Kat Teaches Thai Episode 7 (How to use color words in a sentence)

Kat Teaches Thai

May 2 2022 • 4 mins

On the last episode, I taught you how to say color words, or see (rhymes with we).  There are more color names but those are the basic ones and we will learn the harder ones in the future.  Today, we will be learning how to put the word see in the sentences.

Here’s a little introduction on Thai grammar.  In English, the word order in a sentence usually goes from subject, verb, adjective, to object.  For example, Emma eats blue popsicle.  The subject is Emma; eats is verb; blue is adjective; and popsicle is object.  In Thai, the word order in a sentence usually goes from subject, verb, object, to adjective.  The word orders are similar, but we swap between adjective and object.  So in Thai, we would say Emma-kin-popsicle-see-fah or Emma eats popsicle blue.  Direct translation between languages usually sounds funny, so it’s important to know the basic grammar of the language you are trying to learn.  As a reminder, the word order goes from subject, verb, object, to adjective. Notice how I will use the word see in front of every color word.

Here is the first sentence.

Robert-mee-rode-see-dang

Mee (Sounds like me) =  has or have = VERB
Rode (Sounds like rode) = car = OBJECT
See (Sounds like see) = color
Dang (Sounds like dang) = red = ADJECTIVE

So a direct translation would be Robert has car red, which is an equivalent of Robert has red car.

You can practice changing the name of the subject and the color word to form new sentences.

For example:

Linda-mee-rode-see-chome-poo or Linda has pink car
Jim-mee-rode-see-kow or Jim has white car
Ann-mee-rode-see-dum  or Ann has black car.

Here is the second sentence example on how to use the color word

Jack-arn-nung-sue-see-keow

Arn (Rhymes with barn) =  read = VERB
Nung (Rhymes with rung) Sue (Sounds almost like sir)  = book = OBJECT
See (Sounds like see) = color
Chome (Rhymes with dome) Poo (Sounds like poo) = pink = ADJECTIVE

So a direct translation would be Jack reads book green, which is an equivalent of Jack reads green book.

Again, we can swap out the subject and the color word to form new sentences.

Linda-arn-nung-sue-see-chome-poo or Linda reads pink book.
Jim-arn-nung-sue-see-kow or Jim reads white book.
Ann-arn-nung-sue-see-dum or Ann reads black book.

We will learn how to replace more vocabulary into our sentence structure on the future episodes.