How Do You Say "your + Noun"?

[volatilekoala]

How do you say "your" in thai?? for example: your hair, your hand, your sister, your shirt...

little help ^^

[Tod Daniels]

In thai the possessive is formed by adding the word 'kong' ของ AFTER the noun, and coupling it with the appropriate pronoun. It is similar to the adjective/adverb rule of modifiers going after the noun/verb to modify it. Also realize in colloquial speech the ของ is often omitted as being understood.

here are the examples you listed;

your hair; ผมของคุณ (hair belonging to you)

your hand; มือของคุณ (hand belonging to you)

your sister; is a little more difficult because of the thai penchant for categorizing relatives by age, but it would be;

your younger sister; น้องสาวของคุณ

older sister would be; พี่สาวของคุณ

your shirt; เสื้อของคุณ

Here is one that is slightly confusing

my hair; ผมของผม (hair belonging to me), note the word for hair of the head and the polite personal pronoun 'I' for a male speaker are the same word.

Here are some other ones;

mine: (thing) ของผม

yours: (thing) ของคุณ

his, hers, theirs: (thing) ของเขา (I have heard (thing) ของพวกเขา for theirs)

ours: (thing) ของเรา (again I have heard (thing) ของพวกเรา for ours as in everyone's)

whose: (thing) ของใคร

In my examples I used the polite personal pronoun for 'you'. Depending on the level of intimacy you could use เธอ for you (even though it is usually a feminine personal pronoun I have heard plenty of thai guys refer to each other that way if they already know each other very well, especially after they've had a few beers ).

Wait to see if the language experts weigh in before you take what I wrote as anything resembling gospel..

Hope it helps.

(edited for sa-pelling)

Edited July 2, 2009 by tod-daniels