Over the past few years I’ve heard several people mention that there are a lack of good free resources for teaching the Thai writing system. By a “good” resource, I mean one that’s designed for a beginner that teaches how to pronounce, recognize the letters they are hearing, read and write Thai text. I’ve always felt that learning the writing system, along with pronunciation, should be the first step in learning a language, and this is my version of a tool that allows that.
The basis of any good pronunciation course is listening and repeating. Every time I introduce something new to you, you will be asked to do this. In order to make the rest of this guide a bit more familiar, I’m going to now give you brief introductions to three important aspects of Thai pronunciation. Don’t worry about them being so brief; later on we will cover them thoroughly. There’s no need to memorize anything yet, but please don’t skip this step.
Tones Introduction
Thai is a tonal language, which means that sometimes words will have the exact same consonant and vowel sounds, but different meanings because the tones are different. There are five tones - mid, low, falling, high, and rising. To demonstrate:
มา
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mid
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หม่า
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low
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ม่า
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falling
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ม้า
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high
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หมา
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rising
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มา, หม่า, ม่า, ม้า หมา
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all five
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Click the audio button for the first one, listen and repeat. Try to imitate not only the consonant and vowel sounds, but also the tone. Do this several times until you feel comfortable with it. Do the same with the next four. For the last item, listen to the audio very carefully, and notice the contrast between tones. Listen and repeat as many times as it takes to become comfortable with it.
Long vs Short Vowels Introduction
There are long and short vowels in Thai, which means that sometimes words will have the exact same consonant sounds, but different meanings because the vowels are different lengths. To demonstrate:
ข้าว, เข้า
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rice, enter
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น้า, นะ
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uncle, particle
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นาย, ใน
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mister, inside
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สาย,ใส
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late, clear
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จาน, จันทร์
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plate, moon
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จาก, จักร
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from, wheel
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Click the audio button for the first one, listen and repeat. When you imitate, take special care in producing the right vowel length. Do this several times until you feel comfortable with it. Do the same with the remaining five.
Live and Dead Syllables Introduction
There are four things that determine tones in Thai – consonant class, vowel length, tone mark and whether a syllable is live or dead. The first three are straight forward concepts, but you may not be familiar with the difference between live and dead syllables. To put it simply, live syllables sound like they resonate, or are open, and dead syllables sound like they stop suddenly, or are closed. To demonstrate:
กา, กัด
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crow, bite
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ดี, ดิ
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good, obviously
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โทร, โทษ
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to phone, blame
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เด้ง, เด็ด
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bounce, pick
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หา, หัก
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find, break
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ดู, ดุ
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look, fierce
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โก, ก๊ก
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elder brother, faction
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ลา, ละ
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fairwell, each
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หา, หาด
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find, beach
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เรียน, เรียก
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study, call
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These are all in the order live, dead. Go through them one at a time, listen and repeat, and try to notice how the first one sounds sort of open and the second sort of closed.
Unit 1