เสีย สมา ธิ
“เสีย สมา ธิ” (сия сама тхи) — to lose focus; to get distracted in Thai. Verb, level B1. Literally "lose concentration": the concentration is a word from meditation. Phone, noise, hunger — all steal it from you. In a live sentence: “โทรศัพท์ ทำ ให้ เด็ก เสีย สมา ธิ ใน ห้อง เรียน” — The phone distracts the children in class. Written with the characters เ, ส, ี, ย, ส, ม, า, ธ, ิ. A word from the everyday Thai course, level B1.
In short
| Written in Thai | เสีย สมา ธิ |
| Read in Latin letters | сия сама тхи |
| Translation | to lose focus; to get distracted |
| Part of speech | verb |
| Level | B1 |
Why it looks that way
Literally "lose concentration": the concentration is a word from meditation. Phone, noise, hunger — all steal it from you
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.
- โทรศัพท์ ทำ ให้ เด็ก เสีย สมา ธิ ใน ห้อง เรียนторасап тхам хай дек сия сама тхи наи хонг рианThe phone distracts the children in class
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 “to lose focus; to get distracted” in Thai?
«เสีย สมา ธิ», read “сия сама тхи”. In a live sentence: “โทรศัพท์ ทำ ให้ เด็ก เสีย สมา ธิ ใน ห้อง เรียน” — The phone distracts the children in class. Verb, level B1; written with the characters เ, ส, ี, ย, ส, ม, า, ธ, ิ.
How is “เสีย สมา ธิ” written in Latin letters?
сия сама тхи. 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 "lose concentration": the concentration is a word from meditation. Phone, noise, hunger — all steal it from you. A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.