เรียน ยาก
“เรียน ยาก” (риан йаак) — it is hard for me to learn in Thai. Phrase, level B1. Literally "study hard": the hard sounds exactly like "want" — Thais tell them apart only by the sense of the phrase. Complaining this way is normal, and Thais do it with a smile. In a live sentence: “ภาษา ไทย เรียน ยาก ไหม” — Is Thai hard to learn? Written with the characters เ, ร, ี, ย, น, ย, า, ก.
In short
| Written in Thai | เรียน ยาก |
| Read in Latin letters | риан йаак |
| Translation | it is hard for me to learn |
| Part of speech | phrase |
| Level | B1 |
Why it looks that way
Literally "study hard": the hard sounds exactly like "want" — Thais tell them apart only by the sense of the phrase. Complaining this way is normal, and Thais do it with a smile
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.
- ภาษา ไทย เรียน ยาก ไหมпхаса тхай риан йаак майIs Thai hard to learn?
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 “it is hard for me to learn” in Thai?
«เรียน ยาก», read “риан йаак”. In a live sentence: “ภาษา ไทย เรียน ยาก ไหม” — Is Thai hard to learn? Phrase, level B1; written with the characters เ, ร, ี, ย, น, ย, า, ก.
How is “เรียน ยาก” written in Latin letters?
риан йаак. 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 "study hard": the hard sounds exactly like "want" — Thais tell them apart only by the sense of the phrase. Complaining this way is normal, and Thais do it with a smile. A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.