Thailand Basics

Climate

The high and low tourist seasons roughly match up to the aptly-named rainy and dry seasons of Southeast Asia. Generally, rainfall peaks from May to September, falling off from November to April. There ...more

Measurements

Thailand uses the metric system. The basic unit of length is the meter (m), which is divided into 100 centimeters (cm) or 1000 millimeters (mm). One thousand meters make up one kilometer (km). Fluids ...more

Language

The Thai language, the nation’s official language, is extremely different from English, which is spoken only in some sectors of the Thai population. Few tourists pick up more than basic rudiments during ...more

Pronunciation

Thai (like Chinese, Lao, Burmese, and Vietnamese) is a tonal language, and word meanings are partially determined by intonation and pitch. The five tones in Thai are middle, low, high, falling, and rising ...more

Grammar

Grammatically, Thai is very simple. There are no indefinite or definite articles, and verbs do not inflect to express tense or number. Questions are formed by adding mai to the end of any verb; for example ...more

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