การ ว่าง งาน
“การ ว่าง งาน” (кан ваанг нган) — unemployment in Thai. Noun, level B1. Literally "emptiness of work": the empty serves for vacant and free alike. A person without work "falls out of work"; the situation itself is this frame. In a live sentence: “ปี นี้ การ ว่าง งาน มาก” — This year unemployment is high. Written with the characters ก, า, ร, ว, ่, า, ง, ง, า, น. A word from the everyday Thai course, level B1.
In short
| Written in Thai | การ ว่าง งาน |
| Read in Latin letters | кан ваанг нган |
| Translation | unemployment |
| Part of speech | noun |
| Level | B1 |
Why it looks that way
Literally "emptiness of work": the empty serves for vacant and free alike. A person without work "falls out of work"; the situation itself is this frame
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.
- ปี นี้ การ ว่าง งาน มากпий ний кан ваанг нган макThis year unemployment is high
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 “unemployment” in Thai?
«การ ว่าง งาน», read “кан ваанг нган”. In a live sentence: “ปี นี้ การ ว่าง งาน มาก” — This year unemployment is high. Noun, level B1; written with the characters ก, า, ร, ว, ่, า, ง, ง, า, น.
How is “การ ว่าง งาน” written in Latin letters?
кан ваанг нган. 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 "emptiness of work": the empty serves for vacant and free alike. A person without work "falls out of work"; the situation itself is this frame. A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.