Difference Between นี่ And นี้ Or This And This?

[my benny rai]

In terms of usage, is there a difference between นี่ and นี้, that is, "this and this"?

[meadish_sweetball]

The basic difference is นี่ นั่น โน่น with falling tone are used separately, whereas นี้ นั้น โน้น are used together with a classifier, as follows

บ้านหลังนี้ This house

นี่ไม่หล่อเลย This (one) isn't handsome at all (นี่ can be replaced with คนนี้)

However, I have a hunch this division may be changing in the spoken language.

[kriswillems]

Interesting question.

My Thai teacher (native speaker) couldn't explain the difference and she said both could be used in the word ที่นี่ (meaning here). My wife (native speaker too) said that there was a difference, but that you just have to use your "feeling". This shows hard it is to explain your native language.

Are there really 2 versions of ที่นี่, one with mai eek, the other with mai too?

And if so, what's the difference in use/meaning?

Edited February 23, 2007 by kriswillems

[samran]

When someone is explaining something, building up the context and then when shifting to actual disucssion, they'll use ที่นี่ as a bit of a conjunction (if I've got the right นี่)

[samran]

When someone is explaining something, building up the context and then when shifting to actual disucssion, they'll use ที่นี่ as a bit of a conjunction (if I've got the right นี่)

Sorry, end of a long day/week. I'm not sure if I've made sense there. I'm pretty sure there shouldn't be a mai eek in the ที in the phrase I've just described.

[kriswillems]

So if I understand you correctly:

ที่นี่ means here

and

ทีนี้, is a conjunction word to move to from the context to the actual point of the discussion/explanation. Just like people sometimes use "now" or "So", followed by a short break, in English?

Edited February 23, 2007 by kriswillems

[samran]

So if I understand you correctly:

ที่นี่ means here

and

ทีนี้, is a conjunction word to move to from the context to the actual point of the discussion/explanation. Just like people sometimes use "now" or "So", followed by a short break, in English?

thats what I meant...thats how I understand it. For some reason I only tend to hear it when things get technical.

http://www.thai-language.com/id/201339 ทีนี้ทีเดียว (once and for all), a diffent example, but ทีนี้ is used there.

Now I am going home before I confuse anyone else.

[meadish_sweetball]

When someone is explaining something, building up the context and then when shifting to actual disucssion, they'll use ที่นี่ as a bit of a conjunction (if I've got the right นี่)

Sorry, end of a long day/week. I'm not sure if I've made sense there. I'm pretty sure there shouldn't be a mai eek in the ที in the phrase I've just described.

It makes sense, I know the usage you speak of too. It is like a marker, somewhat like signalling 'pay attention now, here comes the gist of the matter, or... "I am about to make an important point"...

[Tarragona]

Using the example from Meadish, I've always thought of นี้ as equivalent to the English adjective 'this' e.g. 'this house'; นี่ is the pronoun 'this' e.g. 'This isn't right'.

[tgeezer]

Using the example from Meadish, I've always thought of นี้ as equivalent to the English adjective 'this' e.g. 'this house'; นี่ is the pronoun 'this' e.g. 'This isn't right'.

In my schoolkids dictionary นี่ is a pronoun for something close at hand. What is this? and it is a modifier for noun or verb also close at hand or to specify. This book. can anyone think of a verb?

นี้ is only a modifier of verb or noun which is not close to hand. This person. I know it sounds the same but you can visualise the situation we are looking at the book but we are discussing the person.

นี่ has more variety; they give นี่แน่ะ which is a reminder and นี่เอง as emphasising a point.

[boxig]

Quoted from "Basic Thai Lessons" (SpokenThai)

Ni - นี่ , นี้ -This, Nan - นั่น, นั้น - That, Non - โน่น, โน้น - That

...These three words (Ni, Nan, Non), each has two different pronounciation tones, depending if the word is used as a pronoun or an adjective. When you use only This or That without specifying the noun then the word is a pronoun and is pronounced in a falling tone. When you use This or That as an adjective to specify the noun, then the word is pronounced in a high tone. Notice that the written Thai is different too. In short, when you use Ni, Nan or Non as a single word, say it in a falling tone, and when you use it to specify something (this boy, that man) use the high tone...

[aanon]

Using the example from Meadish, I've always thought of นี้ as equivalent to the English adjective 'this' e.g. 'this house'; นี่ is the pronoun 'this' e.g. 'This isn't right'.

In my schoolkids dictionary นี่ is a pronoun for something close at hand. What is this? and it is a modifier for noun or verb also close at hand or to specify. This book. can anyone think of a verb?

นี้ is only a modifier of verb or noun which is not close to hand. This person. I know it sounds the same but you can visualise the situation we are looking at the book but we are discussing the person.

