How to say How in Thai?
How Questions follow the pattern:
“Verb (phrase) + ยังไง /yang-ngai/ (How?)” |
The word ‘ยังไง /yang-ngai/’ is written as if were spelt ‘อย่างไร /yang-rai/’, but when using informal speech the normal pronunciation is ‘ยังไง /yang-ngai/’ may be reduced to simply ‘ไง /ngai/’
For Example;
เป็นยังไง /bpen yang-ngai/ = How are things?
เขียนยังไง /kǐan yang-ngai/ = How do you write it?
The word ‘ยังไง /yang-ngai/’ is sometimes used when English uses ‘What?’
For Example;
คุณคิดยังไง /kun kít yang-ngai/ = What do you think?
คุณจะทำยังไง /kun jà tam yang-ngai/ = What will you do?
How? Question (degree)
Some question of degree, such as ‘How tall?’, ‘How long (in time) ?’, ‘How long (in measurement)?’ and ‘How wide?’ follow the pattern;
“Measure Word + เท่าไหร่ /tâo-rài/ (How much?)” |
Such question anticipates a specific numerical response, such as ‘1.65metres’, ‘2 hours’, etc.
For Example;
หนักเท่าไหร่ /nàk tâo-rài/ = How heavy is it?
คุณอายุเท่าไหร่ /kun aa-yú tâo-rài/ = How old are you?
I hope you can now start practising the question word ‘How’ in Thai. How was that?
For more Thai lessons please look on this site, we have over 450 lessons here and over 250 video Thai lesson on our YouTube site – links at the top of the page.
See you next lesson.
By Prae
Thai Language Teacher
