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Photo: Not all Thai signs have English words to help you Links to other tutorials |
Learn to read Thai - Tutorial 10Tones When I talk about tones you may not understand what I mean if you haven't heard native Thai speakers. What are tones? In English we use tones to convey emotion, mood and feeling. The difference with Thai is that tones actually change the meaning of similar sounding words - as we have seen in previous tutorials. I have done this before somewhere but let's take another look at the tones. Low tone. In English we might use a low tone for emphasis or if we are angry. If someone asks you a yes/no question which makes you angry, the tone of your reply will probably be quite low. High tone. As English speakers, our tone might go high if we are surprised. "Really?" or "What?" might be spoken in a high tone if we are surprised. Falling tone. Imagine calling someone's name from a distance to get their attention. The tone starts quite high but as you continue voicing their name, the tone falls. Rising tone. Australians tend to use a rising inflection when they speak so the tone of their sentences rises. A rhetorical question indicating surprise might rise in pitch, "He said what?" Irritation can also lead to rising tones, "I know!" Mid tone. This is just normal speech with no emotion. A long time ago, I asked my little sister, Iss, to record a short clip to demonstrate the tones so let's see if this works. Unfortunately my use of audio on this site is not very good. Listen to the different ways a Thai pronounces the word mai:
Click on the play button to listen to the sentence as spoken by a native speaker (my little sister). Later on I plan to summarise tone rules completely but you need to walk before you can run and before that we need to cover some more consonants and vowels. 'S' consonants There are four Thai consonants that make an 's' sound. One is very common, one is fairly common, but the other two are quite rare. Most Thai characters can be written with one stroke of the pen but three of the 's' characters can't. This makes them quite easy to spot. Why are there three high-class 's' consonants that all perform exactly the same function? I don't know is the answer, but there are. As I said, one is commonly used and the other two aren't but they are still in use and aren't obsolete so you need to know them. The other one is quite similar to another character that we haven't covered yet. The only difference is an extra notch. Be careful with characters that have a similar appearance. ส
Name in Thai: ส เสือ ซ
Name in Thai: ซ โซ่ ศ
Name in Thai: ศ ศาลา ษ
Name in Thai: ษ ฤๅษี Reading practice Now let's combine some of these new consonants with previously learnt consonants and vowels to make new words. สั่ง The first consonant is the common 's' consonant that we learnt today. It is followed by mai-hun-aagaat (Tutorial 2) and ends with the 'ng' character (Tutorial 4) as a final consonant. You will also notice the first tone mark above mai-hun-aagaat. The word sung is the Thai verb 'to order', as in food. About 30 minutes before writing this I was asked in a restaurant if I had ordered yet and this word was used. Tone: High-class initial consonant and first tone mark = Low tone (Tutorial 14) ซ้าย The first consonant is another 's' sound we covered today. It is followed by the long 'aa' vowel (Tutorial 7) and yor yuk (Tutorial 7). The word saay means 'left' in Thai, as opposed to right. Together with the verb 'to turn' you use this word to give directions. Tone: Low-class initial consonant and second tone mark = High tone (Tutorial 14) See if you can pick out this word in the sign below:
สะอาด If you are following these tutorials as I had intended, you will have spotted sara uh (Tutorial 2) and identified that this word has two syllables. The frst consonant is sor seua followed by sara uh to give suh. The next syllable begins with a long 'aa' sound (Tutorial 7) but when writing Thai words or syllables that begin with a vowel sound we must write the zero consonant before the vowel (Tutorial 11). The reason for this is that some vowels are written over or under the preceding consonant and therefore we need a consonant in order to be able to write the vowel. If the syllable starts with a vowel sound we still need a physical consonant but we don't want it to make a sound, hence the zero consonant. After the zero consonant comes the long 'aa' vowel and the final consonant is dor dek which becomes an unreleased 't' sound when used as a final consonant. The Thai word suh-aat means 'clean'. Tone first syllable: According to the tone rules this is a low-tone but in normal, everyday speech the first syllable of poly-syllabic words is pronounced with a mid-tone. Tone second syllable: Mid-class initial consonant, dead syllable, long vowel = Low tone (Tutorial 14) สวน The initial consonant is the commonly use 's' character. It is followed by wor wairn in a mid-position which makes an 'oo-uh' sound (Tutorial 9) and the final character is nor noo (Tutorial 8). The Thai word soo-un can mean several different things in English such as garden, park, plantation, orchard. Tone: High-class initial consonant, live syllable = Rising tone (Tutorial 14) ซัก The initial consonant is the second most common 's' consonant. It is followed by mai-hun-aagaat (Tutorial 2) and ends with gor gai which, as a final consonant, makes an unreleased 'k' sound (Tutorial 1). The Thai word suk means to clean/wash but be aware that Thai has differents verbs 'to clean/wash' depending on what is being cleaned or washed. This verb is normally used when talking about washing clothes. Tone: Low-class initial consonant, dead syllable, short vowel = High tone (Tutorial 14) Next is a short three word phrase that is related to this word. ซัก อบ รีด The first word is the same as above. The second word has two letters. First the zero consonant and then bor bai mai (Tutorial 3) which, as a final consonant makes an unreleased 'p' sound. The word is op and means 'to bake' or 'to treat with heat'. For example, this word is used to describe baked food. Tone: Mid-class initial consonant, dead syllable, short vowel = Low tone (Tutorial 14) The third word begins with ror reua (Tutorial 2). Above ror reua is the long 'ee' vowel (Tutorial 3) and the final consonant is dor dek (Tutorial 6) which, as a final consonant, makes an unreleased 't' sound. The Thai word reet means to iron. Tone: Low-class initial consonant, dead syllable, long vowel = Falling tone (Tutorial 14) You will see this written outside places offering a laundry service. Click to see a real-life example (link opens pop-up image) of a sign that uses this phrase. This will also give you practice at reading real-life Thai fonts. Here's another very useful phrase: อาบ อบ นวด If you can read and understand this, you are making good progress! If not, send me an e-mail.
Thai Alphabet Soundboard To hear the sound of the Thai alphabet, click on individual consonants using the Thai Alphabet Soundboard. Thanks to David Tang for creating this. Recommended books If you are serious about learning how to read Thai, I highly recommend the following two books. These two books taught me almost everything I know and I still use them almost every day for reference purposes. Most of the phrase books and text books for beginners that I have bought sit on my bookshelf accumulating dust. They are next to useless and good only to fuel the fire, except that it is never cold enough here to need a fire. However, if a sudden cold snap happens to descend, I will be grateful to Lonely Planet. If you want to learn how to speak Thai, learning to read Thai will assist your pronunciation enormously. If you are trying to learn to speak Thai from books that use hopeless transliteration systems you are wasting your time because Thais won't be able to understand you.
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