นี่ has more variety; they give นี่แน่ะ which is a reminder and นี่เอง as emphasising a point.

hi all,

first of all, i think meadish gave a very elegant guide which will cover most uses. namely, นี่ can stand on its own (eg. นี่คืออะไร) and นี้ goes with a classifier (eg. อันนี้, คนนี้, ช่วงนี้, คำถามนี้ etc).

as tgeezer added, in practise นี่ is usually only used for something close at hand. i'd add it can be physically close or close in the sense of having just been discussed or being the current situation (eg. นี่ชักไม่ค่อยดีแล้ว).

ที่นี้ and ที่นี่ are both possible and could both be translated as 'here', but they are not exceptions to meadish's first rule. the confusion arises because ที่ can mean both 'at' and 'place'.

ที่นี้ means 'this place' (classifier + นี้)

ที่นี่ means 'at here' (นี่ in the usage tgeezer mentioned, the immediate environment).

as for the conjuction, i see ทีนี้ quite a bit. note its not the ที่ we just talked about, this one has no mai ehk and roughly means 'instance'.

so ทีนี้ is 'in this instance' (classifier + นี้)

there may also be a ที่นี่ conjuction, if so i'd like to learn how to use it.

all the best.

ps. thai2english also has ที่นี่ listed as n.door, gate

anyone ever encountered this usage before?

Edited February 23, 2007 by aanon

[tgeezer]

Using the example from Meadish, I've always thought of นี้ as equivalent to the English adjective 'this' e.g. 'this house'; นี่ is the pronoun 'this' e.g. 'This isn't right'.

In my schoolkids dictionary นี่ is a pronoun for something close at hand. What is this? and it is a modifier for noun or verb also close at hand or to specify. This book. can anyone think of a verb?

นี้ is only a modifier of verb or noun which is not close to hand. This person. I know it sounds the same but you can visualise the situation we are looking at the book but we are discussing the person.

นี่ has more variety; they give นี่แน่ะ which is a reminder and นี่เอง as emphasising a point.

hi all,

first of all, i think meadish gave a very elegant guide which will cover most uses. namely, นี่ can stand on its own (eg. นี่คืออะไร) and นี้ goes with a classifier (eg. อันนี้, คนนี้, ช่วงนี้, คำถามนี้ etc).

as tgeezer added, in practise นี่ is usually only used for something close at hand. i'd add it can be physically close or close in the sense of having just been discussed or being the current situation (eg. นี่ชักไม่ค่อยดีแล้ว).

ที่นี้ and ที่นี่ are both possible and could both be translated as 'here', but they are not exceptions to meadish's first rule. the confusion arises because ที่ can mean both 'at' and 'place'.

ที่นี้ means 'this place' (classifier + นี้)

ที่นี่ means 'at here' (นี่ in the usage tgeezer mentioned, the immediate environment).

as for the conjuction, i see ทีนี้ quite a bit. note its not the ที่ we just talked about, this one has no mai ehk and roughly means 'instance'.

so ทีนี้ is 'in this instance' (classifier + นี้)

there may also be a ที่นี่ conjuction, if so i'd like to learn how to use it.

all the best.

ps. thai2english also has ที่นี่ listed as n.door, gate

anyone ever encountered this usage before?

While I was showering I thought I had better check นั่น-นั้น-โน่น & โน้น which I did and then decided that if I could work it out I would know more about Thai than I do English!- decided that it was "neither here nor there". Seriously though in spoken language is the precision necessary or really possible? Take โนน which, being out of sight is the simpler case- โน่น ส.ใช้แทนนามที่อยู่ไกลออกไป โน้น ว.ใช้ประกอบนามที่ยิ่งไกลออกไปอีก does anyone have any idea why the modifier case has to emphasise the distance when the pronoun doesn't? I mean "How long is a piece of string?" I think that I am out of my depth so I will just watch now.

[aanon]

While I was showering I thought I had better check นั่น-นั้น-โน่น & โน้น which I did and then decided that if I could work it out I would know more about Thai than I do English!- decided that it was "neither here nor there". Seriously though in spoken language is the precision necessary or really possible? Take โนน which, being out of sight is the simpler case- โน่น ส.ใช้แทนนามที่อยู่ไกลออกไป โน้น ว.ใช้ประกอบนามที่ยิ่งไกลออกไปอีก does anyone have any idea why the modifier case has to emphasise the distance when the pronoun doesn't? I mean "How long is a piece of string?" I think that I am out of my depth so I will just watch now.

hey tgeezer,

where you found those definitions, was the definition for โน้น emphasising the sense of distance compared to โน่น or compared to something else, like นั้น?

in my opinion the sense of distance is the same for both โน้น and โน่น, perhaps the person writing the definition just left that part out for the first definition cause they hadn't had their morning coffee or whatever. i wouldn't worry about it.

there's also ปู้น (often said with a very stretched out vowel): waaayyy over there!

all the best.

