What are the dimensions/measurements

[djayz]

Can I use การวัดอะไร when asking for the measurements of something? 

[wgdanson]

Put MEASUREMENTS into Google Translate.

Or you could try VITAL STATISTICS !   LOL

Edited December 17, 2019 by wgdanson

[RichardColeman]

16 minutes ago, djayz said:

Can I use การวัดอะไร when asking for the measurements of something? 

[wgdanson]

12 hours ago, wgdanson said:

Put MEASUREMENTS into Google Translate.

Or you could try VITAL STATISTICS !   LOL

Cannot see why djayz was confused about my answer which is totally feasible, I just did it.

And why Seligne2 thinks it is sad....I put LOL after it, you know Laugh Out Loud...it was a JOKE, HUMOUR.

[djayz]

40 minutes ago, wgdanson said:

Cannot see why djayz was confused about my answer which is totally feasible, I just did it.

And why Seligne2 thinks it is sad....I put LOL after it, you know Laugh Out Loud...it was a JOKE, HUMOUR.

I asked a very simple question to which I wanted a very simple, straight forward answer. 

 

Dictionaries are good for looking up individual words, but not always so reliable when trying to construct a sentence or question. 

 

If you have to explain that it was a joke, then it obviously wasn't very funny... 

 

Thanks nevertheless for the suggestion and the "joke". Have you thought about posting a few jokes in the joke thread? You'd have us all in stitches. ????????????

 

All in jest wgdanson. Peace and have a nice day. It's a gorgeous day today. Blue sky and the temperature is just perfect. 

Edited December 18, 2019 by djayz

[tgeezer]

 การวัดอะไร might work but I think that เท่าไร is a better question word.  

 

I have just noticed your frustration. It is not such a simple question because unless you are conversing with a Thai who knows a bit of English it isn’t usually possible to substitute Thai words into an English sentence. 

If you had posted the sentence which you propose to construct we could all contribute and perhaps learn something. 

 

 

Edited December 18, 2019 by tgeezer

[tgeezer]

From my interlocutor a general question would not be การวัดเท่าไร but ขนาดเท่าไร . 

For the dimensions of something like a box you ask กว้างคูณยาวคูณสูงเท่าไร width times length times height how much? 

That would give you the volume I know but good enough if they don’t do the calculation for you!

 

[djayz]

2 hours ago, tgeezer said:

 การวัดอะไร might work but I think that เท่าไร is a better question word.  

 

I have just noticed your frustration. It is not such a simple question because unless you are conversing with a Thai who knows a bit of English it isn’t usually possible to substitute Thai words into an English sentence. 

If you had posted the sentence which you propose to construct we could all contribute and perhaps learn something. 

 

 

I'm looking at a small, pull-behind cart on lazada which I could use out in the garden. The price seems reasonable, but there are no dimensions given. 

I wanted to contact the seller to inquire about the size (L x W x H). 

Actually, the most important info for me is the width of the cart as it must be narrow enough to fit down between the grow beds. 

 

Anyways, I was just wondering if the "size what?" construction made sense or not (apparently not). 

 

I now know that;
ขนาดเท่าไร
กว้างเท่าไร
ยาวเท่าไร

are the correct ways of asking about size/dimensions, width and lenght, respectively.

 

Hope we all learned something new today. I know I have. 

[tgeezer]

Good I am glad that we have solved that. I just want to point out that I was told กว้าง comes first.  Probably not important, in England we say Two by four and Americans say four by two, a you say potaito, I say Potahto situation.

Edited December 18, 2019 by tgeezer

[cmarshall]

19 hours ago, tgeezer said:

Good I am glad that we have solved that. I just want to point out that I was told กว้าง comes first.  Probably not important, in England we say Two by four and Americans say four by two, a you say potaito, I say Potahto situation.

No American ever said four by two, except as a joke.

[tgeezer]

On 12/19/2019 at 8:22 AM, cmarshall said:

No American ever said four by two, except as a joke.

Oh! So the Brits say four by two and the Americans say two by four.  I wondered if I had that the correct way round when I wrote it, both seem normal to me now.  

Edited December 20, 2019 by tgeezer

[digbeth]

interesting thing came from this discussion..

while both การวัด and measurements are both nouns in Thai and English, seemingly directly replacable the thai nouns seem to only refer to the act of measuring, not the resulting dimensions 

[tgeezer]

I like to take the OED and my Oxford River Books English-Thai together to sort out what went wrong in Eng-Thai equivalent words. 

Measurement the act or the instance of measuring. การวัด 

Measurement an amount determined by measuring. จำนวนที่วัดได้ 

So no Thai word for measurement.  

So are we asking the wrong question? As you say digbeth we should be asking what are the dimensions?  

Dimension a measurable extent of any kind, length, breadth, etc. 

ขนาด 

The ภาคแสดง in this case would appear to be วัดขนาด 

 

So how would we frame the question What are the measurements? 

การวัดขนาด(ของรถคันนี้)จะได้จำนวนเท่าใด/เท่าไร perhaps. 

If this were acceptable it is possible to see how by taking only the bold type parts การวัดเท่าไร that การวัด can be seen as the measurement if all the context is known. 

 

I also see that ความกว้าง ความยาว etc. are not as good at sounding Thai as ส่วนกว้าง ส่วนยาว etc. Width part, length part, does anyone also think that? 

PS. I have just noticed the original question was dimensions! 

Edited December 21, 2019 by tgeezer
Addition

[RickBradford]

On 12/21/2019 at 1:47 AM, digbeth said:

interesting thing came from this discussion..

while both การวัด and measurements are both nouns in Thai and English, seemingly directly replacable the thai nouns seem to only refer to the act of measuring, not the resulting dimensions 

I think you would do better to include units. That is, say "how many meters?", rather than "what's the measurement?"

 

Then, if you want to get fancy, you could ask:

กี่ศอก ?  กี่ฝ่าคืบ ?

[tgeezer]

 

On 12/22/2019 at 2:25 PM, RickBradford said:

I think you would do better to include units. That is, say "how many meters?", rather than "what's the measurement?"

 

Then, if you want to get fancy, you could ask:

กี่ศอก ?  กี่ฝ่าคืบ ?

สองคืบ เท่ากับ หนึงศอก, สี่ศอก เท่ากับ หนึ่งวา, หนึ่งวา เท่ากับ สองเมตร  so that would be to the nearest 25cm. 

 

[RickBradford]

I expect that centimeters and meters are driving the other small measurements into obscurity, though the วา seems to be fairly entrenched when giving land measurements along with the ubiquitous ไร่. The งาน may be on the way out, though.