LESSON NOTES

Survival Phrases S1 #7
Can You Speak English?

CONTENTS
2 Thai
2 English
2 Romanization
3 Vocabulary
3 Sample Sentences
4 Grammar
4 Cultural Insight

# 7
COPYRIGHT © 2012 INNOVATIVE LANGUAGE LEARNING. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
 THAI

1. พูดภาษาอังกฤษได้ ไหมครับ

2. พูดภาษาอังกฤษได้ ไหมคะ

3. พูดภาษาฝรั�งเศสได้ ไหมครับ

4. พูดภาษาฝรั�งเศสได้ ไหมคะ

ENGLISH

1. Can you speak English? (male)

2. Can you speak English? (female)

3. Can you speak French? (male)

4. Can you speak French? (female)

ROMANIZATION

1. phûut paa-sǎa ang-grìt dâai mǎi khráp.

2. phûut paa-sǎa ang-grìt dâai mǎi khá.

3. phûut paa-sǎa fà-ràng-sèet dâai mǎi khráp.

CONT'D OVER

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4. phûut paa-sǎa fà-ràng-sèet dâai mǎi khá.

VOCABULARY

Thai R omanization English C lass

ฝรั�งเศส fà-ràng-sèet French adjective

พูด phûut to speak Verb

ภาษา phaa-sǎa language Noun

ได้ dâai to be able to auxiliary verb

a particle indicating
ไหม mǎi a yes/no question particle

อังกฤษ ang-grìt English adjective

SAMPLE SENTENCES

เขาพูดภาษาอังกฤษด้ วยสําเนียงฝรั�งเศส ช่วยพูดดังๆได้ ไหมครับ

khǎo phûut paa-sǎa-ang-grìt dûuai sǎm-niiang fà- chûuai phûut dang-dang dâai mǎi khráp.
ràng-sèet.
"Could you please speak loudly?"
"He speaks English with a French accent."

ช่วยพูดช้ าๆอีกครังได้
� ไหม อันนี �ภาษาไทยเรี ยกว่าอะไร
chûuai phûut cháa-cháa ìik-khráng dâai mǎi an-níi phaa-sǎa-thai rîiak wâa à-rai.

"Could you say that slowly one more time?" "What is this called in Thai?"

วิศวกรคนนันพู
� ดภาษาอังกฤษได้ ช่วยพูดช้ าๆได้ ไหม
wít-sà-wá-gaawn khon nán phûut pha-sǎa-ang- chûuai phûut cháa-cháa dâai mǎi.
grìt dâai.
"Could you say that more slowly?"
"That engineer can speak English."

THAIPOD101.COM SURVIVAL PHRASES S1 #7 - CAN YOU SPEAK ENGLISH? 3

สบายดีไหมครับ ช่วยพูดอีกครังได้
� ไหม
sà-baai-dii mǎi khráp chûuai phûut ìik khráng dâai mǎi.

"How are you?" "Could you say that one more time?"

เขาพูดภาษาอังกฤษไม่ได้ เลย
khǎo phûut phaa-sǎa-ang-grìt mâi dâai looei.

"He can't speak English at all."

GRAMMAR

In today's lesson, we'll cover another extremely important phrase: "Can you speak English?"
Using this phrase as opposed to speaking English at someone is important for many reasons.
For one, if the party you're speaking to doesn't understand English, at least he or she will be
able to understand what you're asking. Furthermore, it shows a lot of respect to show that you
took the effort to learn even a little bit of the language, and for these reasons and many more,
we're going to cover this phrase.

In Thai, "Do you speak English?" is phûut paa-sǎa-ang-grìt dâai mǎi? As usual, don't forget to
add khá and khráp to make it more polite. So for women, it's phûut paa-sǎa-ang-grìt dâai mǎi
khá, and for men, it's phûut paa-sǎa-ang-grìt dâai mǎi khráp?
The first word, phûut, means "speak" or "talk." The next word is paa-sǎa, which means
"language." The third word is ang-grìt, which means "English." The next word is dâai, which
means "can," and the last one is mǎi, which indicates that this phrase is a question. In Thai, it
is very common to leave out the word for "you." Therefore, phûut paa-sǎa-jiin dâai mǎi is
equivalent to the question "Can you speak English?"
Another language that Thai people may speak beside Thai and English is Chinese. The
word for Chinese is jiin. Therefore, if you want to ask "Can you speak Chinese?" you may say
phûut paa-sǎa-jiin dâai mǎi khá or phûut paa-sǎa-jiin dâai mǎi khráp?

CULTURAL INSIGHT

Quick Tip

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Most Thai people can speak English at least at some level. You will find Thai people
understand when you speak English but cannot respond back as they tend to be afraid of
saying things incorrectly.

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