Thai people are very friendly, don’t be shy and you will get along very well.

The right hand side of the book has the equivalent in Thai - a Thai person can read in their own language the English pronunciation of a phrase, ie, they can read วาวดิสเรียริเวอค์ซ and say ‘wow this really works!’ and the Thai translation, so that if you get stuck, you can point!

The first useful thing to know in ANY language is ‘no thanks!’. This can help you avoid the international airport touts and can save a lot of time and money.
‘No, thanks!’ - ‘My ow krap’

We hope this guide helps you have a great stay in this beautiful and diverse country.

Getting Started

Thai people use many different words for identification depending on age, gender and social standing. We have used the most common (polite way) to say ‘I’, a man says ‘Pom’ and a woman says ‘Chan’. They also end the sentence with ‘Krap’ for a man and ‘Ka’ for a lady as a sign of respect to everyone regardless of their social situation. We have put a reminder of this on every page.
In Thailand, the common pronunciation of some letters can confuse; ‘R’ and ‘L’ (Rai sounds like Lai), ‘P’‘B’ and ‘A’‘E’ sound almost identical.