[yoot]

From the definition of the word which show the part of speech of each word, would make you know the usage of them.

โน่น ส.ใช้แทนนามที่อยู่ไกลออกไป - the part of speech of this word is 'pron.' So, it's used as a pronoun in the sentence.

โน้น ว.ใช้ประกอบนามที่ยิ่งไกลออกไปอีก - the part of speech is 'adj'. So, it's used as an adjective.

[tgeezer]

From the definition of the word which show the part of speech of each word, would make you know the usage of them.

โน่น ส.ใช้แทนนามที่อยู่ไกลออกไป - the part of speech of this word is 'pron.' So, it's used as a pronoun in the sentence.

โน้น ว.ใช้ประกอบนามที่ยิ่งไกลออกไปอีก - the part of speech is 'adj'. So, it's used as an adjective.

คุณ yoot seems to have the same dictionary entry as me aanon,my question was;why when it is used as a modifier is the distance ยิ่งไกลออกไปอีก and as a pronoun just ไกลออกไป but as I said it doesn't really matter, there is so much "tooing a froing" in a thai conversation that any ambiguity would soon be resolved.

Edited February 24, 2007 by tgeezer

[aanon]

From the definition of the word which show the part of speech of each word, would make you know the usage of them.

โน่น ส.ใช้แทนนามที่อยู่ไกลออกไป - the part of speech of this word is 'pron.' So, it's used as a pronoun in the sentence.

โน้น ว.ใช้ประกอบนามที่ยิ่งไกลออกไปอีก - the part of speech is 'adj'. So, it's used as an adjective.

คุณ yoot seems to have the same dictionary entry as me aanon,my question was;why when it is used as a modifier is the distance ยิ่งไกลออกไปอีก and as a pronoun just ไกลออกไป but as I said it doesn't really matter, there is so much "tooing a froing" in a thai conversation that any ambiguity would soon be resolved.

hi tgeezer,

yes, that's what i thought your question was. so, not having seen your source, i wanted to ask whether these were definitions given in isolation, or whether you perhaps had a 'learning thai' book which was laying out นี้ นั้น โน้น in contrast to one another. the use of the word ยิ่ง implies one word being contrasted against another.

i would think it unusual for a dictionary to be giving definitions for one word in contrast to the word before it.

nonetheless, i retain my original view that the 'sense of distance' connotation of โน่น and โน้น are no different, it's just the usage or part of speech that is different, in line with meadish's first post and yoot's last post.

and, for what it's worth, i agree. even if there was some subtle difference i can't ever imagine it causing a misunderstanding in a real-life conversation.

all the best.

[aanon]

From the definition of the word which show the part of speech of each word, would make you know the usage of them.

โน่น ส.ใช้แทนนามที่อยู่ไกลออกไป - the part of speech of this word is 'pron.' So, it's used as a pronoun in the sentence.

โน้น ว.ใช้ประกอบนามที่ยิ่งไกลออกไปอีก - the part of speech is 'adj'. So, it's used as an adjective.

คุณ yoot seems to have the same dictionary entry as me aanon,my question was;why when it is used as a modifier is the distance ยิ่งไกลออกไปอีก and as a pronoun just ไกลออกไป but as I said it doesn't really matter, there is so much "tooing a froing" in a thai conversation that any ambiguity would soon be resolved.

hi tgeezer,

yes, that's what i thought your question was. so, not having seen your source, i wanted to ask whether these were definitions given in isolation, or whether you perhaps had a 'learning thai' book which was laying out นี้ นั้น โน้น in contrast to one another. the use of the word ยิ่ง implies one word being contrasted against another.

i would think it unusual for a dictionary to be giving definitions for one word in contrast to the word before it.

nonetheless, i retain my original view that the 'sense of distance' connotation of โน่น and โน้น are no different, it's just the usage or part of speech that is different, in line with meadish's first post and yoot's last post.

and, for what it's worth, i agree. even if there was some subtle difference i can't ever imagine it causing a misunderstanding in a real-life conversation.

all the best.

hey again (yes already)

just had a look at the RID website. these are their definitions:

โน้น: ว.ใช้ประกอบนามที่อยู่ไกลออกไป

โน่น: ส.คำใช้แทนนามที่อยู่ไกลออกไป

so could it be that the ยิ่ง thing was a typo? going back to the lack of coffee theory

all the best.