Breakdown of รู้อย่างนี้ ผม จ่าย ค่าแรง ด้วยตัวเอง ดีกว่า ครับ
ครับ
polite particle (male)
ผม
I (male)
จ่าย
to pay
ดีกว่า
better; (at the end of a clause) had better, it would be better to
ด้วยตัวเอง
by oneself
รู้อย่างนี้
if I had known this
ค่าแรง
labor cost
Questions & Answers about รู้อย่างนี้ ผม จ่าย ค่าแรง ด้วยตัวเอง ดีกว่า ครับ
Why is ดีกว่า (better) used at the end of the sentence to mean "I should have"?
When paired with the regret marker รู้อย่างนี้ (If I had known this...), placing ดีกว่า at the end creates the pattern "If I had known, doing [X] would have been better." In natural English, this counterfactual pattern is exactly how we express "I should have done [X]."
Could we just use เอง instead of ด้วยตัวเอง to say "myself"?
Yes! You could definitely say จ่ายค่าแรงเอง and it would still mean "pay the labor cost myself." Using the full phrase ด้วยตัวเอง just adds a bit more emphasis, suggesting "I should have personally handled it" (perhaps because the person who actually handled it made a mistake).
Is ค่าแรง the normal word for a regular salary?
Not usually. ค่าแรง is made from ค่า (fee/cost) + แรง (strength/labor). It specifically refers to wages, daily pay, or the labor cost portion of a bill (as opposed to the cost of materials). For a regular white-collar monthly salary, you would use เงินเดือน.
Is there a difference between รู้อย่างนี้ and รู้งี้?
รู้งี้ is simply the highly contracted, colloquial version of รู้อย่างนี้. Because this speaker is being polite and using the particle ครับ, they opted for the slightly more proper รู้อย่างนี้. In a casual chat with friends, they would almost certainly shorten it to รู้งี้.
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