The Thai Language, Alphabet, and Pronunciation Guide
Learn The Thai Language
The Thai alphabet very likely has its origins in, and is influenced by the Old Khmer alphabet. It is a syllabic alphabet consisting of forty four central consonants, each of them corresponding with an inherent vowel. An example of this is “o” in the middle position and the “a” in the last position. The “a” is likewise found in words in Sanskrit, Pali or the language of Khmer, while the “o” is more often found in native Thai usage. Eighteen other vowels and six diphthongs are employed using
diacritics which always show up in front of, or above/below the consonants that are used to modify them.
The direction of writing in the Thai language is horizontal from left to right as it is with English. To speak understandable Thai one needs to understand the basic Thai alphabet. Its structure comes across in every day conversational Thai. Ignoring it will prevent you from using words properly, and you won’t be understood even if you are very good at writing a letter and being understood. Surely, the better you are at pronouncing a letter of a word, the more accurately you will be understood by a native language speaker.
Words Associated With Irregular Pronunciation
English is very hard to learn for non-English speaking peoples. This is because of the many seemingly contradictory rules of spelling. The spelling of native Thai words in the Thai alphabet is simply more regular and logical than the spelling of English words within the English alphabet. You will know the rules of pronunciation in Thai, and you will be able to pronounce most Thai words correctly just from understanding how to spell them. This is not so with the English language as you no doubt already are aware. As with all languages there are exceptions however, and these exceptions are something you
need to be aware of:
1) Variations in duration of vowel pronunciation
There are some Thai words which are pronounced with a sharp, shorter-duration vowel. This is true even though the correct
Thai spelling would lead you to think that they require a long-duration. Mostly commonly, this is true for words that employ the vowels associates with any written tone mark.
2. Variation in Tone
In the Thai language there are a few words that are expressed with exceptional variation in the pronunciation of their tone. Included in these are: Khao, chan, mai, and nang seuu. Not included in this are words that come after the generally accepted clustered consonant tone rule.
Proper use of Thailand’s native language
Thai is a tonal language consisting of five tones. In Thai, all consonants have an inherent ‘ah’ sound. The tone of any syllable is influenced by the combination of the class a consonant is in, the type of syllable which is used, the tone marker employed, and the actual length of the vowel employed. In the Thai language there are no spaces in between the words, instead
of spaces the text indicates the end of a clause or any sentence.
Because Thai is put on paper in a non-Roman script it’s necessary for English speaking people to use a “romanizing” system for learning it as a second language. The most successful systems will employ phonetic symbols to aid in the pronunciation of Thai words. One of the persistent problems with learning the Thai language is that you most often need to learn a new phonetic system for each new book you pick up, or course you study.
Learning to speak Thai can be fun. To accelerate the process you can begin to learn with the aid of a Thai alphabet mnemonics table which is basically a visual memory tool that can help you to remember the sound, class and shape of each letter in the alphabet.
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