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Some of the main differences between Thai and English Grammar

• Thai is a tonal language. There are five tones; rising, falling, low, middle and high. Several words, with different meanings, can be spelt the same. The tone determines the meaning of the word.
• In English, although a word may be pronounced badly or differently, it can usually be recognised. However, even in English a word can have more than one meaning, but the meaning is usually made clear by the context.

• In Thai, there are no variant forms of adjectives ( good, better, best ) or plural forms of nouns.

Thais would say, ' apple five ' instead of ' five apples '.

• Thai has no verb conjugations. Past, present and future tenses are understood in context, or by the use of adverbs relating to time.
• In English, there are many tenses of a verb, which indicate past, present, future etc. We may also use adverbs to make things even more clear.

• The Thai language contains no definite or indefinite articles - English does, the, a, an.

• In Thai, adjectives come after the noun : in English normally before.

Thais would say ‘ apple green ’ instead of ‘ a green apple '.

• In Thai, the verb ‘ to be ’ is not used with adjectives like in English.

Thus, Thais would say ' she beautiful ' rather than ' she is beautiful '

• In Thai, ' Yes ' and ' No ' are used less often than in English. In answer to the ( Thai ) question ' you feel good? ', the reply would often be ' feel good ' or ' not feel good ' rather than ' yes ' or ' no '.

Thai script has only one case. There are no upper and lower case variants. Thai script is written without spaces between words. Spaces are generally only placed between sentences or for clarification of a particular word.

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