Fun Fact Friday #4

Well today is Tuesday, and clearly I'm a little behind on my blog posting but here is a fun fact I learned this past week:

First off, Thailand doesn't recognize Daylight Savings, which made Monday morning a bit confusing when my phone said one time and my computer said differently. Luckily Google helped me out and told me the correct time and I made it to class.

Secondly, telling time in spoken Thai is extremely different than how we would tell time in the US. When telling the time, the hours are divided into 5 main groups, not including noon and midnight. Below are the divisions and their names:

Midnight-12:59 am: tiiang-kheun

1:00 am-5:59 am: tii

6:00 am-11:59 am: mohng chao

Noon-12:59 pm: tiiang-wan

1:00 pm-3:59 pm: bye

4:00 pm-6:59 pm: mohng yehn

7:00 pm-11:59 pm: toom

The names of this different groups are used either before or after the number, and indicate the time of day. So it would be similar to us saying "4:45 in the afternoon." In Thai, this would be said "4 mohng yehn 45."

The most confusing part about telling time in Thai is that once you reach 7:00 pm, you start counting from 1 again until midnight. So 9:00 pm would be said "3 toom."

I hope this explanation is somewhat clear, but I'm pretty sure it's not. I definitely have confused myself more trying to explain it. Wish me luck with my Thai I final tomorrow afternoon!