Could anyone tell me when to use the following two expressions: หนังสือนั้น and หนังสือเล่มนั้น (that book) Thanks!

The second sentence is more grammatically correct since it includes the classifier for book. But Thai is famous of shortening and dropping unnecessary words, and the first sentence is completely understandable. To my non-native ear, there's no difference in objective meaning of the two sentences. The second may have a more formal tone. For that opinion, we need a native speaker I should think.

The second sentence is more grammatically correct since it includes the classifier for book. But Thai is famous of shortening and dropping unnecessary words, and the first sentence is completely understandable. To my non-native ear, there's no difference in objective meaning of the two sentences. The second may have a more formal tone. For that opinion, we need a native speaker I should think.

Yes, the second sentence is more formal but both may be used - except that นี้ (Nee) means "this" as in a book that you are holding while talking about it, นั้น (Nan) means "that" as in a book you may be pointing at or disussing in abstract.

Patrick

There's a detailed and ongoing discussion of this exact topic going on here.