Hi im having a liitle trouble with ความยากลำบาก I understand ลำบาก as difficult, hard and it can be used alone. Like in ชีวิตลำบาก "Life is hard". ยาก means hard, difficult too and can be used alone too as in เรียนภาษาไทยยาก "lesrning thai is difficult" with the ความ you build a noun together with the ยาก. Is ความยากลำบาก a noun which is always used like that or is it possble to split it up and use eitherความยาก or ความลำบาก (if this word exists) thank you for your help

Think of it as a composite noun. If you use "khwaam yaak" (sorry, no Thai script here), it generally needs another word to describe what is difficult - in this case, difficulty itself: "lambaak." Another example: "khwaam yaak jon" - poverty.

English frowns on redundant constructions, but Thai embraces them often, for clarity or emphasis.

"Khwaam lambaak" is a noun by itself. (I'm not completely certain if "khwaam yaak" is.)

Edited August 15, 200817 yr by mangkorn

Think of it as a composite noun. If you use "khwaam yaak" (sorry, no Thai script here), it generally needs another word to describe what is difficult - in this case, difficulty itself: "lambaak." Another example: "khwaam yaak jon" - poverty.

English frowns on redundant constructions, but Thai embraces them often, for clarity or emphasis.

"Khwaam lambaak" is a noun by itself. (I'm not completely certain if "khwaam yaak" is.)

As Mangkorn says Thai often uses these redundant constructions. Both ความยาก and ความลำบาก are proper words on their own as well.

Thank you very much, very helpful to me