THAI LANGUAGE LESSONS
L19 - Adjectives
Adjectives are words that describe nouns. We have naturally covered quite a few adjectives in the previous lessons but lets quickly clarify how to use them. Here are a few example adjectives.
| small | lek |
| big | yai |
| short (length) | sun |
| long | yaow |
| short (height) | dtee-a |
| tall | soong |
| light | bao |
| heavy | nak |
| slow | cha |
| fast | ray-oh |
| good | dee |
| bad | rai |
| happy | dee-jai |
| sad | sao-jai |
The important thing to understand about adjectives is that you should place them after the noun they are describing.
bahn yai - big house
bahn lek - small house
mah cha - slow dog
rot yon ray-oh - fast car
If you look at the above examples you will see the adjective is attached to the noun. This is how it is often done in everyday speech and you will generally be understood. To be strictly correct, it is often better to attach the adjective to the noun's classifier.
koon somchai bpen kon dtee-a - Mr Somchai is a short person
koon steve bpen kon soong - Mr Steve is a tall person
So the top example could be more completely stated as:
bahn lung yai - big house
A common facet of the Thai language is repeating a word to add emphasis.
bahn yai yai - big big house
This repetition can also be used to turn an adjective into an adverb:
bpai cha cha - go slowly
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