How to read and say Thai

Thai is a tonal language of five tones: Mid, Low, Falling, High, and Rising. Meanings may change critically based on tone, yet Thais are fairly used to hearing foreigners mangle their language and can often work out the correct tone based on context. Try not to inflect your sentences; particularly, any questions should be pronounced as flat statements, without the rising intonation ("...yes?") typical of English questions.

The Thai written language is essentially alphabetic, but notoriously difficult to read due to a profusion of 44 consonants (many redundant), complicated tone and vowel signage around consonants, and a complete lack of spaces between words. It is an Indic script related to the Burmese, Lao and Khmer scripts, as well as to those of most Indian languages. Like other Indic scripts, the Thai script is an abugida, meaning that each letter represents a consonant, and vowels are indicated by modifications to the consonant letter (e.g. with a diacritic mark) or lack thereof.

Vowels

Thai has a complicated set of vowels and diphthongs that distinguishes between vowel length (short and long) and vowel position (front and back). In Thai script, vowel signs are always written around consonants and the letter ก (k) is used here to demonstrate. This list follows the Royal Thai General System of Transcription (except that some long vowels are doubled).

ka กะ

like 'a' in "car" (short vowel)

kaa กา

like 'a' in "father" (longer than "a")

kae แก

like 'a' in "man" (short vowel: "แกะ")

ke เก

like 'e' in "bed" (short vowel: "เกะ")

ki กิ

like 'y' in "greedy"

kii กี

like 'ee' in "see" (longer than "i")

ko กอ

like 'o' in "torn" (short vowel: "เกาะ")

ko โก

like 'oa' in "moan" (short vowel: "โกะ")

koe เกอ

like 'i' in "sir" (short vowel: "เกอะ")

ku กุ

like 'oo' in "hoop"

kuu กู

like 'ue' in "blue" (longer than "u")

kue กือ

frontal version of "u" (akin to German "ü", French "du", not found in English) (short vowel: "กึ")

kam กำ

like 'um' in "dummy"

kai ใก/ไก

like 'i' in "kind"

kia เกีย

like 'eer' in "beer" (but don't pronounce "r")

kua กัว

similar to 'ou' in "tour" (but don't pronounce "r")

kuea เกือ

like "ue" followed by a short "a"

kao เกา

like 'ow' in "cow"

Consonants

Thai distinguishes between aspirated ("with a puff of air") and unaspirated ("without a puff of air") consonants. Unaspirated consonants exist in English too, but never alone: compare the sound of 'p' in "pot" (aspirated) and "spot" (unaspirated). Many English speakers find it helpful to pronounce an imperceptible little "m" in front to 'stop' the puff.

In Thai romanized with the Royal Thai General System (used on Wikivoyage), the distinction is usually represented by writing aspirated consonants with "h" and unaspirated ones without it. In particular, "ph" represents a hard aspirated 'p' and not a soft 'f', and Phuket is thus pronounced "Poo-ket". Likewise, "th" is a hard aspirated 't' and hence Thailand is pronounced "Tie-land".

Other systems of romanization may use 'bp', 'dt' and 'g' for the unaspirated sounds, and 'p', 't', and 'k' for the aspirated sounds. This is not used in this guide.

b บ

like 'b' in "bed"

bp

not used here, but in other romanizations may represent unaspirated 'p'

ch ฉ ช ฌ

similar to 'ch' in "chop", but without your tongue touching your palate

d ฎ ด

like 'd' in "dog"

dt

not used here, but in other romanizations may represent unaspirated 't'

f ฝ ฟ

like 'f' in "fun"

g

not used here, but in other romanizations may represent unaspirated 'k'

h ห ฮ

like 'h' in "help"

j จ

similar to 'j' or 'dg' in "judge", but unvoiced

k ก

like 'k' in "skate" (unaspirated)

kh ข ฃ ค ฅ ฆ

like 'c' in "Kate" (aspirated)

l ล ฦ ฬ

like 'l' in "love"

m ม

like 'm' in "mother"

n ณ น

like 'n' in "nice"

ng ง

like 'ng' in "sing", but can also be used at the beginning of words

p ป

like 'p' in "spit" (unaspirated)

ph ผ พ ภ

like 'p' in "pit" (aspirated)

r ร ฤ

trilled, similar to Spanish and Italian 'r'

s ซ ศ ษ ส

like 'ss' in "hiss",

t ฏ ต

like 't' in "stop" (unaspirated)

th ฐ ฑ ฒ ถ ท ธ

like 't' in "top" (aspirated)

v

not used here, but in other romanizations may represent 'w'

w ว

like 'w' in "weight"

y ญ ย

like 'y' in "yes"