Learn How To Read Thai - Tutorial 8
Learning Style
Are you a passive or an active learner? A passive learner will just read what I write and although he will probably understand everything at the time, he won't remember. He will remember basic consonant shapes but won't remember which side the little loop is written on. He will remember basic vowel shapes but won't remember if a particular vowel is long or short.
Many Thai characters have a similar shape but have a completely different sound so just being able to remember vaguely isn't good enough.
Most of the Thai students to whom I have taught English have been passive learners. During lessons everything is understood and there are no problems, but by the next lesson they have forgotten everything. If we just look and listen without taking any positive action, nothing gets committed to our long term memory.
As I have gone through these tutorials I have given you information about individual Thai consonants and vowels but if you don't write anything down, you won't remember.
If you live in Thailand, I suggested a couple of very useful resources in the first tutorial. If you buy some wall charts (link opens pop-up image) for Thai consonants and vowels, you can add the information to your wall chart. If you do this you will learn actively, the information will be highly visible, and you will remember.
Another excellent resource are kids' books (link opens pop-up image) where you can join the dots to practice writing Thai characters. This activity requires you to be active and as a result you will remember the Thai characters.
If you live outside of Thailand and can't obtain these resources easily, just write everything down in a notebook. If you write things down you will remember; if you don't, you won't.
Don't be a passive learner otherwise you won't remember anything.
Review
We have covered 11 consonants and six vowels so far. That's not many and already we can read lots of Thai words from that limited character set.
The Thai language doesn't use spaces between words in sentences and seeing a very long string of characters can be intimidating, but once you start to understand the writing structure you can then start to separate the words.
In any case, the objective of these tutorials is only to teach people to read signs and menus which mainly consist of single words or very short phrases.
In the last tutorial I covered a long 'aay' sound. The vowel sound 'ai' is important in Thai so today I will take a look at other 'ai' sounds, and I will also cover three more important consonants.
น
Name in Thai: น หนู
Name in English: Nor Noo (mouse/rat)
Initial: n
Final: n
Class: Low
Usage: Very common
Writing practice: Download Worksheet
Comments: This is another very commonly used character that must be remembered.
ม
Name in Thai: ม ม้า
Name in English: Mor Maa (horse)
Initial: m
Final: m
Class: Low
Usage: Very common
Writing practice: Download Worksheet
Comments: You will see that this character is similar to the one above but that the loop at the bottom is on the opposite side. It is another very commonly used letter.
ล
Name in Thai: ล ลิง
Name in English: Lor Ling (monkey)
Initial: l
Final: n
Class: Low
Usage: Very common
Writing practice: Download Worksheet
Comments: Another very commonly used consonant. The two consonants above (nor noo and mor maa) retain the same sound when used either as an initial or final consonant but this one changes from an 'l' when used as an initial consonant to an 'n' when used as a final consonant.
Before I could read Thai I went to Bangkok and asked a taxi driver to take me to the Oriental hotel but he didn't know where it was. I couldn't understand why a Bangkok taxi driver didn't know where Bangkok's most famous hotel was.
Once you start to understand written Thai it will explain a lot about the bad Thai pronunciation of English words and it will help you to communicate with Thais. If you wondered why Thais say 'Orientan' instead of 'Oriental' and 'Centran' instead of 'Central' it's because of lor ling.
Now on to some 'ai' vowels.
ไ
Writing practice: Download Worksheet
This one, called ai mai-muh-laay, is the most commonly used short 'ai' vowel. It is written before the consonant.
ใ
Writing practice: Download Worksheet
This one, called ai mai-muan, as well as looking somewhat similar to ai mai-muh-laay, has exactly the same function as ai mai-muh-laay. It is also written before the consonant and sounds exactly the same. However, whereas ai mai-muh-laay is commonly used, ai mai-muan is only used in about 20 words.
อัย
Two vowels we have covered already - when used in a vowel combination (here in conjunction with the zero consonant) - also make an 'ai' sound. It's not used very often but it does come up and is worth being aware of.
Reading Practice
ใกล้
The first character is ai mai-muan which makes an 'ai' sound but it is written before the initial consonant or consonant cluster. This word uses a consonant cluster. The first consonant in the cluster is the hard 'g' sound and the second is a consonant we learnt today, lor ling which makes an 'l' sound.
The Thai word glai means 'near'. The tone of this word is very important for reasons that will soon become apparent.
Tone: Mid-class initial consonant and second tone mark = Falling tone (Tutorial 14)
ไกล
The first character is ai mai-muh-laay which sounds the same as ai mai-muan. The same consonant cluster as the word above is used in this word but there is no tone mark.
The Thai word glai means 'far'!! The Thai words for 'near' and 'far' were specially created to confuse foreigners learning Thai.
Tone: Mid-class initial consonant, live syllable = Mid tone (Tutorial 14)
ไป
The first character is ai mai-muh-laay again and written after it is the consonant that comes between an unaspirated 'b' and an aspirated 'p'. The Thai word bpai means 'go' (or 'went' or 'gone' as there are no verb conjugations in Thai).
Tone: Mid-class initial consonant, live syllable = Mid tone (Tutorial 14)
ได้
This time the same vowel is used with dor dek, the 'd' sound. The Thai word dai means 'can'.
Tone: Mid-class initial consonant and second tone mark = Falling tone (Tutorial 14)
นาง
The first character is nor noo followed by the long 'aa' and the final consonant is 'ng'. These are all letters that I have covered previously. The Thai word naang is like the English word 'Mrs' - the term of address for a married woman.
Tone: Low-class initial consonant, live syllable = Mid tone (Tutorial 14)
น้ำตาล
This is a two syllable word.
The first character is the 'n' consonant and you should have spotted the 'um' vowel with the second tone mark above it. As I mentioned in the previous tutorial, this word meaning water, liquid or fluid (it prefixes many Thai words) is pronounced with a naam sound and not a num sound, as you might expect.
The second syllable begins with the 'dt' consonant, is followed by the long 'aa' vowel and ends with lor ling. The Thai consonant lor ling has an 'n' sound when used as a final consonant. Therefore this syllable is pronounced dtaan.
The Thai word naam-dtaan means sugar.
Tone first syllable: Low-class initial consonant, second tone mark = High tone (Tutorial 14)
Tone second syllable: Mid-class initial consonant, live syllable = Mid tone (Tutorial 14)
ขายยา
This is actually two words. The first word starts with a 'k' sound; is followed by a long 'aa', and ends with a 'y'. We get kaay which is the Thai verb to sell.
The second word begins with yor yuk and is followed by the long 'aa' vowel. The Thai word yaa means drugs, or medicine.
This sign is outside a shop that sells medicine. You see these signs the length and breadth of Thailand outside pharmacies.
If you click here (link opens pop-up image) you can see a real example.
Tone first word: High-class initial consonant, live syllable = Rising tone (Tutorial 14)
Tone second word: Low-class initial consonant, live syllable = Mid tone (Tutorial 14)
Next
With the Thai characters we have already covered (and there aren't many) we can start to read hundreds of Thai words. Now that we know 'm', 'n', 'l' and 'ai' sounds this opens the door to many more Thai words.
However, first we need an extra character that is often used just for tone rule purposes before we can continue. In the next tutorial I will cover this letter and give you some more reading practice.
With the reading practice I will only use characters that have already been covered. You should therefore know them and you should be able to read the words quite easily. If you can't, then you aren't following what I am teaching - or you can't remember.
This could be because you are trying to learn passively when you need to be learning actively. See my comments at the top of the page.
Questions And Feedback
If you have any comments, questions or suggestions, feel free to contact me. Your feedback will help me to improve these pages.
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