How to Say “I'm hungry” in Thai
หิวข้าว
hǐw-khâaw
I'm hungry
ค่ะ and ครับ are polite particles — they depend on the speaker's gender, not the listener's.
When to use it
หิว (hǐu) means hungry, ข้าว (khâao) means rice — but Thais use ข้าว to mean "a meal" in general. So หิวข้าว is literally "hungry for rice" but means "hungry" in everyday speech. You can also just say หิว on its own.
Why you've seen it spelled differently
You may have seen หิวข้าว written as: hew khao, hiw khao, hew kao.
There is no single standard for writing Thai in the Roman alphabet — phrasebooks, road signs, and tourist guides each follow a different system, and many just invent their own spellings. The romanization on this page uses a consistent IPA-based system that marks all five tones and distinguishes short from long vowels. The same word always gets the same spelling. Paste any Thai to see it romanized →
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