I enjoyed learning country names and languages in Thai. I am quite lucky to be in the situation of being a dual national, having citizenship of two countries. Beyond just the obvious benefits that provide, it makes me seem much more interesting. When I am meeting someone new, they usually ask where I am from. I tell them that I am actually from two places, which I guess is not the usual answer they receive to that question in Thailand.

Knowing the name of your own nationality and others in Thai can be useful in many different situations. There is the case of telling someone of your nationality of course, but other situations like explaining what types of cuisine you like or what language you can speak will also become possible. That is why we will be covering some nationalities in Thai today.

Saying The Nationality Vs Country Name In Thai

In Thai, to say the name of a country you are meant to use the word ‘bpra teht’ (ประเทศ) in front of the country name. This actually translates to nation or country, so you would essentially be saying country French or country Chinese for France and China respectively. However, in everyday informal speech, you can drop this first part and just say the name of the country by itself without any meaning being lost.

Now, if you want to say that you are a national of a country, you simply take the word for person, which is ‘kon’ (คน) and put it in front of the country name instead. So to say you are French, you would use the phrase ‘pom/chan bpen kon fa rang seht’ (ฉันเป็นคนฝรั่งเศส). This is of course slightly different than saying you are from somewhere, showing that you were born there or grew up there for most of your life.

This isn’t always the case, however. Sometimes the word for the nationals is different from the country name. Germany, for example, is called ‘yeh ra ma nii’ (เยอรมนี), while the nationals are referred to as ‘yeh ra man’ (เยอรมัน).

How To Talk About Languages

For languages, there is a similar system. It involves placing the word for language in Thai ‘paasaa’ (ภาษา) in front of the word. German, for example, would be ‘paasaa yeh ran man’ (ภาษาเยอรมัน).

I am sure you are familiar with the phrase for asking whether someone speaks a certain language, as it is one of the top travel phrases you should know.

You would ask ‘khun puut paasaa ang grit dai mai?’ (คุณพูดภาษาอังกฤษได้ไหม), which means ‘do you speak English?’. However, if you want to say what language you can speak, you say ‘chan puut paasaa ang grit’ (ฉันพูดภาษาอังกฤษ).

Vocabulary For Countries