Numbers are always placed before the noun they qualify. An exception to this rule is the number “one” which when used as a descriptive word is placed after the noun.

	NEUNG KOO-AT	หนึ่งขวด	One bottle (Definite)
	KOO-AT NEUNG	ขวดหนึ่ง	A bottle (Indefinite)

Similarly WUN NEUNG means “one day” in the sense of “Once upon a time.”.
Ordinal numbers are indicated by putting TEE “at” “which” in front of the cardinal number.

	TEE NEUNG	ที่หนึ่ง	First
	TEE SORNG	ที่สอง	Second

There are separate words for 100, 1000, 10,000, 100,000 etc. and these must always be used.

	1500.	You cannot say “fifteen hundred” but must say “(One) thousand five hundred”.
	256,300.	You cannot say “two hundred and fifty six thousand three hundred” but must say “two hundred-thousand, five ten-thousand, six thousand, three hundred”.

The word “One” is usually omitted in conversation when it is followed by other numbers.

	130	is spoken as “hundred thirty”.
	1030	is spoken as “thousand thirty”.

If you cannot remember the word for, say, 10,000 it is better to write the figures down because if you try something like “twenty five and a half thousand” (25,500) when you should say “two ten-thousand, five thousand, five hundred” you will just not be understood.

Although there is an increasing tendency to use numbers written in Roman characters it will be found very useful to know the Thai numerals which are given below for reference but which need not all be learned at this stage. Try and learn two or three per week.

Generated by Lyndon Hill on Thu Jul 20 18:40:31 BST 2006.

Copyright remains with the original authors.