Chapter 3: Colours & Objects

Thai numbers are almost too easy
Above ten the pattern barely changes: 11 is ten-one, 25 is two-ten-five. Two exceptions worth memorising now: 11 uses เอ็ด rather than หนึ่ง, and 20 is ยี่สิบ, not สองสิบ.

The clock is divided into quarters
Thai splits the day into blocks rather than running one to twelve twice. Six in the evening is not eighteen o'clock, it's ทุ่ม one. Most Thai people will happily use the 24-hour numbers with a foreigner, so this is worth recognising rather than mastering.

Politeness does a lot of work
A bare Thai sentence can sound abrupt in a way the English translation doesn't convey. Adding ครับ or ค่ะ, or นะ to soften a request, is not decoration - it is most of what separates polite from rude.

There is a culture note for this chapter too - the thing a phrasebook will not tell you.