What are the basic greetings in Thai?

Answer 1

The most popular greeting in Thailand is สวัสดี (sawat dee) which is like saying, "hello!"

This will almost always be accompanied by the ending words ครับ/ครับผม (krop/krop pom) for male identifying people, and ค่ะ (ka) for female identifying people to indicate politeness.

More casual greetings among friends are:

กินข้าวหรือยัง (geen kao reuu yang) did you eat (rice) yet?

ไปไหนมา (bpai nai ma) where were you?/where did you just come from?

There is a phrase in Thai for "how are you?" which is สบายดีไหม (sabaai dee mai). This is a more polite way of asking the question.

The more casual way of asking this question is เป็นยังไงบ้าง (bpen yang ngai bang) which also means "how are you?"

In my experience, the question "how are you?" is not used on a daily basis the same way it is used in English. This question is usually saved for when you haven't seen somebody in a while, and you want to catch up with their life.