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phonetic guide
There
is no universally agreed-upon system to write Thai in
romanized letters. The phonetic guide originally adopted
in first edition of Heart Talk was suggested
by Dr. Theraphan L. Thongkum, Department of Linguistics,
Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University. For the second
edition, Gaynor de Wit has made a number of useful additions
to this guide.
 For
this third edition, Dr. Busakorn Suriyasarn has revised
and reorganized the phonetic system of the vowels and
consonants into a more accessible format, adding more
examples and clarifications. The revision partially
benefits from the Royal Thai General System of Transcription
and the Thai language phonology page on Wikipedia, the
free encyclopedia
website.
Vowels
Learning
to pronounce the vowels in the Thai language can be
intimidating at first, as there are over 30 combinations
of vowels. Fortunately, many of them are the short and
long pairs of the same sounds. Short vowels in Thai
are vowels that are pronounced in short duration, while
the long vowels are those pronounced in longer duration.
Two words with the same vowel sound but with different
duration usually have different meanings in Thai. There
are 9 pairs of basic Thai vowel sounds and over 20 other
vowels and vowel combinations (of two or three basic
vowels). The single or the first dash (-) in the table
below indicates the position of the initial consonant
after which each vowel is pronounced, for example 
The second dash represents the final consonant, for
example 
Short
Basic Vowel Sounds |
Long
Basic Vowel Sounds |
 |
a |
as
‘u’ in “fudge” |
 |
i |
as
‘i’ in “sip” |
 |
u |
as
‘oo’ in “book” |
 |
e |
as
‘e’ in “set” |
 |
E |
as
‘a’ in “hat” |
 |
ue |
as
‘u’ in French “du” |
 |
oe |
as
‘u’ in “burn” (short) |
 |
o |
as
‘oa’ in “boat” |
 |
O |
as
‘o’ in “top” |
|
 |
aa |
as
‘a’ in “father” |
 |
ii |
as
‘ee’ in “see” |
 |
uu |
as
‘oo’ in “booth” |
 |
ee |
as
‘a’ in “sane” |
 |
EE |
as
‘a’ in “ham” |
 |
uue |
as
‘u’ in French “dur” |
 |
ooe |
as
‘u’ in “burn” (long) |
 |
oo |
as
‘ow’ in “bowl” |
 |
OO |
as
‘o’ in “tore” |
|
Short
Vowel Combinations |
Long
Vowel Combinations |
 |
ai |
as
‘I’ in “I” |
 |
am |
as
‘um’ in “mum” (short) |
 |
aw |
as
‘ow” in “chow” |
 |
ua |
as
‘ewe’ in “brewer” |
 |
ea |
as
‘ier’ in “pier” |
 |
uea |
ue
+ a sound |
 |
iw |
as
‘ew’ in “new” |
 |
ew |
e
+ o sound |
| |
- |
- |
| |
- |
- |
 |
ui |
u
+
i sound |
| |
- |
- |
 |
Oi |
O
+ i sound (as ‘oy’
in “boy” (short)) |
| |
- |
- |
| |
- |
- |
| |
- |
- |
|
 |
aay |
as
‘I’ in “I” |
|
am |
as
‘um’ in “mum” (short) |
 |
aaw |
as
‘ow” in “chow” |
 |
uaa |
as
‘ewe’ in “brewer” |
 |
eaa |
as
‘ier’ in “pier” |
 |
ueaa |
ue
+ a sound |
| |
- |
as
‘ew’ in “new” |
 |
eew |
e
+ o sound |
 |
EEw |
- |
 |
iiaw |
- |
 |
uuy |
- |
 |
ooy |
u
+
i sound |
 |
OOy |
- |
 |
ooey |
O
+ i sound (as ‘oy’
in “boy” (short)) |
 |
ueaay |
- |
 |
uuaay |
- |
|
Consonants
There
are 44 letters in the Thai alphabet, producing 21 initial
consonant sounds (i.e., in the initial position of a
syllable) and 6 final consonant sounds (i.e., at the
end of a syllable).
Letters |
Initial
Position |
Final
Position |
English
Equivalent Sounds
in Initial Position |
|
k |
kh |
ng |
j |
ch |
d |
t |
th |
n |
b |
p |
ph |
f |
m |
y |
y |
r |
l |
w |
s |
h |
- |
|
k |
k |
ng |
t |
t |
t |
t |
t |
n |
p |
p |
p |
p |
m |
n |
- |
n |
n |
- |
t |
- |
- |
|
| as
‘k’ in “skate”, unaspirated,
plosive (also used to transliterate the English
letter ‘g’) |
| as
‘c’ in “car”, aspirated,
plosive |
| as
‘ng’ in “linger”,
nasal |
| as
‘j’ in “jet”, unaspirated,
affricate |
| as
‘ch’ in “chat”, aspirated,
affricate |
| as
‘d’ in “dale”, unaspirated,
plosive |
| as
‘t’ in “stale”, unaspirated
‘dt’ sound, plosive |
| as
‘t’ in “tale”, aspirated,
plosive |
| as
‘n’ in “nail”, nasal |
| as
‘b’ in “bark”, unaspirated,
plosive |
| as
‘p’ in “spark”, unaspirated
‘bp’ sound, plosive |
| as
‘p’ in “park”, aspirated,
, plosive |
| as
‘f’ in “fee”/“fake”/“fail”,
fricative |
| as
‘m’ in “male”, nasal |
| as
‘y’ in “you”, approximant |
| as
‘y’ in “you” , approximant |
| as
‘r’ in “rake”/“rail”,
thrill |
| as
‘l’ in “lake”, lateral
approximant |
| as
‘w’ in “wee”/“wake”/“whale”,
approximant |
| as
‘s’ in “see”/“sake”/“sail”,
fricative |
| as
‘h’ in “he”/“hen”/“hale”,
fricative |
| This
letter is silent if appearing before a vowel,
or a glottal plosive sound OO if following
a short vowel without a final consonant. |
|
*
Note: Letters 
never appear at the end of a syllable. |
Tones
Thai
is a tonal language. Understanding its five tones is
an essential part of usage as using the wrong tone may
cause confusion because different tones of words with
the same sound usually convey different meanings in
Thai. In Heart Talk, the tones are indicated
by unique symbols in the Thai transliteration of each
heart phrase as shown in the chart below.
Tone
|
Tonal
Mark in Thai |
Symbol |
Thai |
English |
middle
tone |
low
tone |
falling
tone |
high
tone |
rising
tone |
|
|
naa |
nàa |
nâa |
náa |
n a |
|
|
rice
paddy |
custard
apple |
face |
maternal
aunt/uncle |
thick |
|
Asia
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