Learn Thai With Us

You and I both want to learn to speak Thai.  Before we can walk, we have to crawl.  In today’s lesson we are going to crawl around the Thai alphabet.  We are going to learn the 44 consonants of the Thai Alphabet. 

The Thai Consonants

It’s absolutely necessary to learn the Thai alphabet to speak Thai.  Once again, it’s absolutely necessary to know the Thai alphabet in order to speak so that you are understood.  Why is that a true statement?  It’s because to speak properly, we need to properly pronounce vowel tones properly.  In Thai, the vowels themselves do not indicate tones.  It’s the consonants that determine tones primarily. 

Later, in this series of lessons, we will study consonant classes and how they affect tone rules.  We’ll also study tone markers.  But today, we are still crawling and must memorize the 44 consonants of the Thai alphabet before we get to that stage.

I have two documents that will help you learn the Thai consonants.  First is the Thai consonants chart. Second is a grid 44 squares.  Both files are in pdf format.  You can download them here.

Print several copies of the grid of 44 squares.  Use the grid to copy the Thai consonants.  Practice writing the consonants over and over and over again until you can do it from memory.  This may take you several weeks to master.  As long as you spend 15 minutes per day memorizing and practicing the writing of the alphabet, you will have it mastered and memorized just like you know your A B C’s.

Pronouncing Thai Consonants

Review my podcast lesson on pronouncing the Thai Consonants.  It can be found on the Podcast link on this website.  You can listen to the podcast audio directly from my website.  You can also listen to the podcast episode on your smart phone using any podcast app such as Apple Podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, etc . . . Find the podcast by typing in “Learn Thai With Us” without the quotes.  Listen to the podcast where I recite the alphabet over and over again.  It will help you to memorize the sounds.

The audio track from the podcast Episode #3 can be found here.

When Thai’s recite their alphabet, they recite it in two parts.  The first part starts with the sound of the consonant and the vowel “aaaw”.  For instance, if G is the consonant then the sound of the letter is “Gaaaw”.  The vowel is long, hence the three a’s (aaaw).

The second part of the vowel recitation is the example of the vowel.  For instance the first letter of the alphabet is “gai” and is represented by a chicken, since “gai” is the Thai world for chicken.  So, to say the first letter of the Thai alphabet, we say “gaaaw gai”.

Why is this done? In English we don’t say, “aaaay apple”.  We just say “a”.  In Thai, consonants are short, subtle and difficult to differentiate when spoken as a single letter.  Reciting the letter with the two parts helps to avoid miscommunication.

It takes longer to spell a word out loud in Thai as you must say the sound of the consonant and the word associated with the sound, but it’s necessary.  If done this way you won’t have any miscommunication.  Think about how you spell a word in English, such as the letter “t”.  Sometimes, people hear “see” or “bee” or “vee” or “dee” or “gee” or “pee” instead of “tee”.  Stating the sound as well as the word eliminates this problem.  In English we sometimes use a phonetic alphabet to spell letters such as alpha, bravo, Charlie, delta, echo etc . . .  It’s the same concept with the Thai alphabet.  However it’s always used.  It’s mandatory, not optional as in English.

For now, practice writing out the Thai consonants until you’ve mastered all 44 letters.  Review the consonant chart daily, place an additional copy on the wall so you look at it all the time.  Burn it in your brain with indelible ink.  Once that is done, we can move on to Thai vowels and start forming words.

Since, I have to start all over with my Thai studies, I’ll be doing the same as you.  We are study partners.  When I’ve mastered the consonants, we’ll move on to the next lesson.

Cheers,

Joe