เข่า
“เข่า” (кхао) — knee in Thai. Noun, level A2. It sounds exactly like "he" and "white" — only the sense of the phrase and the tone tell them apart: here it falls. Thailand loves floors, so "the knee hurts" is a common complaint. In a live sentence: “เข่า ของ ยาย ไม่ ดี” — Grandma's knees are bad. Written with the characters เ, ข, ่, า. A word from the everyday Thai course, level A2.
In short
| Written in Thai | เข่า |
| Read in Latin letters | кхао |
| Translation | knee |
| Part of speech | noun |
| Level | A2 |
Why it looks that way
It sounds exactly like "he" and "white" — only the sense of the phrase and the tone tell them apart: here it falls. Thailand loves floors, so "the knee hurts" is a common complaint
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.
- เข่า ของ ยาย ไม่ ดีкхао кхонг йаай май диGrandma's knees are bad
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 “knee” in Thai?
«เข่า», read “кхао”. In a live sentence: “เข่า ของ ยาย ไม่ ดี” — Grandma's knees are bad. Noun, level A2; written with the characters เ, ข, ่, า.
How is “เข่า” written in Latin letters?
кхао. 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?
It sounds exactly like "he" and "white" — only the sense of the phrase and the tone tell them apart: here it falls. Thailand loves floors, so "the knee hurts" is a common complaint. A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.