ค่า is value. Put it in front of almost any noun and you have the fee for that thing. It is fully productive, which means you can build a word you have never heard and be understood on the first try.
This is the first family in the course where vocabulary can be manufactured rather than collected, and that is worth more than the words themselves.
- ค่าเช่าkʰâː.tɕʰâw
rent
- ค่าจ้างkʰâː.tɕâːŋ
wages
- ค่าแรงkʰâː.rɛːŋ
labour cost
- ค่าเสียหายkʰâː.sǐːa.hǎːj
damages
ค่า against ราคา
ราคา is the price of a thing you buy and carry away. ค่า is what you pay for a use, a service, a consumption.
A shirt has a ราคา. Electricity, rent, labour and a taxi ride have a ค่า. The line is not always crisp but it is crisp enough to guess with.
- ราคาraː.kʰaː
price (of goods)
- ค่าkʰâː
charge (for something used)
The other builders
The same trick runs through ผู้ (the one who), นัก (one who does it habitually or professionally), and the การ and ความ of week 16.
Between them, a large part of Thai's abstract vocabulary is assembled from small pieces you already have. This is why the 2000-word target for six months is not 2000 separate memorisations, and why the second thousand goes faster than the first.
- ผู้ใช้pʰûː.tɕʰáj
user
ผู้ + to use
- นักร้องnák.rɔ́ːŋ
singer
นัก + to sing