Sorry in Thai: khor thot, and how to apologise to family

You knocked over the fish sauce at Yai’s table. Or you walked into the living room in your shoes. Or you just missed a whole sentence on a family call. In every one of those moments, Thai has one small, very useful word for you.

Here it is, how to make it polite, and what to do once you’ve said it.

How do you say sorry in Thai?

ขอโทษ

khor thot

Draft: waiting for a native speaker’s review.

ขอโทษ (khor thot) is the everyday Thai word for sorry. You’ll also see it romanised as kho thot or khor toht; the Thai is the same. Longdo, the big Thai-English dictionary, glosses it as “apologize”, “beg your pardon”, “ask for forgiveness”, and as the exclamations “sorry!” and “excuse me!”.

On its own, ขอโทษ is fine with friends, siblings and younger cousins. With anyone older, add the polite ending: ครับ (khrap) if you’re a man, ค่ะ (kha) if you’re a woman. So a man says khor thot khrap and a woman says khor thot kha. If you want the full story on those endings, see what ka and khrap mean.

Is khor thot also “excuse me”?

Yes. That’s the dictionary’s second meaning, and you’ll use it constantly:

• squeezing past someone at a crowded family party,
• interrupting an aunt to ask a question,
• bumping a stranger’s elbow at the market,
• getting someone’s attention before you ask for directions.

One exception is worth knowing. To call a server over, Thai speakers usually skip “excuse me” and use a family word. Thai often addresses strangers as relatives, so a server about your age or a bit older is พี่ (phii), older sibling. It sounds warm rather than over-familiar.

How do you apologise to a Thai elder or Yai?

With elders, how you say sorry carries as much as the word itself. Three things help:

1. The polite ending. ขอโทษ plus ครับ or ค่ะ is the baseline with anyone older.
2. Her kinship word, not “you”. Thai often uses family words where English uses pronouns, so you apologise to ยาย (yaai, mum’s mum) or ย่า (yaa, dad’s mum), not to a generic “you”. Using her family word softens everything.
3. The wai, if it’s a real apology. Palms together, a small bow. The wai isn’t only a greeting: Wikipedia’s article on the gesture notes that it frequently goes with an apology. The higher the hands and the lower the bow, the more respect.

Keep it short. A quiet ขอโทษ with the right ending, a wai, and then helping clean up the fish sauce says more than a long speech. Nobody expects a perfect sentence from you. They see that you tried, and that counts.

A related idea you’ll feel in Thai families is เกรงใจ (greng jai). The Nation describes it as “a mix of consideration, deference, and reluctance to impose”. In practice, that’s the instinct behind a soft ขอโทษ before you ask someone for a favour.

What’s the difference between khor thot and sia jai?

English uses “sorry” for two different things: “sorry, my fault” and “I’m so sorry that happened”. Thai splits them.

• ขอโทษ (khor thot) is an apology. You did something (or are about to, like squeezing past), and you’re asking forgiveness.
• เสียใจ (sia jai) is a feeling. Literally “spoiled heart”, it means sad, sorry or regretful. Longdo gives “be sorry”, “regret”, “grieve” and “sad”.

Thai feelings live in the heart, ใจ (jai). Its cheerful opposite is ดีใจ (dii jai), “good heart”, glad. So if your cousin didn’t get into the university she wanted, you’re not apologising. You’re เสียใจ for her.

You can also be เสียใจ about something you did, the way English says “I really regret it”. But if you want to apologise to someone, reach for ขอโทษ.

“Sorry for your loss”

เสียใจ is also the feeling Thai condolences are built on. We won’t hand you a ready-made condolence line here, because a funeral is the place to get it exactly right. For how to show up well, read our gentle guide to Thai funeral etiquette for family.

How do you reply to sorry in Thai?

ไม่เป็นไร

mai pen rai

Draft: waiting for a native speaker’s review.

ไม่เป็นไร (mai pen rai) literally means “it’s nothing”. The Thailand Foundation lists replying to an apology as one of its classic uses: someone steps on your foot on the BTS skytrain, apologises, and you answer with a smile and mai pen rai.

Add ครับ or ค่ะ if the person apologising is older than you. One thing to watch: after an offer (“more rice?”), the same words can sound like a polite “no thanks”. At Yai’s table, that may or may not be what you meant.

How do you say “sorry, I didn’t catch that”?

This is the sorry heritage speakers need most, especially on calls with family, when the line crackles and Yai talks fast:

อะไรนะ

a-rai na

อะไรนะครับ

a-rai na khrap

อะไรนะคะ

a-rai na kha

Who is speaking?

ครับ said by a manค่ะ said by a woman

Draft: waiting for a native speaker’s review.

นะ is doing the work here. A bare “what?” can sound sharp; with นะ it becomes a gentle “sorry?”. Men say อะไรนะครับ (a-rai na khrap) and women say อะไรนะคะ (a-rai na kha). Note the คะ there, not ค่ะ: in questions, the women’s ending changes tone.

Asking again isn’t rude, and it isn’t a failure. Most grandmas would much rather repeat themselves than talk past you. For more lifelines like “could you speak slowly?”, see our video call with Yai phrases.

Sorry in Thai: what to say, and to whom

The answer you’ll often get back is mai pen rai. What it really means, and its partner word kreng jai, is in mai pen rai and kreng jai, explained.

Practising before the next family day

In Reply Thai, ขอโทษ and ไม่เป็นไร live in the Big family days moment, and the gentle อะไรนะ is in there too, so you practise them as replies to what relatives actually say. The app is coming soon to iPhone.

Reply Thai for iPhoneComing soon

Saying sorry is only half of everyday politeness. Its partners are hello in Thai and thank you in Thai.

Thai words on this page are a draft until a native speaker has reviewed them.