ทำ เอง
“ทำ เอง” (тхам энг) — homemade in Thai. Adjective, level A1. Literally "made by oneself": tham is "make", and eng is "self". On a sign it means "cooked here, not brought in". In a live sentence: “ขนม นี้ ทำ เอง” — These sweets are homemade. Written with the characters ท, ำ, เ, อ, ง. A word from the everyday Thai course, level A1.
In short
| Written in Thai | ทำ เอง |
| Read in Latin letters | тхам энг |
| Translation | homemade |
| Part of speech | adjective |
| Level | A1 |
Why it looks that way
Literally "made by oneself": tham is "make", and eng is "self". On a sign it means "cooked here, not brought in"
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.
- ขนม นี้ ทำ เองкханом ний тхам энгThese sweets are homemade
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 “homemade” in Thai?
«ทำ เอง», read “тхам энг”. In a live sentence: “ขนม นี้ ทำ เอง” — These sweets are homemade. Adjective, level A1; written with the characters ท, ำ, เ, อ, ง.
How is “ทำ เอง” written in Latin letters?
тхам энг. 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 "made by oneself": tham is "make", and eng is "self". On a sign it means "cooked here, not brought in". A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.