I first started associating myself with Thai people in the US, way back in the day. We’d often hang out as a group, sometimes up to 15 people, with both Thais and Americans. We’d usually go out to eat, watch a movie, or hang at a karaoke bar. But what we immediately noticed, time and again, is that on average most of us will show up an hour late. Predictably an hour late. It turns out that this is pretty normal for Thai culture and not a big deal.

The joke was, if you arrived an hour late, we’d say ‘hey! You’re right on Thai time!’ If you’re in Bangkok then you can blame it on traffic, which is what everyone generally does. But that didn’t quite work in the US in areas with never any traffic . . . Being with Thais for so long, I just accept that everyone will be late, and not worry about showing up on time myself. Mai bpen rai – it’s not a big deal.

Now, telling time in Thai is pretty complicated. In English there are two systems to tell time: AM/PM, and military time. Thais also has two systems, one being overly complex, and the other also being military time. If you are a complete beginner, I recommend learning only Thai military time for now.

Thai military time is exactly like English military time. In English, you basically say a number from 1 to 24, followed by “hundred hours”. In Thai, basically say a number from 1 to 24, followed by naa1li4gaa1 นาฬิกา. If you were to write it, you’d write the number followed by “น.”. For example, 14น. would be 2pm.

The reason I recommend military time is that it’s very easy for a beginner to learn, avoiding confusion for when you planned to meet your hot date tomorrow night (or whatever). In the next part I’ll teach the much harder, but much more common, way to say what time it is.

side note: Although it’s not Thai, it is considered acceptable to use the western AM/PM format when writing Thai.