When first learning Thai, it can seem as if the Thais don't care for much
politeness. The words a Thai dictionary would translate as 'please' (such as
ga-ru-nah and bproht) are rarely heard in normal speech, while the
'softer' phrasing sometimes used in English to be polite is also normally dispensed
with (e.g. where an English speaker might say 'I would like to have...please',
a Thai would simply say ao, meaning 'I want', instead).
This is somewhat deceptive though. Thai uses a complex system which ensures
that just the right amount of politeness can be used in any situation, mainly
done through a variety of 'particles' that are added on to the end of sentences.
The most important ones to know of these are kráp (for men) or
kâ (for women), which should be said at the end of almost every
sentence in order to be polite. For instance, if you bump into someone on the
street it would be slightly rude to just say kor toht ('sorry/excuse
me') on it's own, while saying kor toht kráp/kâ would be
perfectly polite. The same goes when saying sawat-dee ('hello/hi'), korp
khun ('thank you'), mâi bpen rai ('never mind / you're welcome')
and pretty much anything else. If you get into conversation, you can usually
drop the kráp/kâ at after a few sentences and just use it
occasionally. However, if you are talking with someone important (an immigration
official, say) you are probably best to keep saying it freqenently. If you're
not sure, take your cue from how often the Thai person you're talking to do
is saying kráp/kâ and do likewise yourself. It is generally
not too difficult, and most people find that it becomes second nature very quickly.
In everyday speech, the 'r' sound is kráp is very often dropped
so it sounds more like káp. It's not uncommon either to hear the
short 'a' sound in kâ dragged out to a longer 'ah' sound, or even
changed to sound like hâ. Both kráp/kâ
are used frequently on their on own as a polite way of saying 'yes'.
Though kráp/kâ are the most important things to
remember, unfortunately that's not quite all there is to it. Along with the
huge range of pronouns that have to be used appropriately,
another difficulty is the fact that where in English there might be just one
word for something, Thai will have a significant array of words of varying politeness.
If you wanted to translate the word 'eat' into Thai, for instance, you would
have a choice of using:
gin (everyday word, slightly informal)
tahn (everyday word, slightly formal)
rap-bpra-tahn (very formal)
dairk (very informal, often offensive)
chan (when talking about monks)
savoey (when talking about the King and the royal family)
In addition, the politeness levels of the pronoun (if used) and the word used
should match up. So while saying pom chorp gin ah-ahn tai ('I like eating
Thai food') would not exactly be wrong, pom chorp tahn ah-ahn tai would
be better.
