ต้อง ไป แล้ว
“ต้อง ไป แล้ว” (тонг пай лаэо) — I have to go; it is time in Thai. Phrase, level A2. Literally "must go already": the already at the end hurries, like the English "already". The impersonal "it is time" Thai does not have — it admits honestly: must, that is all. In a live sentence: “ขอ โทษ ผม ต้อง ไป แล้ว” — Sorry, I have to go. Written with the characters ต, ้, อ, ง, ไ, ป, แ, ล, ้, ว.
In short
| Written in Thai | ต้อง ไป แล้ว |
| Read in Latin letters | тонг пай лаэо |
| Translation | I have to go; it is time |
| Part of speech | phrase |
| Level | A2 |
Why it looks that way
Literally "must go already": the already at the end hurries, like the English "already". The impersonal "it is time" Thai does not have — it admits honestly: must, that is all
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.
- ขอ โทษ ผม ต้อง ไป แล้วкхо тхот пхом тонг пай лаэоSorry, I have to go
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 “I have to go; it is time” in Thai?
«ต้อง ไป แล้ว», read “тонг пай лаэо”. In a live sentence: “ขอ โทษ ผม ต้อง ไป แล้ว” — Sorry, I have to go. Phrase, level A2; written with the characters ต, ้, อ, ง, ไ, ป, แ, ล, ้, ว.
How is “ต้อง ไป แล้ว” written in Latin letters?
тонг пай лаэо. 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 "must go already": the already at the end hurries, like the English "already". The impersonal "it is time" Thai does not have — it admits honestly: must, that is all. A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.