Word
พูด ช้า หน่อย ครับ
Meaning
Please speak a bit slower.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Questions & Answers about พูด ช้า หน่อย ครับ
What does หน่อย actually mean here?
It is a bit of both! หน่อย literally means a little or a bit. However, adding it to the end of a command softens it, making it sound polite just like please in English. Without it, พูด ช้า sounds like a direct, bossy order.
Why doesn't the Thai sentence use a specific word for please at the beginning?
While Thai has formal words for please, native speakers rarely use them in everyday spoken requests. Instead, they make a sentence polite by adding หน่อย and an ending particle like ครับ (for men) or ค่ะ (for women).
Where exactly does หน่อย belong in a request?
It goes at the end of the core request, right after the verb and any describing words. Here it comes after the verb พูด (speak) and the word ช้า (slow). If you use a polite particle like ครับ, that polite particle is the only thing that comes after it.
Why does the word for slow (ช้า) come after speak (พูด)?
In Thai, words that describe how an action is done always come after the verb. You literally say speak slow, so you cannot put the describing word before the verb.