ค่า จ้าง ขั้น ต่ำ
“ค่า จ้าง ขั้น ต่ำ” (кхаа джанг кхын там) — minimum wage in Thai. Noun, level B1. Literally "hire pay at the lowest step": the hire pay is pay for hired labor, and the lowest step is the bottom rung. Salary and day wages are different words. In a live sentence: “ผม ได้ ค่า จ้าง ขั้น ต่ำ” — I am paid the minimum wage. Written with the characters ค, ่, า, จ, ้, า, ง, ข, ้, น, ต, ่…
In short
| Written in Thai | ค่า จ้าง ขั้น ต่ำ |
| Read in Latin letters | кхаа джанг кхын там |
| Translation | minimum wage |
| Part of speech | noun |
| Level | B1 |
Why it looks that way
Literally "hire pay at the lowest step": the hire pay is pay for hired labor, and the lowest step is the bottom rung. Salary and day wages are different words
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.
- ผม ได้ ค่า จ้าง ขั้น ต่ำпхом дай кхаа джанг кхын тамI am paid the minimum wage
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 “minimum wage” in Thai?
«ค่า จ้าง ขั้น ต่ำ», read “кхаа джанг кхын там”. In a live sentence: “ผม ได้ ค่า จ้าง ขั้น ต่ำ” — I am paid the minimum wage. Noun, level B1; written with the characters ค, ่, า, จ, ้, า, ง, ข, ้, น, ต, ่…
How is “ค่า จ้าง ขั้น ต่ำ” written in Latin letters?
кхаа джанг кхын там. 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 "hire pay at the lowest step": the hire pay is pay for hired labor, and the lowest step is the bottom rung. Salary and day wages are different words. A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.