There's a clear difference in English between 'Will you eat rabbit pie?' and 'Would you eat rabbit pie?' or 'Will you sleep with her?' and 'Would you sleep with her?'. How do we express the same distinction in Thai? My Higbie grammar book makes brief reference to ja and gaw but I'm still confused how to make a clear distinction.

Edited August 24, 201312 yr by edwardandtubs

will = real forthcoming event

would = theoretical event

Edited August 24, 201312 yr by AnotherOneAmerican

As far as I know there's no simple translation for "would" in Thai.

theoretical events are often started with สมมุติว่า

สมมุติว่าเขาขอคุณแต่งงาน คุณจะแต่งงานกับเขาไหม

Or sometimes คิดว่าจะ is used

คุณคิดว่า คุณจะนอนกับเขาไหม

Edited August 24, 201312 yr by kriswillems

Difficult to see how to fit สมมุติว่า into many sentences. I notice that Thai people, when speaking English, often say "if you have the chance" to express hypothetical meaning. Maybe that's a translation of a Thai phrase?

This is what I can think of which would differentiate between the two:

คุณจะกินกระต่ายไหม

คุณจะกินกระต่ายได้ไหม

คุณจะนอนกับเขาไหม

คุณจะนอนกับเขาได้ไหม

But both would mean almost the same in Thai, and I guess in Thai language it's better to explicitly say for example "if you get the change"

ถ้าคุณมีโอกาสคุณจะนอนกับเขาได้ไหม

It is not uncommon that one language is able to make (or even forces you to make) a distinction which is not available in another language.

I think Mole's examples are as close as you can get.

Funny how listening to the bad English of Thai people can be helpful in learning Thai. They rely a lot on word-for-word translation so translating back word for word can give an appropriate Thai expression, like ถ้าคุณมีโอกาส.

Funny how listening to the bad English of Thai people can be helpful in learning Thai. They rely a lot on word-for-word translation so translating back word for word can give an appropriate Thai expression, like ถ้าคุณมีโอกาส.

True, I noticed already; very useful to know the correct expression in thai