Thailand's official language is Thai, a close relative to languages spoken in Burma and southern China. It is the primary language spoken and taught in the country and is based on a central Thai dialect. There are also a number of other dialects spoken in southern and northern provinces. Thai is a tonal language that uses long, short, high and low tones to distinguish the meaning of a word. For example, the word 'kao' means news, nine, come in, rice and knee and only the difference in tone establishes meaning.
The Thai alphabet is a script based on early Khmer script. English is also spoken throughout Thailand is actually a mandatory study at school. Despite this, the number of fluent English speakers in Thailand is low, particularly once you get outside the main cities. The main differences in the Thailand language is that women end a sentence with 'ka' while men end with 'krap'. Also, add mai at the end of a sentence to turn it into a question or at the beginning to create the negative. Below is an example of basic words and expressions in Thai.
