Guide Of Pronunciation
Thai Tones
Thai is a tonal language, its pronunciation presents new challenges for foreigner speakers. If the tone is wrong, you might not be easily understood, but not to be worried, you will learn from the mistake!
Thai uses five tones. The phonetic transliteration in this textbook uses tone marks over the initial consonant to determine the tone for each syllable. Note that the tone marks used for transliteration are different from those used in Thai script. Each syllable is pronounced with a distinct tone – mid, low, falling, high or rising.
You might not be able to get all tones correctly at first, which is OK! The more you practice it will become easier. We will go through new words in each lesson one by one together. Thai syllables are like music, just keep singing!
Tone marks (Transliteration)
Tone
Tone Symbol
Example
Middle
a
maa ( come;V)
Low
à
màa (no meaning)
falling
â
mâa (no meaning)
High
á
máa (horse;N)
Rising
ä
mäa (dog;N)
bpaa bpàa bpâa bpáa bpäa
kaao kàao kâao káao käao
maa màa mâa máa mäa
Thai tones are like music, just keep singing!
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- Middle Class Consonants
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- Tone Mark อ่
- Tone Mark อ้
- Tone Mark อ๊ & อ๋
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- Dead & Live Syllable
- Final Consonants
- Sonorant Final ง
- Sonorant Final น
- Sonorant Final ม
- Sonorant Final ย
- Sonorant Final ว
- Stop Final ก
- Stop Final ด
- Stop Final บ
- Seven Vowel that Change Form
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- Low Class Consonant (Unpaired)
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