Back To Basics - Polite Articles & Phrases

So I realized there's probably not much in this blog for people just starting with Thai as yet, so in this post Ill look at some of the more fundamentals aspects of Thai in the form of polite articles and requests.Polite articles in Thai are fairly easy to grasp once you're acquainted with them and start listening out for in everyday conversation.


Most people when starting to learn thai will have picked up the different polite particle endings depending on whether you're a guy or girl -


ครับ - kráp (think less in terms of how we say 'crap' in English but more  hybrid between the b and p --> Krabp with a soft p)
ค่ะ - kâ (i often associate this word with the ford Ka advertising if you're from the UK you know the adverts im talking about - said with high then falling tone on the vowel)




Then, comes the most useful polite request phrase: kŏr-tôot (ขอโทษ) - use this when approaching someone you don't know or apologizing:


For males: ขอโทษครับ ---- kŏr-tôot kráp
For females: ขอโทษค่ะ ---- kŏr-tôo kâ


To put this into action a typical polite request would be:
ขอโทษครับอันนี้เท่าไหร่นะครับ - kŏr-tôot kráp an née thâu-rai kráp
Excuse me, how much is this one please?


Not the addition of another particle นะ to soften the sentence a lot. This is used a lot in spoken Thai together with other 'softner' particles such as:  จ้ะ - já, ละ or ล่ะ - la or สิ - si


Or for a girl/woman would be:
ขอโทษค่ะอันนี้เท่าไหร่นะค่ะ  kŏr-tôot kâ an née thâu-rai kâ


Of course there are a variety of ways to frame the same question, and beginners may be tempted to over use the polite particles, but as long as you finish the sentence with a ครับ or ค่ะ most Thais will be appreciative of this!