In Thai language, passive voice sentences are used in the bad circumstances only. For example; she was deceived, the thief was arrested. etc.
The pattern of passive voice sentence is:
the action reciever + ถูก /tùuk/ + the doer + verb
or
the action reciever + โดน /doan/ + the doer + verb
*The agent here means the person, animal or object that did the action in the sentence.
*ถูก /tùuk/ and โดน /doan/ are interchangeable. However, ถูก /tùuk/ is more common.
Example;
ฉัน/ผมถูกหมากัด
chán/pŏm tùuk măa gàt
I was bitten by a dog.
ดาวิกาถูกแฟนทิ้ง
Dawika tùuk faen tíng
Dawika was abandoned by her boyfriend.
คริสถูกไล่ออกจากงาน
Chris tùuk lâi-àwk jàak ngaan
Chris was fired from his job.
วาสินีถูกรถชน
Wasinee tùuk rót chon
Wasinee was hit by a car
ขโมยถูกตำรวจจับแล้ว
kà-mooi tùuk dtam-rùat jàb láew
The thief has been captured by the police already.
The doer can be omitted if it is unknown or you understand who is the one who did the action.
เขาถูกหลอก
Káo tùuk làwk
He was deceived by unknown person
โทรศัพท์ถูกขโมย
toe-rá-sàp tùuk kà-mooi
The phone was stolen by someone.
ขโมยถูกจับแล้ว
kà-mooi tùuk jàb láew
The thief has been captured already. (It is obvious that The thief was captured by the police)
Questions in the passive voice
Questions in the passive voice is formed like the other questions – the question word is put at the end
A: ขโมยถูกตำรวจจับแล้วรึยัง
kà-mooi tùuk dtam-rùat jàb láew rúe-yang?
Has the thief arrested?
B: Yes, he was arrested already
ขโมยถูกจับแล้ว kà-mooi tùuk jàb láew
or
No, he hasn’t been arrested
ขโมยยังไม่ถูกจับ kà-mooi yang mâi tùuk jàb
I hope you found this lesson useful in your Thai learning. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave it below in the comment section. : )
Hello teacher ! i want you explain clearly about the lesson passive be Thai language and i understand that you write Thai sentence or English . i want to understand Thai sentence because i now am student need to know Thai .
Good bye teacher
Mot, where did you come up the words victim and agent? It sounds like a crime is being committed or some kind of spying action is occuring, hehehe 🙂 Wouldn’t reciever (of the action) be better than victim, and, doer (of the action) be better than agent? Just a thought 😉
Sawatdee ka khruu Richard, thank you for your kind suggestion. I agree with you. I’ll change those words. : )
I was thinking of ผู้รับ (person who gets) 😉 sounds nicer 🙂 thanks for your response, khrab
In English the passive voice can be in all the tenses (past, present and future)
e.g The letters were written by John.
The letters are being written by John.
The letters will be written by John.
The letters could/should be written by John
All the examples given in Kun Mod’s lesson are in the past tense. It would be nice if another lesson covered the other tenses.
Sawatdee ka Bryan, thank you for your suggestion. I’ll add other tense in my post. kop kun ka.
Great lesson Mod. It took me a minute or two to figure out what you meant by passive voice. So in essence using tuuk is like past tense form of verb to be? Chai mai? This is extremely useful and i am sure this will help me in my daily speaking escapades. I speak with three friends on a daily basis so im always learning something new…yet somehow this never came up. Youre really the best teacher out there. Everyone always asks how i learned to speak so well
Sawadee krup kru mod , i have to correct you on – kà-mooi tùuk dtam-rùat jàb láew rúe-yang?
In English its ” has the thief BEEN arrested …..
That’s right! Thank you for correcting me 🙂
Sawatdii khrap, Kru Mod:-)
Yes, this lesson is very useful. Every lesson you posted are.
Missed your voice, or your brother ‘s/sister’s.
Bye’ bye. Sawatdii krap
Oh, yes.
Me and my wife watched your video, it was Labor Day. Gìi means ‘how many’ and a has a right position in a question. Your voice was quite clear… and funny too.
Let us expand our vocabulary a little bit more, then who knows, we will feel able to apply to your Skype lessons. 🙂
Bye, bye. Sawadtii krap Kun Mod!
Sawatdee ka kun Venancio, thank you for your kind words. I’m happy to hear that you found this lesson useful. Have you watched my latest lesson I just uploaded recently? https://www.learnthaiwithmod.com/2013/05/learn-thai-how-many/
I miss filming videos with my brother and sister too. They have been busy lately.
Dear Mod, Thanks for this lesson. Again very helpfull and fun.
However, my wife (Thai) disagrees with you. She claims that passive voice sentences, in Thai, are not always used in the bad circumstances only. Coming home today, she said: chán tùuk lottery.