Links to other tutorials

Learn to read Thai - Tutorial 12

Question from a reader

Pronunciation of the character ห seems to change according to the character at the end of the word. Is that correct?

For example, หนึ่ง appears to begin with an "N" while หมื่น is pronounced starting with an "M". Even more confusing is หก whereby it seems to become an "H" (respectively, numbers "1", "10.000" and "6").

Does it only apply to numbers, or can I expect the same weird rules to apply to words as well?

Answer

No, your theory isn't correct. This has nothing to do with numbers, but everything to do with tone rules. The pronunciation of the hor heep character doesn't change; it's actually quite consistent. What may seem weird at first is actually quite logical. The only confusing thing is that it is sometimes used for tone rule purposes only, in which case it becomes silent.

On its own, this character makes an 'H' sound as an initial consonant. It is never used as a final consonant. Unfortunately, the following examples use some characters and rules that I haven't covered yet so I will need to do some more explaining as we go along.

First example:

หก

This word consists only of two consonants but what I need to introduce now is the inherent/implied/unwritten vowel rule. I will explain more later but with a single syllable word such as this, an unwritten 'o' vowel is used between the consonants.

The initial consonant is 'H' and the final consonant is an unreleased 'K' sound. The implied vowel is 'O' so therefore the word is hok, which is Thai for six.

Tone: High-class initial consonant, dead syllable, short vowel = Low tone (Tutorial 14)

Second example:

หนึ่ง

At the beginning of this word you can see:

หน

When these two consonants are used at the beginning of a word, the first one is silent and only there for tone rule purposes. The second written consonant makes an 'N' sound (see Tutorial 8) but it is the first spoken consonant so that is the sound the word begins with.

The 'N' sound consonant is low class but writing hor heep before it makes it high class. Apart from changing the class of the next consonant, hor heep does nothing else and is silent.

The vowel used in this word (written above the consonant) is impossible to transcribe into English but is usually written 'eu' and is short. You will also notice the first tone mark. The final consonant is the 'ng' character so we get neung, the Thai word for one.

Tone: High-class initial consonant and first tone mark = Low tone (Tutorial 14)

Third example:

หมื่น

At the beginning of this word you can see:

หม

In exactly the same way as the example above, the first character is only used for tone purposes and is silent. What is written as the second consonant is actually the first voiced consonant. It is the mor maa character (see Tutorial 8).

The vowel used in this word is another one that I haven't covered yet. It is similar to the one used in the example above apart from the fact it is slightly longer. It is also normally written 'eu'. The final consonant is the 'n' sound consonant. Again, you will notice the first tone mark.

The word meun means 10,000 in Thai and the tone is the same as the example above.

Tone: High-class initial consonant and first tone mark = Low tone (Tutorial 14)

Tones

Thai is a tonal language so obviously tones are very important. In the examples I have given so far, we have seen there are various things that affect the tone (low, falling, mid, rising, high) of a word or syllable. What is the class of the initial consonant (low, mid, high)? Is a tone mark used? Is the syllable live or dead? Is the vowel short or long?

Do not confuse initial consonant class with tone.

Using the hor heep character before an initial consonant is just another way that the tone can be changed because what this does is change the class of the initial consonant from whatever it was to high.

In the same way, the or aang silent consonant can be used in front of the yor yuk consonant to change it from low to mid class (see Tutorial 11).

For a future tutorial I intend doing a complete summary of tone rules. I hope this helps. Some things can seem confusing at first but they aren't once you get used to it. Persevere and keep asking questions!

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.