I honestly find ending particles pretty easy, despite there being no comparable words for them in English. When you speak English, you use tones to express emotion or add extra meaning. Yeap, English is to an extent a tonal language! Really? (rising tone) Really. (low tone)

In Thai, you use ending particles to adjust meaning and emotion. Ending particles can be fun to use, as one little syllable packs so much meaning, and with the options so varied you can mix and match to get that exact emotional thought across.

for example:
อะไร?                 What?
อะไรนะ?            I’m sorry I didn’t catch that, can you say it one more time please?

The most common particles after ครับ and ค่ะ are นะ, อ่ะ, and ว่ะ. And just like ครับ and ค่ะ, they each have variants, too. We’ll go over a few here, and save more for future posts.

Let’s start with the first, นะ. Generally it softens your sentence, making it sound friendlier, such as the example above and the one below. Also, it could be used to ask for confirmation of a statement.

examples:

อย่าลืม                 Do not forget.

อย่าลืมนะ             Please don’t forget!

วันนี้ร้อน               Today is hot.

วันนี้ร้อนนะ          Today is hot (implying that you should be aware of this)

It also has a variant, น่ะ. You use it trying to persuade someone otherwise reluctant to do something, or to bring attention to something.

examples:

กินข้าว                                     Eat.

กินข้าวน่ะ                                Please have something to eat.

จอห์นหล่อมาก                       John is very handsome.

จอห์นน่ะ เค้าหล่อมากนะ      John, he’s very handsome, isn’t he?

Now for อ่ะ and อะ. This particle is fairly neutral and doesn’t change the meaning of a sentence by much, but it does make the sentence slightly less formal.

examples:

อะไร?                 What? (said in a strong manner)

อะไรอ่ะ?            What? (said in a soft manner)

You can also stretch out the ‘ah’ vowel to make yourself sound a little whiny, like:

อาไรอ้าาาาา                                   What do you waaaannnnttt???

จริงๆเหรอคะ? มันไม่ดีอ้าาาาาา     Reeeaaally? Thats soooooo not good!

Or make it a high tone to stress a bit of shock:

อะไรอ๊ะ?        What the heck?

There is an exception that I should bring up. This phrase:

อะไรนี้อ่ะ?     What is that?

is usually changed to:

อะไรเนี้ย?     What iiissss that?

For extra particle fun, you can add ครับ and ค่ะ at the end to still sound formal.

ทำไมมันต้องเป็นอย่างนี้อ่ะครับ?          Why does it have to be like this?

อะไรนะครับ?                                            Sorry, what did you say?

When I use ending particles, I sort-of just ‘feel’ it when I say it . . . if that makes any sense . . . The ending particle fits my tone of voice when I speak. For extra practice, browse the Thai language forums – Thai people love to use every possible ending particle you can imagine. Try and pick them out and figure out how it modifies the sentences.