เลย (ทันที)

Right Away and Go Ahead

Level 2

เลย follows the action phrase in ไปเลย and กินข้าวเลย. Read the whole context: a prompt to act can mean go ahead or right away.

How It Works

1. Displayed Action Phrases
Read ไปเลย and กินข้าวเลย with เลย after the action phrase. The latter keeps กินข้าว together before เลย. The first exercise requests that complete sequence; it does not establish a ban on every other placement of เลย in every construction.

2. Contextual Timing and Prompts
กินเลย! ไม่ต้องรอ invites or urges eating without waiting. ไปเลย! เดี๋ยวสาย urges leaving in view of possible lateness. The speaker may encourage, insist, or give permission depending on the setting; none of those interpersonal effects is automatic. NIU gives เอาเลย เอาไปให้หมด with a go-ahead reading.

3. The Going-Home Statement
พอเลิกงานเขาก็กลับบ้านเลย describes going straight home when work finishes in the selected reading. It does not specify an exact elapsed time. Compare the explicit immediately meaning of ทันที in its complete examples rather than assigning a fixed register ranking.

4. Other Uses of the Same Spelling
Compare the right-away reading in เขาไปเลย with เลย in a consequence clause. NIU also lists negative at-all and onward/beyond readings. Position helps interpret a complete phrase, but affirmation or negation alone does not select every meaning. The second exercise specifically requests เขาไปเลย for the displayed right-away reading.

Examples (4)

  1. กินเลย! ไม่ต้องรอ

    Go ahead and eat! No need to wait.

    Word by Word: eat | [go-ahead/right-away marker] | no need | wait

    The following ไม่ต้องรอ explicitly removes the need to wait. Read เลย with the eating prompt; permission or insistence depends on the situation.

  2. ไปเลย! เดี๋ยวสาย

    Go right now! [You] will be late.

    Word by Word: go | right away | in a moment | late

    The warning about lateness supplies urgency. The person at risk of being late is inferred from this command context.

  3. พอเลิกงานเขาก็กลับบ้านเลย

    When he finished work, he went straight home.

    Word by Word: when | finish work | he | then | return home | straight away

    This selected narrative reading connects finishing work and going straight home. The unmarked Thai wording does not by itself require past tense or measure a zero-length delay.

  4. ซื้อตัวนี้เลย สวยมาก

    Buy this one now; it is very beautiful.

    Word by Word: buy | classifier-this | right away | beautiful | very

    เลย follows ซื้อตัวนี้ here. ตัวนี้ identifies this one with a classifier and demonstrative; the sentence has no separate overt noun naming the item.

Common Mistakes

  • Separating กินข้าว in the requested กินข้าวเลย sequence.

    กินเลยข้าว
    กินข้าวเลย

    This exercise requests กินข้าวเลย with the eating phrase before เลย. กินเลยข้าว does not reproduce that requested sequence. The comparison concerns this complete phrase, not every construction containing เลย.

  • Changing the position of เลย in the requested right-away statement.

    เขาเลยไป (meaning 'He went right away')
    เขาไปเลย

    This exercise requests เขาไปเลย for the selected right-away reading. เขาเลยไป can have a consequence reading in context and is not universally ungrammatical. It does not reproduce the requested form and meaning here.

How It Connects

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

เลย (ทันที)Level 2Right Away and Go Ahead

Learn This First

To understand 'เลย' as 'right away', you need to be comfortable with basic Thai sentence structure and how verbs can be modified by adding words directly after them without conjugation.

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Patterns that build on this one.

Words in This Pattern

เลย