Usual phrases when ordering food in a Thai restaurant?

[Coregunner]

Hi guys. i need help urgently as i will be going to a thai restaurant tomorrow and they dun speak english.

I need abit of help in the conversations.

Not too spicy pls - Mai phet mak. (is this formal enough? i am afraid it will be rude.) do correct me.

How do i say like "how much is it total?"

Tao rai na krap?

Next, how do i say "I wan to order ....(name of dish). "

And Bowls of rice needed.

example there are 5 people, meaning 5 bowls of rice. How do i say "can i have 5 bowls of rice?"

when saying thank you, can i say "Kob Khun na Krap"? or just simple Kob Khun(Will thai people consider it to be rude, without the Krap?)

and i hear thai ppl calling the owner "Meh Ha" and the waiter "P",
i know what they means. Mother and Elder person. Is it okay if we non thais address them by this too?

I saw the link on ordering thai food, not much help when in restaurants and etc.


Many thanks ppl!!!

[Tod-Daniels]

Well, my take is, you're spending your money at their restaurant, so you can't be "rude" ever, but that's just me. You're unlikely to be rude enough to them that they'd spit in your food, so don't sweat the small stuff.

A LOT of things for new speakers of Thai especially in a restaurant can be accomplished with mime, charades, hand gestures, etc. Of course you can use the pictures most menus have in them along with your fingers to show quantity for ordering too.

Still, if you're dead set on ordering in Thai;

This link covers the "chili pepper scale" or spiciness index for Thailand quite well;
http://womenlearnthai.com/index.php/...-pepper-scale/
It has spoken files with the different levels of spiciness for Thai food.

For the question about how much is the total. I'd use ทั้งหมดเท่าไหร่ or "how much for everything". Although you can just say the English phrase; "check bill" (which the Thais use) and they'll give you the bill for it all. Remember in Thai, any word which ends in "L" like English the word "bill" will come out as "bin" when a Thai says it.

For ordering you start with; ขอ... and say what ever dish you want. The word ขอ is sorta like "May I have"

As far as the "call a waiter" thingy; พี่ / น้อง that Thais use as forms of address are totally age related. If the waiters are younger than you, they're น้อง's no matter their sex, and if they're older than you they're พี่'s again, no matter their sex. If you're using พี่ get the tone right (falling tone), so you're not saying ผี (rising tone) which is "ghost"

While I personally rarely ever ครับ when I speak Thai, most Thais will think you're speaking very curt or terse if you leave it off. About the only time I do use it is with their "thank you phrase", so ขอบคุณครับ is the way to go with that one ( I’d leave the "na" out). If you really wanna say “Thank you very much”, you can use ขอบคุณมากครับ.

Thais refer to the female owner of restaurants as แม่ (their word for mother) which you said you knew. However, even street sellers are either a แม่ค้า (female vendor), or a พ่อค้า (male vendor).

I'd suggest this link at Thai-Language dot com;
http://www.thai-language.com/
Click the categories tab at the top of the page and then expand the "food" one. There should be enough material if you look around to get you at least understood when ordering. Most of the sample sentences have a sound file so you can hear it and practice saying it.

Really, IF you're going with Thais, I'd let them talk to the staff. Unless the restaurant gets a LOT of foreigners, it's my experience some staff can be pretty uncooperative tryin' to understand a foreigner spitting out poorly pronounced Thai. They seem unable to make "leaps in logic" about what you want. They choke up, close their ears, and it can really be a "buzz kill" after you've tried to say something 4 times and they still don't "get it".

After all, you ain't out to impress anyone with your incredible Thai ability, you're just tryin' to eat at a restaurant,.

Good Luck, (sorry I typed the Thai in Thai, I can't type karaoke that well although the words I typed are in thai-language dot com too.)

Also sorry this was long. ..

[Coregunner]

Thanks man. Really detailed and great info!!! Love it!!

Just one question, There this thai food i ate before, its like deep fried intestines? correct me if i am wrong.

[nero_007]

Hello guys,

Coregunner, I have noticed that you really have attention in manner.
How nice you are?
Since Tod had already gave you a lot in word.
Please allow me to help you know more.

About "Krap"
Foreigner is always be told that it express to your politeness. Anyway, moreover, It express to your sincerity, too.

It's really polite when you say..
ขอน้ำหน่อยครับ, นั่งได้ไหมครับ, ซื้อนี่ 2 กล่องครับ, ผมไม่ดื่มกาแฟครับ
(May I have some water?, May I have a seat?, I would like to buy this one 2 boxes, I don't drink some coffee)
Good for: Ask for or refuse something

And it's really sincere when you say..
ขอคุณครับ, เสียใจด้วยครับ, ขอโทษครับ, ไม่เป็นไรครับ
(Thank you, I'm sorry about that, Excuse me/I'm sorry, That's all right
Good for: Express that you're really feel like that

About "Meh"
Normally Thais are always call others by assuming that they are someone in our family.
(It could be because of we have respect for seniority just like other countrys in asia.)
So, by calling like this, it depand on the caller's felling that who the called person is?

In restaurant, You may hear someone call female owner "Meh"(Mom), "Je"(Sis-Chinese style), "Pah"(Aunty), "P"(Sis), etcs. And someone call male waiter "P", "Nong" (Bro), etc.

In grocery, You may hear someone call male shop owner "Peh"(Uncle-Chinese style), "Lung"/"Nah" (Uncle), etc.

It's just a Thai style, very natural and very common.
Anyway, If you don't comfort to use them but you need to have some attention from sellers.
You may use "Mehka" for female seller or "Pohka" for male seller.

This Thai ads maybe give you a picture of what I'm talking about.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3SMaTuFWh8

[Coregunner]

Thanks man. Haha. really appreciate ur reply on this topic. the 1st guy in the video, was he saying "pah-krap" as in aunty??

How do u pronouce Mehka and pohka?. From what i heard previously is Meh-ha. Nowadays i hear the 'na-ka', becoming "na-ha".

'P' doesnt have a gender issue right? as long as the person is older than u?

Many thanks.

[Tod-Daniels]

Here's แม่ค้า, พ่อค้า and here's "aunt" ป้า

As far as the พี่ and น้อง. Anyone older than you can be referred to as พี่ and anyone equal or younger than you can be a น้อง. These can be used is in almost any situation with people you don't know personally, as they are neutral forms of address (neither overly respectful, nor to familiar) and based only on perceived age.

I've found in the early stages of learning Thai, no matter what you think you hear Thais say, it's always better to stick to the real pronunciation of the words. Once you gain some proficiency you can begin to "blur" how you say it to more mimic a native speaker.

I've found out the hard way, if you learn the "blurred" version FIRST, it's really hard to unlearn it and get the correct one locked into your head.

All those links I jumped you in this post (the Thai words in blue) have sound files with spoken pronunciations. ..

Good Luck. .

[Marie]

I've found in the early stages of learning Thai, no matter what you think you hear Thais say, it's always better to stick to the real pronunciation of the words. Once you gain some proficiency you can begin to "blur" how you say it to more mimic a native speaker.

Very good point! That would be true for most languages. I was learning a little Korean for my trips to Korea. Well, the usual greetings and stuff. "Anyong haseyo" is like "Sawatdee". I had to learn to pronounce that distinctly, syllable by syllable--an-yong-ha-se -yo, before I could say it now the way Koreans do, which sounds more like "nyongsho".