happy."

  • It is a compound made up of ดี (dii) ("good") and ใจ (jai) ("heart").

  • If you feel good in your heart, it means you are happy.

  • Be careful not to confuse this with another adjective made with the same component words in reverse order, ใจดี (jai-dii), which means "kind" or "kind-hearted."

• เสียใจ (sǐia-jai) means "sad."

  • It also contains the word for "heart," ใจ (jai), which is very common for words describing emotions in Thai.

  • The first part of the compound is the adjective เสีย (sǐia), which means "broken" or "spoiled."

  • So "sad" in Thai is literally "brokenhearted."

• โกรธ (gròot) and โมโห (moo-hǒo) both have the same meaning of "angry" or "mad."

Vocabulary & Phrases

• อ่านหนังสือ (àan nǎng-sǔue)

  • This phrase literally means "read a book."

  • อ่าน (àan) is the verb "to read," and หนังสือ (nǎng-sǔue) means "book."

  • However, in everyday speaking, we use this phrase to mean "to study by oneself."

  • We use the verb "to study," เรียน (riiaan) more often to refer to the general process of studying a certain subject or to the act of taking a lesson from an instructor.

• เอา(น้ำ)อะไรดี (ao (náam) à-rai dii)

  • This phrase means "What will you have?" or, if we include the word น้ำ (náam), then it means "What will you have to drink?"

  • Usually น้ำ (náam) means "water," but here we use it to mean any beverage in general that you might drink.

  • เอา (ao) is the verb "to get" or "to take," and อะไร (à-rai) is the question "what?"

  • The last word is ดี (dii), meaning "good."

  • We can also use the same pattern, with ดี (dii) at the end of any question, when we want to ask someone for their input, opinion, or preference.

  • คืนนี้เราไปเที่ยวที่ไหนดี (khuuen níi rao bpai thîiao thîi-nǎi dii) ➤ "Where should we go out tonight?"

• เนี่ยะ (nîa)

  • This is a kind of slang or colloquial word that has evolved from the pronoun นี่ nîi ("this"). We use it in a sentence as an emphatic "this!"

  • A common example of its use is the phrase อะไรกันเนี่ยะ (à-rai gan nîa) "What the heck is this?"

  • You will also see it written as เนี่ย (nîia). This has the same meaning, just a longer pronunciation of the vowel sound.

How Do You Like Your Thai Coffee?

• The number of coffee shops in Thailand has increased during the past decade.

  • Given the warm climate, "iced coffee" (gaa-faae yen) is one of the most popular beverages.

  • If you desired iced coffee without milk, you would need to request gaa-faae yen mai sài nom. Coffee is cultivated in the northern region of the nation.

• The majority of the coffee produced in Thailand is the product of crop substitution schemes designed to convince hill-tribe people to forgo cultivating opium poppies.

• Wawee Coffee is a local coffee shop franchise that provides locally sourced coffee.

  • It has numerous locations in both Chiang Mai and Bangkok.

• Café Doi Tung is a local network of coffee shops.

  • It sells Thai-grown coffee as part of a sustainable development initiative.

• Obviously, the global coffee giant Starbucks is also well-established in Thailand.