Questions & Answers about เขา กิน ข้าว ค่ะ
The translation says "She", but doesn't เขา usually mean "He"?
เขา is actually gender-neutral in Thai! It can mean "he", "she", or sometimes "they". We translate it as "she" here based on an assumed context, but it could easily mean "He eats rice" too.
Is the word order in this sentence exactly the same as in English?
Yes! Thai uses the exact same Subject-Verb-Object word order as English. เขา (she) is the subject, กิน (eats) is the verb, and ข้าว (rice) is the object.
If the speaker is using the female polite word ค่ะ, does that mean เขา refers to the speaker herself?
No, polite particles like ค่ะ match the gender of the person speaking the sentence, not the person being talked about. A female speaker adds ค่ะ to the end of her sentence to be polite, even when talking about someone else.
How do we know the verb กิน means "eats" and not "ate"?
Thai verbs never change their spelling or add endings like English does. กิน can mean eat, eats, ate, or will eat. You usually figure out the time from context words like "yesterday", which aren't needed here if it's a general statement.