พา

Explanation

The central image is accompanying someone and leading them toward a destination, activity, or state. A basic pattern is พา + person or animal + ไป/มา + place. For example, พาลูกไปโรงเรียน means “take a child to school,” while พาเพื่อนมา means “bring a friend.” พา itself does not distinguish “take” from “bring”; ไป indicates movement away and มา movement toward the speaker or reference point. An activity can follow instead of a destination, as in พาไปกินข้าว, “take someone out for a meal,” and พาเที่ยว, “take someone sightseeing” or “show someone around.” The same image extends to abstract results. พาไปสู่ introduces a result something leads to, while พาให้ introduces a reaction or state it brings about. พากัน + verb is an important set pattern. It indicates that the members of a group all perform the same action, either together or in succession.

Usage

It is extremely common in everyday situations such as taking a child to school, bringing a friend home, or taking a guest sightseeing or out for a meal. In news and explanatory writing, it can also describe something leading to success, failure, or another result. พากัน frequently appears when describing a shared group reaction, such as people laughing, leaving, or gathering.

Caution

For simply taking or bringing an object, Thai normally uses เอา…ไป or เอา…มา rather than พา. The direct object of พา is generally a person or animal that accompanies the subject. Also, พา alone does not encode the directional distinction expressed by English “take” and “bring.” Use ไป for movement away from the reference point and มา for movement toward it.

1 take (a person or animal somewhere) synonyms

• ชวน

  chuan invite (someone to do something)

  ชวน means to invite or suggest that someone join an activity. พา describes actually accompanying and taking the person somewhere, whether or not an invitation was involved.

• นำ

  nam bring

  นำ emphasizes leading from the front and is also common in formal or abstract contexts. พา is the ordinary verb for accompanying and taking or bringing a person or animal somewhere.

• นำทาง

  nam thaaŋ guide

  นำทาง specifically focuses on showing someone the route or guiding them to a destination. พา more broadly means accompanying and taking someone somewhere.

2 all do something synonyms

• ด้วยกัน

  dûay kan together

  ด้วยกัน explicitly means doing something together. พากัน highlights that the members of a group share the same behavior, even if they do not act at exactly the same time.