To count objects, the sentence form is object + quantity + classifier, like this:

	object	quantity	classifier
1 table	dtóe	nèung	dtuua
2 chairs	gâo-êe	săwng	dtuua
3 knives	mêed	săam	lâem
12 apples	áaep-bpêrn	sìp-săwng	lûuk
8 cars	ród-yon	bpàaed	khan
6 men	phûu-chaai	hòk	khon
2 TV’s	thee-wee	săwng	khrêuuang

When the object and the classifier are the same, we can leave out the object:

	object	quantity	classifier
3 people	–	săam	khon
4 rooms	–	sèe	hâwng

Below are the audio and videos for the above examples.

dtóe nèung dtuua

1 table

gâo-êe săwng dtuua

2 chairs

mêed săam lâem

3 knives

áaep-bpêrn sìp-săwng lûuk

12 apples

ród-yon bpàaed khan

8 cars

phûu-chaai hòk khon

6 men

thee-wee săwng khrêuuang

2 TV’s

săam khon

3 people

sèe hâwng

4 rooms

Exercise 20

1	3 people	2	10 apples
3	4 friends	4	3 cars
5	2 documents	6	12 bottles
7	5 dogs	8	7 houses
9	4 rooms	10	7 men
11	8 slices of pizza	12	2 skirts
13	6 oranges	14	4 TV’s
15	2 letters	16	3 tickets
17	3 women	18	2 mobile phones
19	3 knives	20	Peter came to Phuket 4 times

Scroll down for the answers …

1	3 khon	2	áaep-bpêrn 10 lûuk
3	phêuuan 4 khon	4	ród-yon 3 khan
5	àek-gà-săan 2 chà-bàp	6	khùuad 12 bai
7	măa 5 dtuua	8	bâan 7 lăng
9	4 hâwng	10	phûu-chaai 7 khon
11	pizza 8 chín	12	grà-bproong 2 dtuua
13	sôm 6 lûuk	14	thee-wee 4 khrêuuang
15	jòd-măai 2 chà-bàp	16	dtŭua 3 bai
17	phûu-yĭng 3 khon	18	meuu-tĕuu 2 khrêuuang
19	mêed 3 lâem	20	Peter maa Phuket 4 khráng

Bonus material

We also use classifiers with ordinal numbers (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.). We just add thêe in front of a number to make it ordinal, like this:

thêe nèung or raaek	first
thêe săwng	second
thêe săam	third
thêe sèe	fourth
etc.	etc.

To use a classifier with an ordinal number, we place it between the noun and the number:

Thai Foundation

Day 4

using classifiers (exercise 20)