Quote:
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Originally Posted by MikeS
Ever
before the verb. There can be confusion about whether to translate this as no or not e.g. He not go; He no go.
Thai has no inflected verbs, so a single word for go covers English equivalents such as went, was going, has gone, is going, will go, would go. The context in Thai makes the meaning clear. .
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or not...
I have trouble believing that all the English inflections can be replaced by "the context". Sometimes I think I can hear this lack of precision in Thai conversations but my Thai's really not good enough to know for sure. My friend who's fluent agrees with me though. "Thais say less with less" is how he puts it. Any linguists around here? Anyway, I'm not trying to say English is better than Thai though. English spelling is ridiculous to take just one example.