Past tense

[jackchak]

Hello! How do you form the past tense in thai without using a time-word in the sentence?

EXAMPLE:

He went to the store.
She danced very well.
We ate and drank together.

Thank you!

[nam phyyng]

As the Thai language does provide "time words" (laew แล้ว for past tense and ja จะ for future tense) why do you want to speak Thai without using them?

[jackchak]

Thanks alot!
(I just meant "time words" as in "yesterday" "last monday" etc.
Thanks again!

[StarShine]

we use yesterday , today ,tomorrow to show the time in the sentence.

[CatherineW]

I'm in the process of creating a Thai Cheat sheet.
Below is what I have so far for Past Tense.

Time expression + noun/pronoun + verb
Time expression + noun/pronoun + verb + adverb
Noun/pronoun + verb + time expression
Noun/pronoun + verb + adverb + time expression
When understood - (noun/pronoun) + verb
When understood - (noun/pronoun) + verb + adverb
Used to be - (noun/pronoun) + เคย + adjective
Used to be - (noun/pronoun) + เคย + adjective + adverb
Used to do something - (noun/pronoun) + เคย + verb + noun
Used to do something - (noun/pronoun) + เคย + verb + noun
Past or distant future - ตอนนั้น + noun/pronoun + adjective
Past or distant future - ตอนนั้น + noun/pronoun + adjective + adverb
Had a chance to do something - (noun/pronoun) + ได้ + verb + แล้ว

[Marie]

Interesting! It would be great if someone could give accurate translation, explanation or examples of the above in Thai. I am particularly interested in finding out how to express " I would have gone had it not rained", or similar expression in the same tense, in Thai. I have noticed Thais have tremendous difficulty using this tense in English and so I wonder how they express it in Thai.

:-)

[trangam]

How wrong is this? คงจะได้ไปแล้ว หากเป็นตอนนั้นไม่ฝนตก ...

[djaidee]

I know you learned that if you want to make a Negation of a Sentence you just put ไม่ before the Verb.

The Example you gave ไม่ฝนตก for "it doesn't rain" - this is wrongly used, as ฝนตก isn't used as a Verb here.

ฝนตก doesn't translates as "it's raining" (Verb) but as "the Rain falls" (Noun + Verb).

The Verb is ตก "to fall" and therefore the Negation ไม่ has to be before the Word ตก.

The rightly used Expression for "it's not raining" therefore has to be:

ฝนไม่ตก ("the Rain doesn't fall")

[djaidee]

Catherine, I also would like to see Example Sentences for the above mentioned "Thai Cheat Sheet".

You said you are currently working on this Sheet, so I assume you have already created other similar Sheets like this.

Would be much appreciated if you could Post these Sheets here or maybe just Post the Links to the according Websites of you.

[trangam]

Thanks a lot Djaidee!