How to say
tâo-rài
how much? / how many?
"How much?" in Thai is เท่าไหร่, said tâo-rài, with ครับ or ค่ะ on the end. Point at the thing and say it and you will be understood anywhere in the country.
The harder half is understanding the answer, so the numbers are on this page too. Thai numbers are regular enough to learn in an afternoon.
| Syllable | Sounds like | Tone |
|---|---|---|
| เท่า | tâo | falling tone falling tone |
| ไหร่ | rài | low tone low tone |
Falling, then low — the phrase goes down and stays down. Do not lift the end to make it sound like a question. Thai marks questions with words, not with intonation, and a rising ending is a different tone rather than a different mood.
เอาบัตร — "I'll pay by card".
The reason this phrase disappoints people is that it works. You say เท่าไหร่ครับ, the vendor answers in Thai at full speed, and you have learned nothing except that you cannot count.
So learn the numbers with the question, not after it. Thai numbers are unusually kind: one to ten, then a system so regular you can build every number up to a thousand from it with almost no exceptions.
Twenty is yîi-sìp, thirty is sǎam-sìp, and so on — the digit followed by "ten". Twenty-five is yîi-sìp hâa, literally "two ten five". A hundred and fifty is rói hâa-sìp. Once you have one to ten and the words for ten, hundred and thousand, you can say and hear any price you will meet in a shop.
Two irregularities, and that is genuinely all of them. Twenty is yîi-sìp rather than sǒng-sìp. And a final "one" becomes èt rather than nèung: twenty-one is yîi-sìp èt.
Street food, taxis and markets deal in tens and hundreds. You will hear sìi-sìp (40), hâa-sìp (50), rói (100) far more than anything precise. If you learn the multiples of ten up to a hundred and the hundreds up to a thousand, you have covered the overwhelming majority of prices anyone will say to you.
เท่าไหร่ is falling then low, and English speakers reliably turn it into a rising question instead — because in English a question goes up at the end. Thai does not signal questions with intonation. The tones are fixed regardless of whether the sentence is a question, and lifting the end changes the word rather than the mood.
This is one of the hardest habits to break and it affects every question you ask in Thai, not just this one. If you take one thing from this page, take that.
แพง (paeng) is "expensive" and ถูก (tùuk) is "cheap". In a market, saying แพง with a smile is a normal opening move and the price will usually come down a little.
In a shop with a till, a 7-Eleven, or a restaurant, it is not — prices are fixed and haggling reads as rude. The line is roughly: if the price is displayed, it is the price.
Taxis are their own case. Ask for the meter — เปิดมิเตอร์ครับ — rather than negotiating a fare, and you will almost always pay less than the number a driver would have quoted you.
เท่าไหร่, tâo-rài, plus krap or ka. Pointing at the item and saying it is enough — you do not need a full sentence, and adding one will not make you better understood.
How much, or how many. It covers both quantity and price, so it works for asking what something costs and for asking how many of something there are.
It depends where. In markets and with street vendors, a polite bit of negotiation is normal and expected. In shops with a till, convenience stores and restaurants, prices are fixed and haggling reads as rude. The rule of thumb: if the price is displayed, it is the price.
Learn one to ten plus the words for ten (สิบ), hundred (ร้อย) and thousand (พัน), and the rest is built from them: twenty-five is "two ten five". The only irregularities are that twenty is yîi-sìp rather than sǒng-sìp, and a final one is èt rather than nèung.