ราย

Classifier for Cases

Level 5

Read ราย with the counted people or cases in the infection, customer, suspect, and accident examples.

How It Works

What Is Counted?
ราย can count separately considered cases, people, or things. Read the noun and the surrounding statement to identify what is being counted.

Read The Examples
ผู้ติดเชื้อรายใหม่ ๕ ราย counts five new infected people or cases. ลูกค้า...หลายราย refers to several customers. ผู้ต้องหา...รายเดียว refers to one suspect. ผู้เสียชีวิต ๓ ราย counts three people who died. These examples do not limit ราย to one profession or type of report.

Compare People Classifiers
คน also counts people. Using ราย does not itself make a person a suspect or establish an impersonal attitude. Choose the complete phrase for the intended referents and situation.

Read The Construction
The examples place a number or quantifier before the counting unit ราย. They also show รายใหม่ after ผู้ติดเชื้อ. Compare these uses with the counting pattern; do not force every use of ราย into one order.

Examples (4)

  1. พบผู้ติดเชื้อรายใหม่ ๕ ราย

    Five new cases of infected persons were found.

    Word by Word: find person-infect case new 5 case

    In this medical report context, 'rai' is used both as a modifier (new case) and as the classifier for the number five.

  2. มีลูกค้าติดต่อเข้ามาหลายราย

    There were several customers who contacted us.

    Word by Word: have customer contact enter come many case

    Here, customers are treated as 'entries' or 'instances' of contact in a business context.

  3. ตำรวจจับกุมผู้ต้องหาได้เพียงรายเดียว

    The police were able to arrest only a single suspect.

    Word by Word: police arrest suspect can only case single

    รายเดียว counts a single suspect in this arrest report. It does not prohibit คน in every report about suspects.

  4. อุบัติเหตุครั้งนี้มีผู้เสียชีวิต ๓ ราย

    In this accident, there were 3 fatalities.

    Word by Word: accident time this have person-lose-life 3 case

    ราย counts three people who died in this accident report. The sentence does not establish a frequency rule for all news reports.

How It Connects

Tap a pattern to see what it builds on and what it leads to.

รายLevel 5Classifier for Cases

Learn This First

The pattern 'ราย' is a specific classifier used in formal reports, news, or legal contexts to count cases or people (such as patients or victims). To use it correctly, a learner needs to be familiar with the basic Thai counting structure (Noun + Number + Classifier) and the general concept of classifiers. Knowing the common classifier for people ('คน') helps the learner understand when to switch to the more formal 'ราย'.

Words in This Pattern

ราย