ไม่ ย่อ ท้อ
“ไม่ ย่อ ท้อ” (май йо тхо) — persistently; without giving up in Thai. Adverb, level B1. Literally "not bend and not lose heart": the bending buckles, the fainting despairs. Persistence the Thai describes with two refusals. In a live sentence: “เขา ฝึก ทุก วัน ไม่ ย่อ ท้อ” — He trained every day without losing heart. Written with the characters ไ, ม, ่, ย, ่, อ, ท, ้, อ. A word from the everyday Thai course, level B1.
In short
| Written in Thai | ไม่ ย่อ ท้อ |
| Read in Latin letters | май йо тхо |
| Translation | persistently; without giving up |
| Part of speech | adverb |
| Level | B1 |
Why it looks that way
Literally "not bend and not lose heart": the bending buckles, the fainting despairs. Persistence the Thai describes with two refusals
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.
- เขา ฝึก ทุก วัน ไม่ ย่อ ท้อкхао фык тхук ван май йо тхоHe trained every day without losing heart
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 “persistently; without giving up” in Thai?
«ไม่ ย่อ ท้อ», read “май йо тхо”. In a live sentence: “เขา ฝึก ทุก วัน ไม่ ย่อ ท้อ” — He trained every day without losing heart. Adverb, level B1; written with the characters ไ, ม, ่, ย, ่, อ, ท, ้, อ.
How is “ไม่ ย่อ ท้อ” written in Latin letters?
май йо тхо. 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 "not bend and not lose heart": the bending buckles, the fainting despairs. Persistence the Thai describes with two refusals. A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.