THAI LANGUAGE: “TO BE” OR NOT “TO BE”

(PART 1)

เป็ น The word เป็ น (bpen) means “to be/is” in

Thai. It is a very common and important word to learn and, more

importantly, to understand how it’s used.

In its most simple usage, เป็ น is used to join nouns or pronouns,

such as:
He is a student.

เขาเป็ นนักเรียน
kǎo bpen nák-riian
(he – is/to be – student)

If you wanted to describe someone or something with เป็ น using an

adjective, you also need to precede the adjective with a noun. For
example:
She is pretty.

เขาเป็ นคนสวย
kǎo bpen kon sǔay
(she – is/to be – person – pretty)

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In essence, you cannot have เป็ น and an adjective right next to

each other, so the insertion of another noun – คน, in this example –

is necessary.

You can omit เป็ น when describing a noun/pronoun with an

adjective:
I am rich. I am rich.

ผมเป็ นคนรวย ผมรวย

pǒm bpen kon ruai pǒm ruai
(I – is /to be – person – rich) (I – rich)

Either one of the above examples will work. The “rule” here is that

when linking a noun (ผม) to an adjective (รวย) in a sentence, a

linking verb – which would be เป็ น in this case – is not necessary.

The adjective takes on the role of “is/to be” as well as the adjective.
Please bear in mind that this is how I would describe the
phenomena in English terms. Thai people don’t really think of it this

way; they just know to not put เป็ น directly adjacent to an adjective.
When making negative statements, Thai speakers will

use ไม่ไช่ (mâi châi) or ไม่ได้เป็ น (mâi dâi bpen) instead

of ไม่เป็ น (mâi bpen):

He is not a student.

เขาไม่ไช่นกั เรียน / เขาไม่ได้เป็ นนักเรียน

kǎo mâi châi nák-riian / kǎo mâi dâi bpen nák-riian
(he – is not – student)

And, keeping to form, you omit เป็ น in negative sentences joining

nouns/pronouns and adjectives:

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He is not rich.

เขาไม่รวย
kǎo mâi ruai
(He – not – rich)

เป็ น can also mean “have” when describing a person’s condition:

He has a cold.

เขาเป็ นหวัด
kǎo bpen wàt
(He – have – cold)

Use ไม่ได้เป็ น (mâi dâi bpen) to form the negative expression of a

person’s condition:
He does not have a cold.

เขาไม่ได้เป็ นหวัด
kǎo mâi dâi bpen wàt
(He – not have – cold)

เป็ น can also show ability:

He can swim.

เขาว่ายน้าเป็ น
kǎo wâai-nám bpen
(He – swim – can)
In negative sentences for showing ability, you should

use ไม่เป็ น (mâi bpen):

He cannot swim.

เขาว่ายน้าไม่เป็ น
kǎo wâai-nám mâi bpen
(He – swim – cannot)

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There are a few other uses for เป็ น which I, admittedly, don’t
have a full grasp of yet. Therefore, I’ve modified this post to be
“Part 1” and will post a “Part 2” when I have a better
understanding of its other uses.

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THAI LANGUAGE: “TO BE” OR NOT “TO BE”
(PART 2)

I have heard from a few people that these kind of posts are helpful to
them; they end up being very helpful to me as well, so I plan on
continuing to post this way, refining the process as I go along. Any
suggestions to improve these posts would be greatly appreciated.

Today I would like to finish out my analysis of the word เป็ น (bpen),
เป็ น which I started back in November of last year in my Part 1 post.

As เป็ นis one of the most heavily-used words in the Thai language,

it’s not only important to know when to use it, but I also think it’s
important to know when not to use it.

Create an Adverb
เป็ น can be used to create an “-ly” word in a sentence. It must be
followed by a noun phrase in order to work properly. For example:

เขาเดินเป็ นวัน ๆ
káo dəən bpen wan wan
(They walk “-ly” day day)
They walk daily.

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I admit, this is a little bit of a stretch in terms of
understanding why the grammatical construction works this way

with เป็ น, but the more I study and the more I get help from people
much better at Thai than me, I’m learning to just go with the flow
and accept it as “the way it is.” I suggest you do the same.

Telling Time
เป็ น can also be used in conjunction with เวลา /wee-laa/ (time) to
express a duration of time (as opposed to a specific time such as
“3:00 PM”).

ผมจะวิง่ เป็ นเวลาสามชั่วโมง

pǒm jà wî ng bpen wee-laa sǎam chûa-moong
(I will run “duration of time” three hour)
I will run for three hours.

Illness
เป็ น is also used when talking about a disease or illness. One of
the most common examples of how it’s used in this case

is ไม้มีใครเป็ นอะไร.

ไม้มีใครเป็ นอะไร
mái-mii-krai bpen à-rai
(“No one” suffer anything)
No one got hurt.

As/By The
Apologies to James Higbee and Snea Thinsan, as I’m taking this
example from their book “Thai Reference Grammar.”

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พวกนี้ขายเป็ นชุด
pûak-nií kǎai bpen chút
(These sell as set/kit)
These things are sold as a set.

One More Quickie

เป็ น can also be used as ทาเป็ น, which means “to know (how to
do something).”

When Not To Use เป็ น

There are two specific situations I’ll mention today for when you do

not want to use เป็ น for “to be” or “is/am/are.” The first is when you
are talking about a location; for example, “I am at home.” In these

cases you want to use อยู่ /yùu/ to refer to where you “be” or where
you “are.” (You get the idea.)
The second case is when you want to talk about someone with their
proper name. In the case of “My name is Josh” you will want to use

the word คือ /kʉʉ/:

ผมคือจอร์ช
pǒm kʉʉ Josh
(I am/be Josh)
I am Josh.

The idea here is that you are using คือ to express an equivalence to
the subject of your sentence.
I would also like to note that some of the information I got for this
post was through the help of the wonderful users of the Thai-
language.com message forum. You can read the entire thread here,

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and I strongly suggest that all students of the Thai language add the
forum to their daily web surfing.

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THAI LANGUAGE: “TO BE” OR NOT “TO BE”
(PART 3)

Continuing with the discussion of “to be” words” that started with Part

คือ 1and Part 2, the word คือ /kʉʉ/ also means “to be.” Let’s explore how

it’s used…

A shorty but goody, hopefully. The word คือ /kʉʉ/ is used when
you want to equate things, when you want to give an exact
description to something. For example:

นั่นจักรยานของผม
/nân jàk-grà~yaan kɔ̌ɔng pǒm/
(that bicycle of me)
That is my bicycle.
Another great explanation comes from James Higbie’s book
“Thai Reference Grammar.” In the book, he compares both “He
is my teacher” and “He’s a teacher.” While I will not reprint the
contents of his book directly here, it does well to show a subtle
but important distinction. “He is my teacher” shows a direct
equivalence of him (the person) and my teacher. “He is a
teacher” is a descriptive, well… description, of the person.
Hope this helps, and it should complete my series on “to be.”
But never say never…