Learn Thai Food Vocabulary: 140 Flashcards for Menus, Markets and Street Stalls

Thai food vocabulary is the part of the language you actually use ten times a day, from the moment you point at a wok on a Bangkok sidewalk. The Thai Travel & Food Vocabulary deck on Flip It (deck code AY0435, 140 cards) is built for exactly that — with one caveat worth knowing before you start: despite the name, there is no travel vocabulary in it. No transport, no hotel, no directions. It is about 130 cards of food, ingredients and flavour, plus nine courtesy phrases at the very end. Treat it as a menu-and-market deck and it is excellent.

Script on the back, pronunciation in the hint

Every card gives you the Thai script plus a romanised hint, so you can learn to read and to speak at the same time:

What the 140 cards cover

Rice and noodle dishes (jasmine rice, sticky rice, khao phat, khao tom, kuaitiao, khanom chin, wun sen, phat thai), curries (kaeng khiao wan, kaeng phet, matsaman), salads and soups (yam, larb, som tam, tom yam), the five cooking verbs that build every menu name (tom, phat, thot, yang, nueng), the pantry (nam pla, kapi, kathi, nam tan pip, si-io, namman hoi, nam phrik), aromatics (takhrai, kha, makrut, horapha, kaphrao, phak chi, khing, khamin, kratiem, hom daeng), proteins (mu, kai, nuea wua, pet, pla, kung, pla muek, pu, khai, taohu), vegetables (phak bung, khana, thua ngok, thua fak yao, no mai, het), thirteen fruits (thurian, mangkhut, ngo, linchi, lamyai, som-o, khanun, malako), the five tastes (phet, wan, priao, khem, khom), drinks (cha yen, kafae, nam maphrao, bia) and the ordering phrases you need in the moment: thao rai (how much?), phaeng / thuk, chan mai kin…, mai ao nuea, phet noi, phet mak.

Two things to do before your first review

Drill the confusable pairs, not the cards in isolation. The hints carry no tone marks and flatten aspiration, so several pairs collapse into one sound in your head: ไก่ kai (chicken) against ไข่ khai (egg), and เป็ด pet (duck) against เผ็ด phet (spicy). Those are two orders you will get wrong at a street stall. Pull the four cards into their own small deck, add audio, and review them as contrasts.

Correct six cards before they fossilise. Vegetarian → เจ (che) is not the everyday word: เจ is strict Buddhist vegan food, with no meat, eggs, dairy or pungent alliums — ordinary vegetarian is มังสวิรัติ mangsawirat. Vinegar → น้ำส้ม will get you orange juice on most menus; vinegar is น้ำส้มสายชู nam som sai chu. Cashew → เม็ดมะม่วง means "mango seed" — the nut is เม็ดมะม่วงหิมพานต์ met mamuang himmaphan. Onion → หอม reads as shallot on its own; onion is หอมใหญ่ hom yai. Sriracha sauce → ศรีราชา is the name of the town, not the sauce (ซอสศรีราชา). And Bon appétit → ทานข้าว simply means "eat a meal" — Thai has no bon appétit.

Work in the order the deck is built: dishes first, then ingredients, then tastes and ordering phrases. That way you can read a menu after two sessions, and argue about chili levels after four.

The deck lives in the Flip It library at flip-it.app under code AY0435. For the general vocabulary that surrounds all this, see Learn Thai from the First 1000 Words.