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Learn to read Thai - Tutorial 19

Review

If you've followed these tutorials so far you will be pleased to hear that we haven't got much further to go. I'm going to do one vowel and some more important consonants today but after that the only remaining consonants are fairly rare and I intend wrapping in them up together in a single future tutorial.

I've covered most of the important vowels. The long vowels can be tricky but the objective of these tutorials was to teach absolute beginners how to read things like signs, bus destinations, and menus. With those things you don't see many long vowels.

Another 'o' vowel

โ

At first glance this might look a little like the sara ai vowels covered in Tutorial 8 except the hook at the top points the other way.

It doesn't appear that often. Like the sara ai vowels it resembles, it is also written before the consonant. It can sound like sara or (Tutorial 11) or it can have a more 'oe' sound, as in 'toe'.

Consonants with a 'ch' and 'j' sound

I have stated that written Thai is quite consistent phonetically compared to English. As we have seen though, it isn't perfectly consistent and there is a little more inconsistency with the consonants below.

Thais get very defensive about any criticism of anything Thai - even if it isn't a real criticism. I was trying to discuss these inconsistencies with a couple of Thais and they got quite upset when I mentioned the inconsistency. They insisted there was no inconsistency even when they proved there was by pronouncing the words I asked them to speak. Don't worry because it's no big deal.

ช

Name in Thai: ช ช้าง
Name in English: Chor Chaang (elephant)
Initial: ch
Final: t
Class: Low
Usage: Very common
Comments: This is the most common 'ch' consonant and comes up often. The way the consonant is written is quite similar to sor soh (Tutorial 10) except that sor soh has an additional notch. In the fancy fonts that Thais use on signs this can be a problem to spot so be careful.

As a final consonant it becomes a 't' sound but many bad transliteration systems show it as still making a 'ch' sound.

ฉ

Name in Thai: ฉ ฉิ่ง
Name in English: Chor Ching (cymbals)
Initial: ch
Final: t
Class: High
Usage: Fairly rare
Comments: Not seen that often. The basic sound is the same as chor chaang above except that this is a high class consonant, as opposed to chor chaang which is low class.

ฌ

Name in Thai: ฌ เฌอ
Name in English: Chor Cher (kind of tree)
Initial: ch
Final: -
Class: Low
Usage: Rare
Comments: This seldom seen consonant is another 'ch' sound when used as an initial consonant but it is never used as a final consonant. It is another Thai character that you needn't worry too much about remembering when you first start learning to read Thai.

จ

Name in Thai: จ จาน
Name in English: Jor Jaan (plate)
Initial: j
Final: t
Class: Mid
Usage: Very common
Comments: The eccentric author Mont Redmond says there is no 'j' sound in Thai. I disagree. This argument is based around aspirated and non-aspirated sounds. What is the difference between the English words 'Jew' and 'chew'? Chew is more aspirated.

If you say that 'j' doesn't exist in Thai and that there are only aspirated and non-aspirated versions of 'ch', how do you transliterate them into English?

The stupid convention is that aspirated sounds are written with an 'h'. Therefore, 'ch' sounds should be written 'chh' and 'j' sounds written 'ch'. This is ridiculous. If you insist on writing Thai words with the English alphabet just write 'ch' and 'j'. Better still, learn to read Thai.

Bad transliteration systems retain the 'j' sound when this consonant is used as a final consonant, thus telling you that the Thai word for police is tamruaj instead of dtum-roo-ut. If you say tamruaj to a Thai all you will get is a puzzled expression.

Reading practice

As I have done with my previous tutorials, there now follows some words that use these new consonants along with previously taught consonants and vowels. If you have followed, understood and remembered everything you should be able to read these words very easily.

จาน

The initial consonant is the 'j' sound introduced today. Next is the long 'aa' vowel (Tutorial 7) and the final consonant is the 'n' sound (Tutorial 8).

The Thai word jaan is the word for plate and also the name of the 'j' character.

Tone: Mid-class initial consonant and live syllable = Mid tone (Tutorial 14)

ช้าง

The initial consonant is one of the 'ch' sounds introduced today. Next is the long 'aa' vowel (Tutorial 7) and the final consonant is the 'ng' sound (Tutorial 4).

The Thai word chaang is the word for elephant and also the name of the 'ch' character used in this word.

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

ชั่วโมง

The first consonant is chor chaang. Above it you should have spotted mai-hun-aagaat and noticed that it is followed by wor wairn. If you remembered what I wrote in Tutorial 9 you will know that this combination makes an 'oo-uh' sound.

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

The second part of the word begins with the vowel introduced today and is followed by the 'm' consonant (Tutorial 8) and then the 'ng' consonant (Tutorial 4).

This syllable is written Vowel-Consonant-Consonant but pronounced Consonant-Vowel-Consonant.

When you put all this together you get choo-uh mong which is the Thai word for hour.

Tone second part: Low-class initial consonant and live syllable = Mid tone (Tutorial 14)

I mentioned some inconsistencies and what I have found is that sometimes this letter makes more of a 'sh' sound than a 'ch' sound. When I hear Thais speak this word it sounds more like shoo-uh mong.

I'm not sure if this is actually the case or whether the sound has just been changed for everyday, colloquial speech.

I have already told you that 'r' sounds get dropped or changed to 'l' sounds in colloquial Thai, and it could be the case that colloquial Thai has also changed 'ch' to 'sh'.

Another example is the Thai phrase for 'cannot' which should be mai dai but in everyday speech is pronounced as may dai.

There are also lots of inconsistencies with transliteration when using these letters. If you look at the photo of the sign at the top of the page you will see that in the transliteration the jor jaan consonant has been transliterated to 'j' and to 'ch' in the same street name!

In the photo above the words 'Crunchy Shake' have been transliterated into Thai. Despite 'ch' and 'sh' having different sounds in English, the same Thai consonant has been used for both.

Even when chor chaang is used with Thai words, I notice that sometimes it sounds like 'ch' and sometimes it sounds like 'sh'.

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.