How to Say “Unfortunately” in Thai
โชคไม่ดี
chôok mây dii
Unfortunately
literally: luck not good
ค่ะ (khâ) and ครับ (khráp) are polite particles — they depend on the speaker's gender, not the listener's.
Word by word
When to use it
The natural opposite of โชคดี (chôok dii) "good luck" — used to open a sentence about something that didn't go well: โชคไม่ดีที่ (chôok mây dii thîi)... — unfortunately, ... You need ที่ (thîi) when you mention the reason, e.g. โชคไม่ดีที่เรารู้ช้าไป (chôok mây dii thîi raw rúu cháa pay) — Unfortunately, we found out too late. A stronger version is โชคร้าย (chôok ráay), meaning "bad luck" or "unlucky."
Why you've seen it spelled differently
You may have seen โชคไม่ดี written as: chok mai dee, chok mai di, choke my dee.
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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