Primary Final Consonants
Syllables are either of the form Consonant + Vowel or Consonant + Vowel + Final Consonant. We’ve only looked at syllables ending in vowels so far, so it’s time to look at some with final consonants. There are only eight final consonant sounds in Thai; five sonorant and three stop finals. Here is a table of all final consonants (don’t memorize):
primary
secondary
Sonorant
ง
none
น
ญ,ณ,ร,ล
ม
none
ย
none
ว
none
Stop
ก
ข,ค,ฆ
ด
จ,ฎ,ฏ,ต,ฐ,ถ,ศ,ษ,ส,ช,ท,ธ
บ
ป,พ,ภ
While there are only eight possible final sounds, denoted by the primary final consonants, there are some secondary final consonants that make the same sounds as four of the primary ones. Don’t be intimidated by this chart; it’s just there for reference. For now, we aren’t going to learn secondary final consonants. We are also going to delay learning ย and ว because, as finals, they only appear as parts of complex vowels. We are going to work with six finals, and you already know three of them (ก, ด, บ). Here are the other three:
Memorize 4
ง
Show
งอ งู snake
Show
Image
น
Show
นอ หนู mouse
Show
Image
ม
Show
มอ ม้า horse
Show
Image
All three of these are low class consonants; we’ll learn the rest later. Now let’s see what our six final consonants sound like.
Exercise 4
บาง
Show
some; thin
Show
จีน
Show
Chinese
Show
ตาม
Show
to follow
Show
ปาก
Show
mouth
Show
โดด
Show
to jump
Show
ตอบ
Show
to answer
Show
The tone of the syllable is determined by the class of the initial consonant. These all have mid class initial consonants, so they follow mid class consonant tone rules (rules 1-3). Also, notice that the sonorant finals resonate, and the stop finals end abruptly. Here is a more precise definition of live and dead syllables:
Syllables ending in long vowels or sonorant finals are Live.
Syllables ending in short vowels or stop finals are Dead.
Another important thing to notice is that stop finals are not aspirated. For an idea of what this means, consider the “p” in “Pat” vs “spat”. If you put your hand in front of your mouth when you pronounce Pat, you’ll feel a puff of air for the p, meaning it’s aspirated. If you put your hand in front of your mouth when you pronounce spat, you won’t feel a puff of air for the p, meaning it’s not aspirated. For Thai stop finals, some natives pronounce them so lightly that it may sound like they aren’t even there!
Read 4
Read this passage out loud. Some of the syllables in the passage aren’t actual words.