Thai Language – Part 2: Muay Thai Terminology

Now that you get the gist of the basics of the many nuances and rules of the Thai language, let’s get to the good stuff: learning new vocabulary and phrases! 

(If you haven’t familiarized yourself with the basic rules, it is recommend you do so here before continuing)

We’ll start with what’s most relevant to the audience of this page: Muay Thai terminology. You may have heard some of these terms in training or from watching fight videos. Or maybe you’re ready to dive straight into Muay Thai gym culture and want to really learn what words are commonly used in a gym setting in Thailand. Or perhaps you’ve been to an event where the referee was saying some words that were unknown to your ears. Whatever the reason, Muay Thai terminology is good to know as a student of the sport. This is especially true if you ever plan on traveling to Thailand to train. It’s most likely that you’ll be hearing and using Muay Thai terminology a whole lot more than general conversational phrases.

Some things to note:
-You will see and hear a lot of loan words from English, such as “champ” to mean “champion”.
-Words starting with the /r sound are often interchanged to the /l sound, such as “raeng” pronounced “laeng”.
-Don’t forget to add ka or khrap at the end of all questions and statements to sound polite!

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Any words and phrases that are *bolded with asterisks* will be ones you will hear most commonly in Thailand.

• • People & Places
• • Training & Equipment
• • Body Parts
• • Adjectives
• • General Techniques & Actions
• • Competition
• • Fighting Styles
• • Phrases, Questions & Statements

People & Places

Training & Equipment

Body Parts

Adjectives

 General Techniques & Actions

Competition

Fighting Styles

 Phrases, Questions & Statements

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Thanks Henry Cho for helping me with the chart formatting!

Listen to the referenced words in this video!

If you want an in-depth guide to training in Thailand, I’ve got just the thing.