21 Initial Sounds

There are 44 consonants in Thai language but there are only 21 sounds. It is because some of the consonants share the same sound. Below you will see a table containing all the initial sounds in transcription with the audio tracks, and the equivalent Thai alphabets. When making a sound of each consonant, we combine the consonant sound with the ‘ɔɔ (-อ)’ vowel. 

Transcription	Sound	Audio	Thai Script
ph	phɔɔ		ผ, พ, ภ
p	pɔɔ		ป
b	bɔɔ		บ
th	thɔɔ		ฐ, ฑ, ฒ, ถ, ท, ธ
t	tɔɔ		ต, ฏ
d	dɔɔ		ด, ฎ
ch	chɔɔ		ฉ, ช, ฌ
c	cɔɔ		จ
kh	khɔɔ		ข, ฃ, ค, ฅ, ฆ
k	kɔɔ		ก
f	fɔɔ		ฝ, ฟ
s	sɔɔ		ซ, ศ, ษ, ส
h	hɔɔ		ห, ฮ
m	mɔɔ		ม
n	nɔɔ		น, ณ
ŋ	ŋɔɔ		ง
r	rɔɔ		ร
l	lɔɔ		ล, ฬ
w	wɔɔ		ว
y	yɔɔ		ย
ʔ	ʔɔɔ		อ
Note: 1. Although in Thai pronunciation has a rolling 'r' sound, people usually ignore to pronounce it properly in casual conversation. They usually do not roll their tongue. Listen to the examples below. 'rooŋ-rian' becomes 'looŋ-lian' = school 'rew rew' becomes 'lew lew' = quickly 2. ʔ symbol is called a glottal stop in phonetics. Some people think of it as a vowel holder. There are also teachers who might not use this symbol in their transcription. See some examples and listen to how we pronounce them. ʔaakàat / aakàat = weather ʔaahǎan / aahǎan = food ʔarɔ̀y / arɔ̀y = delicious ʔûan / ûan = fat

27 Vowel Sounds

It may seem to be a lot of vowels and their symbols to learn, but once you know all the symbols with the sounds they represent correctly, you will be able to pronounce any words written in transcription. Unlike English, one symbol of the vowel can produce only one sound in Thai transcription.

The length of the vowel sound is also important in Thai because it changes the meaning of the word. There are a group of short vowels and a group of long vowels. Below is a table containing all Thai vowel sounds written in transcription with the audios as well as the Thai script.

Single Vowels
Short Vowels			Long Vowels
Symbols	Sounds	Thai Script	Symbols	Sounds	Thai Script
i		ิ	ii		ี
e		เ - ะ	ee		เ -
æ		เเ - ะ	ææ		แ -
ɨ		ึ	ɨɨ		ือ
ə		เ - อะ	əə		เ - อ
a		- ะ	aa		- า
u		ุ	uu		ู
o		โ - ะ	oo		โ -
ɔ		เ - าะ	ɔɔ		- อ

MIXED VOWELS (DIPHTHONGS)
Short Vowels			Long Vowels
Symbols	Sounds	Thai Script	Symbols	Sounds	Thai Script
iaʔ		เ ียะ	ia		เ ีย
ɨaʔ		เ ือะ	ɨa		เ ือ
uaʔ		ั วะ	ua		ั ว
Note: ʔ symbol in short mixed vowels is there just to indicate that it is a short vowel.

VOWELS WITH FINAL SOUNDS
Short Vowels
Symbols	Sounds	Thai Script
am		ำ
ay		ไ - / ใ -
aw		เ - า

Practice reading some words

Listen to the below examples and pronounce them along. These words are combined with ‘the initial sound’ and ‘vowel sound’

pii = year	yaa = medicine	duu = to watch	ʔææ = air-conditioner	pay = to go
mɨɨ = hands	thee = to pour	cəə = to meet	too = grown up	cam = to remember
rɔɔ = wait	bia = beer	rɨa = a boat	wua = a cow	ʔaw = to take

Tonal Sounds

This is the fun part of learning Thai language, the TONES. Thai is one of the tonal languages with a complex tone system among 88 languages all over the world according to The World Atlas of Language Structures Online. Therefore, if your native language is one of them, you will not find it so difficult to pronounce Thai words correctly.

