Today we will talk about one of the most common mistakes that people make in Thai.
So first, let me ask you, what word would you use when you want to say “when” ?
Such as ..when I did that…when I did this…
If you use the word “ เมื่อ meua”, it’s very likely that you’re wrong.
In my experience of teaching Thai to nonThai for almost 4 years, I have seen that even advanced learners make this mistake.
The word “ เมื่อ meua” is almost never used in a spoken language. We do use that word a lot, but only in a written language so it’s very common if you read something and you come across the word “ เมื่อ meua”. If you listen to a song and you hear the word “ เมื่อ meua”, it’s quite common in song’s lyrics as well.
However, when we talk, we really don’t use the word “ เมื่อ meua”. You might think, “ of course, you do. I hear it”. Right, we do use it, but only in compound nouns. We don’t use it by itself when we want to say “when”
For example, when we talk about the word ‘ yesterday ’ which is เมื่อวาน /meua waan/. So there is the word “ เมื่อ meua” but it’s not just this word because it’s เมื่อวาน /meua waan/ right? You can also say เมื่อวานนี้ /meua waan nee/ which means the same thing.
And there are many other words that indicate the past that have the word “ เมื่อ meua” in them, such as,
เมื่อเช้า /meua chao/ = this morning
เมื่อคืน /meua kuen/ = last night
เมื่อปีที่แล้ว /meua bpee tee laew/ = last year
เมื่อวานซืน /meua waan suen/ = the day before yesterday
เมื่อวันเสาร์ /meua wan sao/ = last Saturday.
Keep in mind that we don’t use “ เมื่อ meua” with compound nouns that indicates the time in the future. So there’s no such thing like เมื่อวันเสาร์หน้า /meua wan sao naa/, we just say วันเสาร์หน้า / wan sao naa/ (next Saturday).
And that is pretty much the only time that we use “ เมื่อ meua” in a spoken language, otherwise it’s always in the written language.
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