ใช้ เวลา เท่า ไหร่
“ใช้ เวลา เท่า ไหร่” (чай вэлаа тао рай) — how long will it take? in Thai. Phrase, level A2. Literally "use time how much": chai is to use, and welaa is time. Thai keeps one question about the time it takes. In a live sentence: “ทำ อาหาร ใช้ เวลา เท่า ไหร่” — How long does the cooking take? Written with the characters ใ, ช, ้, เ, ว, ล, า, เ, ท, ่, า, ไ… A word from the everyday Thai course, level A2.
In short
| Written in Thai | ใช้ เวลา เท่า ไหร่ |
| Read in Latin letters | чай вэлаа тао рай |
| Translation | how long will it take? |
| Part of speech | phrase |
| Level | A2 |
Why it looks that way
Literally "use time how much": chai is to use, and welaa is time. Thai keeps one question about the time it takes
A word with a story stays in memory longer than one learned as a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.
In a live sentence
A single word almost never appears alone in conversation. A sentence shows where it fits and what stands next to it.
- ทำ อาหาร ใช้ เวลา เท่า ไหร่тхам ахан чай вэлаа тао райHow long does the cooking take?
How not to forget this word
Reading a word and remembering it are different jobs. A day later, little survives of a single reading — and that is not bad memory, that is how memory works.
- This has been tested on foreign words too. The difference shows up most when you test yourself a few days later rather than straight away.checked many timesKim & Webb, 2022, Language Learning 72(2) · 48 experiments, 3,411 participants, 98 comparisons.
- Recalling beats re-reading. Covering the translation and trying to remember it does more than reading it ten more times.checked many timesAdesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · 188 experiments, 272 comparisons. g = 0.61; against plain re-reading 0.51, against passive review 0.93.
- An answer you worked out yourself sticks better than one handed to you.checked many timesBertsch et al., 2007, Memory & Cognition 35(2) · 86 studies, 445 comparisons, d = 0.40.
Frequently asked
How do you say “how long will it take?” in Thai?
«ใช้ เวลา เท่า ไหร่», read “чай вэлаа тао рай”. In a live sentence: “ทำ อาหาร ใช้ เวลา เท่า ไหร่” — How long does the cooking take? Phrase, level A2; written with the characters ใ, ช, ้, เ, ว, ล, า, เ, ท, ่, า, ไ…
How is “ใช้ เวลา เท่า ไหร่” written in Latin letters?
чай вэлаа тао рай. This is a practical spelling — you need it to read aloud and be understood, not to meet an academic standard.
Why does this word look the way it does?
Literally "use time how much": chai is to use, and welaa is time. Thai keeps one question about the time it takes. A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.