However, if you are not used to speak tonal languages, you will need some training for your ears.If you already know what a tonal sound is and how important it is in speaking tonal languages, then you can skip the following paragraph and jump to the 5 TONAL SOUND table below to start learning them. But if not, please keep reading a bit more before practicing.

Your pitch changes, the meaning changes

The pitch of your sound plays a vital role in tonal languages like Thai, Mandarin Chinese, Vietnamese, Burmese, and so on. It distinguishes the meaning of the word you pronounce. Let takes the word ‘maa’ as an example.

When you pronounce ‘maa’ in middle flat tone, it means ‘to come’. Then when you change your pitch into ‘high tone’ and pronouncing this same word máa, the meaning changes into ‘a horse’. That is still not enough to play with this word. Try to pronounce mǎa in a little sassy way, which we call ‘rising tone’ and you will say ‘a dog’. So, let’s start singing Thai with the following tone table.

Name of the Tones	Symbols	Example Words	Sounds
Middle Tone		maa
Low Tone		màa
Falling Tone		mâa
High Tone		máa
Rising Tone		mǎa

Don’t rush yourself to master these tones at the first time! Normal progress would be that you will be able to hear the difference among these five tones. Later, you will be able to pronounce and recognize what tones you are pronouncing. The key exercise to improve your Thai tone is to listen, listen and listen to the Thai language.

Listen to the example words below and practice pronouncing them before you move to the next topic.

yaa = medicine	yàa = do not
mày - new	mây - no, not
phîi = older person	phǐi = ghost
sɨ̂a = shirt	sɨ̌a = tiger
phɔɔ = enough	phɔ̂ɔ = father

8 Final (Consonant) Sounds

The final (consonant) sound is a sound of the last consonant of a word which is very common in almost every language. Although there are 37 Thai consonants which can be used as a final consonant, there are only 8 final sounds exist because some consonants share the same sound.

Follow the table and listen to the audio so you can hear how all the final consonants are pronounced in Thai.

PHONETIC SYMBOL	EXAMPLE WORDS	SOUNDS	THAI LETTER
- k	mâak		ก, ข, ค, ฆ
- p	rîip		บ, ป, พ, ฟ, ภ
- t	pə̀ət		ด, จ, ช, ซ, ฎ, ฏ, ฐ, ฑ, ฒ, ต, ถ, ท, ธ, ศ, ษ, ส
- ŋ	yuŋ		ง
- n	rian		น, ญ, ณ, ร, ล, ฬ
- m	sǎam		ม
- y	khuy		ย
- w	hǐw		ว

The – k, – p, and – t endings are not pronounced in the same way as in English. It has a very soft ending sound. It is so soft that some people thought we don’t pronounce them at all because they cannot hear it. But we do pronounce it! You just don’t release the air from your mouth when you finish pronouncing a word with these endings.

Listen to more examples so you can get familiar with the sounds.

- k	rák = love	càak = from	nók = a bird
- p	sìp = ten	chɔ̂ɔp = to like	rûup = picture
- t	yùt = stop	phûut = to speak	nûat = to massage

Clustered (Consonant) Sounds

This is the last component of all the necessary sounds to master Thai pronunciation. Clustered consonant sounds occur when two consonants exist before a vowel. In Thai language, there are 3 consonants used as clustered sounds which are l, r, and w.

The word ‘khráp’, which is a polite final particle for a male speaker, is a good example of a clustered sound in Thai.

1st Consonant	2nd Consonant	Vowel + Tone	Final Consonant	Finished Word
kh	r	á	p	khráp

When you listen to the word ‘khráp’ from the table above, you hear a proper pronunciation of the word. However, in casual conversation, Thai people usually drop the clustered ‘l’ and ‘r’ when speaking. Therefore, you will hear Thai men saying ‘kháp’ instead of ‘khráp’ more often.

The following are words which have clustered sound. So you can practice listening and pronouncing with the audio. You will hear the proper pronunciation of the word along with the casual way to pronounce them.

Clustered Sound - Proper Pronunciation	Clustered Sound - Casual Pronunciation
klàp = to return	k(l)àp = to return
khráŋ = time	kh(r)áŋ = time
plìan = to change	p(l)ìan = to change
triam = to prepare	t(r)iam = to prepare