Time, Days, Dates & Colors
The practical vocabulary you reach for every day in Thailand — what day it is, the month, how to read the clock the Thai way, how dates and years work, and the colors of everything around you.
Days of the week
Each day is วัน (wan, “day”) plus a name tied to a planet — and each has a traditional lucky colour, still worn on its day.
Months of the year
The ending tells you the length: -คม (kom) months have 31 days, -ยน (yon) months have 30, and February (-พันธ์) has 28–29.
Telling time
Thai uses a traditional system that splits the day into chunks rather than a straight 24-hour clock. Here’s the whole day, hour by hour.
| Clock | Thai | Romanization | When |
|---|
Minutes & “half past”. Add the minutes after the hour word + นาที (naa-tii): e.g. บ่ายโมงสิบนาที = 1:10 pm. For half past, use ครึ่ง (krʉ̂ng): บ่ายโมงครึ่ง = 1:30 pm. Thai doesn’t really use “quarter to/past” — just state the minutes. To ask the time: กี่โมงแล้ว (gìi moong lɛ́ɛo), “What time is it?”
Dates & years
Dates run day → month → year. The big difference: Thailand counts years in the Buddhist Era (พ.ศ.), which is the Western year plus 543.
Date format: วันที่ (wan-tîi) + number + month. E.g. วันที่ 1 มกราคม = “the 1st of January”. Years: 2026 CE (ค.ศ.) = พ.ศ. 2569 (Buddhist Era). So a Thai calendar usually shows the year ending in “…69” for 2026.
Colors
A colour is สี (sǐi) + the colour name. To describe something, put it after the noun: เสื้อสีแดง (sʉ̂a sǐi dɛɛng), “a red shirt”.