Learn the twenty-one Thai vowels
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Ryan: Pronunciation, Lesson 3 - Fine tuning your Thai vowels. Hi, everyone! |
| Rawinporn: Welcome back to the Pronunciation Series. |
Lesson focus |
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| Ryan: In the last two lessons you learned how to pronounce all 44 Thai consonants. In this lesson, we’ll show you the vowels. There are 21 vowels (vowel symbols)… |
| Rawinporn: With 32 (vowel) sounds. Most of them are paired between long and short syllables. |
| Ryan: Right. Let’s take a look together. |
| Rawinporn: First pair is [อะ] and [อา]. |
| Ryan: The first one is short and the latter is long. |
| Rawinporn: Yes, [อะ] and [อา]. For example, [ชบา]. [ชบา] is the name of a flower. [ชะ] is short and [บา] is long. |
| Ryan: Please be careful with the difference between the lengths of the vowel sounds. Thai’s can understand what you’re trying to say even if you mispronounce it, but it would be easier to understand if you pronounce the vowels correctly. |
| Rawinporn: The next pair is [อิ] and [อี]. |
| Ryan: For example, [วิเศษ] means “wonderful”. [วิ] is a short sound. An example of a long sound is [ผี]. [ผี] means “ghost”. |
| Rawinporn: The next pair is [อึ] and [อือ]. For example… |
| Ryan: [หึง] and [หือ]. The former is [หึง], which means “jealous”. The latter, หือ], means “dispute” or “discuss”. This sound doesn’t exist in English. To get it right, try saying [อู] but with your mouth spread wide or smiling. [อือ] |
| Ryan: We’ll write the short sound as UE and the long sound as UUE. Let’s go to the next pair. |
| Rawinporn: Right. Next is [อุ] and [อู]. |
| Ryan: Can you give us some examples? |
| Rawinporn: Sure. [ซุง] and [สูง]. |
| Ryan: The short one, [ซุง], means “log”. |
| Rawinporn: [สูง] means “tall”. |
| Ryan: Wow, the sound is very similar but the meaning is just so different. |
| Rawinporn: Yes, it is. |
| Ryan: The next pair is [เอะ] and [เอ]. An example of the short sound is [เอะอะ], which means “noisy”. |
| Rawinporn: And an example of the long sound is [เวลา], which means “time”. |
| Ryan: The next pair is |
| Rawinporn: [แอะ] and [แอ]. For example, [แพะ] and [แพ]. |
| Ryan: [แพะ] means “goat”, while [แพ] means “raft”. |
| Rawinporn: Wow, that sounds pretty close. [แพะ] and [แพ]. We’ll transcribe the short one as AE and the long one as AAE. |
| Ryan: The next pair is [โอะ] and [โอ]. |
| Rawinporn: For example, [โต๊ะ] and [โต]. [โต๊ะ] means “table”, while [โต] means “grow up”. |
| Ryan: And then [เอาะ] and [ออ]. For example, [เงาะ] and [งอ]. |
| Rawinporn: [เงาะ] means rambutan, which is a fruit. [ดิฉันกินเงาะ] |
| Ryan: “I eat rambutan.” And [งอ] means “curve” or “to be moody”. |
| Rawinporn: For example, [คุณไรอันหน้างอ] means “Ryan is moody”. |
| Ryan: Thank you very much. Well, this sound you’ll often see written with the letter O in Thailand, but we’ll write the pair as AW and AAW in the lesson notes so you don’t confuse [เอาะ] and [ออ] with [โอะ] and [โอ]. The next pair is [อัวะ] and [อัว]. It sounds just like a combination of [อุ] and [อะ]. [อัวะ] |
| Rawinporn: And then [เอียะ] and [เอีย]. |
| Ryan: For example, [ขนมเปียะ]. [ขนมเปียะ] is a Chinese dessert. |
| Rawinporn: And an example of the long vowel is [เลีย], which means “lick”. |
| Ryan: The next pair is [เอือะ] and [เอือ]. These are like a combination of a wide-mouth vowel from earlier - [อือ] with [อะ]. [เอือะ] One of my favorite words to say is [เอื้อเฟื้อเผื่อแผ่ ]. |
| Rawinporn: That means “to be generous”. And next is [เออะ] and [เออ]. We’ll write this pair as OE and OOE. It’s a little like the EA sound of English, but more open. [เปิด] means “to open”. |
| Ryan: And then one vowel comes alone - [อำ]. For example, [ขำ] which means “laugh”. |
| Rawinporn: The next two sound just the same - [ไอ]. |
| Ryan: And the last four are [รึ] and [รือ] and [ลึ]. Only the first one, [ลือ], is still used. The last three are ancient and not in use anymore. |
| Rawinporn: Exactly. You might come across those letters in ancient words, in poetry or literature, but not in daily life. |
Outro |
| Ryan: So keep practicing. Be careful of short and long sounds. |
| Rawinporn: And see you next time. |
| Ryan: [สวัสดีครับ] |
| Rawinporn: [สวัสดีค่ะ] |
Comments
HideHello Karen,
Thank you for spot it out. I would suggested. Please let me know if you have any future questions. I will be glad to help.
