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Children's song A1 · beginner

Catch the Black Crab (จับปูดำ ขยำปูนา): meaning and key lines

Traditional, author unknown

What the song is about

จับปูดำ ขยำปูนาjàp bpuu-dam kà-yǎm bpuu-naa, “Catch the Black Crab (Jab Pu Dam)”, is a Thai children's song by an unknown author. A hand-play rhyme Thai grown-ups play with babies and toddlers: catch the crab, squeeze the crab, snatch the crab, then off to sleep in the cradle. It's short and bouncy, with four kinds of crab, three ways to grab with your hands and the Thai vowel am, and it's a classic that families sing at home.

Catch the Black Crab (จับปูดำ ขยำปูนา), official video thumbnail
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Song facts

Words
Traditional, author unknown (sung here by We Kids Smile Song)
Style
Children's song
Level
A1 (beginner)
Mood
playful, sing-along
Views
about 93M (Oct 2026)
Video
We Kids Smile Song (verified kids' channel)
Lyrics
Key lines quoted; the full song is in the video

Key lines, explained

Tap a line to hear it. Once the video is playing, lines jump to their moment in the song.

  1. จับ jàpปูดำ bpuu-damขยำ kà-yǎmปูนา bpuu-naa

    Catch the black crab, squeeze the rice-field crab,

    Four crabs, and three verbs for grabbing them with your hands, which is the game. จับjàp = to catch, to hold: จับมือjàp muue = to hold hands. ขยำkà-yǎm = to squeeze, to scrunch up in your fist, like a ball of paper. ปูดำbpuu-dam, 'black crab', is a dark mud crab of the mangroves, and ปูนาbpuu-naa, 'rice-field crab', is the little crab of the paddies. Say ดำdam and ขยำkà-yǎm out loud: both end in the vowel อำam, which the rhyme loves.
  2. จับ jàpปูม้า bpuu-máaคว้า kwáaปูทะเล bpuu-tá-lee

    catch the blue crab, snatch the mud crab.

    ปูม้าbpuu-máa, literally 'horse crab', is the blue swimming crab of the seafood markets, and ปูทะเลbpuu-tá-lee, 'sea crab', is the big mud crab Thais stir-fry with curry powder, ปูผัดผงกะหรี่bpuu pàt pǒng-gà-rìi. คว้าkwáa = to snatch, to seize with a quick reach of the hand: คว้าโอกาสkwáa oo-gàat = to seize a chance. Careful with ม้าmáa, horse, with a high tone: with a rising tone, หมาmǎa is a dog.

Words you'll learn

  • จับ jàp

    to hold, to grab; to touch; to catch

  • ปูนา bpuu-naa

    rice-field crab

  • คว้า kwáa

    to snatch, to seize

  • ปูทะเล bpuu-tá-lee

    mud crab

    Literally 'sea crab'; ปูดำbpuu-dam is one kind of it.

  • ทะเล tá-lee

    sea; the seaside

    ไปทะเลbpai tá-lee means a trip to the seaside, not sailing out to sea. You know it from อาหารทะเลaa-hǎan-tá-lee (seafood).

  • ปูดำ bpuu-dam

    black mud crab

  • ขยำ kà-yǎm

    to squeeze, to scrunch up (in your hand)

  • ปูม้า bpuu-máa

    blue swimming crab

    Literally 'horse crab'.

Grammar in this song

Verb + thing, again and again. The rhyme is built from four tiny verb phrases: จับปูดำjàp bpuu-dam, ขยำปูนาkà-yǎm bpuu-naa, จับปูม้าjàp bpuu-máa, คว้าปูทะเลkwáa bpuu-tá-lee. Thai needs no 'the' or 'a': จับปูjàp bpuu is catch a crab, catch the crab or catch crabs.

Kinds of things: the general word first. A crab is ปูbpuu, and each kind adds a word after it: ปูดำbpuu-dam (black), ปูนาbpuu-naa (rice field), ปูม้าbpuu-máa (horse), ปูทะเลbpuu-tá-lee (sea). Fish work the same way: ปลาทองbplaa tawng (goldfish, 'gold fish'), ปลาทะเลbplaa tá-lee (sea fish).

The culture behind it

How the game goes. Thai grown-ups play it with babies from a few months old and with toddlers: everyone sings and opens and closes their hands to the beat, catching and squeezing the crabs, which trains little hands and eyes. The rhyme then turns into a lullaby: after all that fun, it's time to lie down in the cradle and sleep. Like the rhymes that go with other old Thai games, it has been handed down from grown-ups to children for generations, and its author is unknown.

Schoolchildren meet it again in their Thai lessons: it's full of the vowel อำam (ดำdam, ขยำkà-yǎm), and second-graders practise that vowel with it, sometimes with extra verses about ส้มตำsôm-dtam and dancing. The crabs are real, too: all four are caught and eaten in Thailand, from the paddies to the mangroves to the sea.

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Written by the Learn Thai For Free team
Audio: AI voices, quality-checked for tones