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Tip for Telling Time in Thailand, an EASY TRICK

Telling time in Thailand to Thai people can be difficult if you're only here a short while. if you are living in Isaan like up toward Ubon Ratchathani you might go mad before you understand their bizarre system for telling time which includes subtracting 6 hours sometimes and not other times. Very odd! Recently I found out that the south of Thailand tells time in a different way.  Ugh.  Telling time in Thailand need not be that difficult. Here's the trick.

First, assuming you know the numbers from 1 to 24, corresponding to the hours of the day. You just do this...

add "nah lee gah" to the end of the number to tell the time to someone.

Na lee gah means "watch" or clock. When you tell time in this way, it isn't entirely correct, but the Thai people will almost always understand you even if you really screw it up. The word na lee gah has no tones - so it's said normally.  If you can speak the numbers OK, then you'll be OK!

Example...

(l) Noong na lee gah = 1 am (0100)

(r) Song na lee gah = 2 am (0200)

and so on...

How easy is that!? OK, I'll make it easier -

Thai is a tonal language meaning there are different tones that affect most words. Here is a quick overview:

(l) - Low tone - just said in a lower tone voice without inflection or emotion
(h) - High tone words are said with a lot of air in the word. Meaning, loudly and to me they are a bit shorter usually as well.
(r) - Rising tone. Think of how the French language uses a rising tone on the end of their sentences when they are speaking english. The word sounds almost like a question. But more accurately the word starts out in a regular - no tone sound and then rises toward a high tone sound at the end.
(f) - Falling tone. This one for me was the most difficult to pronounce and hear when other people say it. Opposite of rising tone.

If you need to add 30 minutes to any of the above - just add the number of minutes to the end, AFTER the na lee gah.  "nah tee" means 'minutes'

Example: 

To add 10 minutes to the hour for 0810 say, (l) bpaat na lee gah (l) sip nah tee

To add 45 minutes for the hour 1045, say, (l) sip na lee gah (l) see (l) sip (f) hah nah tee.

That's the easy way - but it's a trick. Usually NA LEE GAH is only used while writing - it's for written Thai language, not spoken. BUT, everyone will understand you and won't make fun of you because they understand how difficult telling time is here for foreigners!

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