These are the grammar notes for the whole book. You may like to read through them first or come back after you have read a few chapters.

WORD ORDER : In Thai, a simple sentence will be similar to English:

Subject-Verb-Object

However, there are some important differences that you should be aware about.

(1) Adjectives come after the noun that they qualify.

So, in Thai you wouldn't say "a red house", you would say "house red".

(2) The are no articles for use with nouns.

This simplifies the language so much. No wonder Thai students find it so hard to learn English. After all, they have to choose between "a" and "an" and also "have" and "has".

(3) Pluarity is shown by adding numeral words and a classifier.

(4) Posession may be shown by adding the word kong in front of the noun or pronoun but it can often be omitted.

CLASSIFIERS: In the Thai language, there are classifiers much the same as our own (two bottles of Pepsi) but they have far more than us. For example, we say "two cats" but Thai people would say "cats, two bodies".