I love you! Ok so it’s not quite Valentines Day . . . but I still love you. True love, from my heart. Well, love in the hippy sense, man. Ok I don’t really love you, I just want to get you all hyped up for today’s lesson of love. Lesson on love. Errr, about love. The vocabulary of love, I mean . . . this is getting awkward . . .

Let’s start with the basics. The very first word is for sure your favorite, a three letter word filled with love. No, not that three letter word. It is ‘rak4’ รัก, which means ‘love’. It’s kind of like the English word ‘rock’ (rock it out, cold as a rock, etc). But then use the Spanish/Japanese rolling ‘r’ sound to it, basically a combination of the letter ‘r’ and ‘L’.

You probably know from previous lessons how to say I and you. Just put those three words together and you’re going to get cookie points from your sweet cupcake.

ผมรักคุณ pom5 rak4 kun1 I love you.
ฉันรักแม่ chan5 rak4 mae3 I love mom.
คุณรักใคร kun1 rak4 krai1 You love who? (Who do you love?)
ผมรักนก pom5 rak4 nok4 I love Nok.

How do you say ‘I miss you’?
The word for ‘think’ is kid4 คิด. Now when you say kid4 teung5 คิดถึง you could be saying “I miss you”. But it could also just mean “I’m thinking about you” – sure, that can also be a bit romantic. But if a hot girl says this to you, don’t get too excited. It could also mean “there was this ugly smelly farang on the train today and it got me ‘thinking about you’.” Anyway, I’d definitely use คิดถึง when I’m on the phone with my special Thai someone.

An extra special ‘I love you’ . . .
A more endearing word for ‘you’ and ‘she’ is ter1 เธอ. The ‘r’ should be pronounced just like the ‘r’ in ‘rak4’. It’s a bit difficult to pronounce at first so you may want to practice it before trying it on your girl. Or that random stranger on the other side of the room. Combine the word with ‘rak4’ and she’ll melt before you. Well . . . hopefully.

รักเธอ rak4 ter1 I love you. (extra endearing way of saying it)