อาคาร

Explanation

อาคาร is neutral but sounds somewhat more formal and administrative than everyday alternatives such as ตึก or บ้าน. It is especially common in facility names, signs, regulations, real-estate descriptions, construction, and safety information. A word describing the building’s function can follow it, as in อาคารสำนักงาน “office building” and อาคารเรียน “school building.” The usual classifier for separate buildings is หลัง: อาคารสามหลัง means “three buildings.” Floors are counted with ชั้น, so อาคารห้าชั้น means “a five-story building.”

Usage

Use it when describing a building’s purpose, location, or number of floors, and when giving directions around schools, offices, hospitals, or commercial facilities. It commonly appears in expressions such as ภายในอาคาร “inside the building,” หน้าอาคาร “in front of the building,” and ทางเข้าอาคาร “building entrance.”

Caution

For someone’s house or home in everyday conversation, บ้าน is usually more natural. อาคาร can refer to residential buildings, but it presents them objectively as physical structures.

1 building synonyms

• ตึก

  tʉ̀k building

  ตึก is a more conversational word for a building and often suggests a sizable, multistory structure. อาคาร is more formal and is preferred in official names, signs, and objective descriptions.

• บ้าน

  bâan house

  บ้าน usually means a house, home, or household. อาคาร describes a physical building objectively and does not carry the sense of home or family.

• สิ่งปลูกสร้าง

  สิ่งปลูกสร้าง is the broader term “constructed structure” and can include walls, sheds, towers, and similar works. อาคาร normally refers to a building that people can enter and use.