Thai language, a bit of history…
The Thai language, formerly called the Siamese, is the official language of Thailand. It has about 60 million speakers. Thai is a language with very simple grammar because it does not use plural, masculine / feminine and does not have any conjugation …
The biggest difficulty of this language is that it does not have a Latin alphabet and that it exists within this language, 5 different tones for its pronunciation (neutral, amount, descending, high and low).
Thai dialects
In Thailand, although Thai is the official language and spoken by everyone, there are many Thai dialects whose main ones are:
Thai issan
The Thai issan is native to the northeastern region of Thailand (region Nissan). It is a dialect very close to Lao. It is also called lao-thai. It has about 6 million speakers. It represents about 10% of Thais.
Thai north
Northern Thai, also called Lanna is a dialect spoken by Thai Huan. It is practiced more precisely in the regions of the ancient kingdom of Lanna. Mainly in the Chang Mai and Chang Rai regions.
The Pak Tai
Pak tai, which means simply Thai from the south, is the most used dialect in southern Thailand and has about 5 million speakers. It is spoken in the South, from Chumphon.
Thai courtesy
At the end of each sentence, you will have to add the courtesy form in Thai “Kra” or “khrap” according to your gender.
If you are a woman you will have to add “kha” and if you are a man, the politeness form “khrap”
Learn Thai in Toulouse
If you want to learn Thai in Toulouse, we recommend one of our partners. It is called Phasa Thai and the courses take place on the site of the French Alliance, Place du Capitole.
For any further information please do not hesitate to contact us or directly contact Phasa Thaï.