Have a good day.
ปริษา Parisa
Team ThaiPod101.com
The -ao vowel wasn't talked about in the lesson but it is on the pdf.
Hello Everyone,
Thank you very much for your comment and question. Joe, we combine those vowel on our PDF filed, here it's
Ryan: And then one vowel comes alone - [อํา]. For example, [ขํา] which means “laugh”.
Rawinporn: The next two sound just the same - [ไอ].
Ryan: And the last four are ฤ [รึ] and ฤๅ [รือ] and ฦ [ลึ]. Only the first one, ฦๅ [ลือ], is still used.
The last three are ancient and not in use anymore.
Erik, here is the video that will help you with vowel: https://www.thaipod101.com/lesson/ultimate-thai-pronunciation-guide-3-thai-vowels/?lp=55
Hope that's help. Please feel free to let me know if you have any future questions about Thai language. I will be glad to help. We wish you will have a good progress with Thai.
Have a nice day.
Parisa
Team ThaiPod101.com
Is there a video course specifically for vowels? I did enjoy the Thai alphabet made easy video series because you could see the native Thai's mouth and correct way to write. It would be really helpful for me if there were videos just for the vowels. 👍
Is there a vowel missing from the audio lesson?
In the PDF it lists the order of the vowels as ใอ (ai), เอา (ao) and then ฤ (rue), but เอา (ao) seems to be missing. This would be around 8 minutes and 20 seconds.
Hi climbingshuksan,
Thank you very much for your comment. For your question, you can spell ไวน์ like you said, but to make it clear because ไ is usually "long vowel" and this word should pronounce long that why we spell "waai" instead of "wai".
There are some word that spell with long vowel but pronounce short like ไป "bpai" to go and ไว้ "wâi" to put in place. So from the word ไว้ you will see that when ไ follow by "ว" it doesn't always pronounce as long vowel. Hope that help.
Have a nice day.
Parisa
Team ThaiPod101.com
Parisa - the Word-of-the-Day is Wine - ไวน์. In the spelling they use "waai" which is the way it sounds. Without knowing the word I would have written it as "wai" because of the vowel "ไ". When waaaw-waaen combines with "ไ" does it make the sound - "aai". That must be the case or is it just another word we must learn.
Hello Vince,
Yes, you understand correctly. "หอยกาบ" can be spell as “haawy-gaap”, “haauy-gaap” or “hoi-gaap”. Great! keep up your good work of understanding ka.
Wish you have a good day.
Parisa
Team ThaiPod101.com
I was not sure where to post this question but here it is - Word of the Day is sea food (aa-haan tha-lee), the first example sentence contains the names of various sea foods. The first listed is "clams" - the word is spelled หอยกาบ. I had trouble with the first part of the word. Giving it "haawy". Got the last part correct "gaap".
In the example translation the word was translated as "haauy-gaap". They sound the same to me, but I recall ordering fired clamps and the word spoken seemed more to be "haawy". In your background material the vowel - ออ is listed as having an "aaw" sound, but in this examply the result given was "aau". I had this come up before and understand sometimes different developers are used which gives rise to some inconsistency.
I irrelevant given the word is likely pronounced the same whether we choose to translate it as "aau" or "aaw".
Other programs translate the same word as "hoi-gaap" and is likely how I would have translated it before learning the ThaiPod101 system which I prefer to stick with.
Hello Deborah,
Thank you very much for your comment. For your question, I would like to suggest you try to repeat the sound as you hear from Thai speaker don't worry about the explanation too much for now and see what if it make any difference. Please let me know if you have any future questions.
Have a nice day.
Parisa
Team ThaiPod101.com
The "wi" and "pii" parts compared to the transcription were confusing. They both sound like long vowel sounds with the difference being the duration of the sound, but the transcript in the pdf file says that the first one is a short "i" like in "pin" whereas the second one is said as having the same sound as the "ee" in "feet." (I hear a distinctively different sound than the "i" in the English word "pin" at around the 1:47 or so mark.)
Hi Eric,
Thanks for the comment. We have at least one native speaker involved in the Thai Lessons. In this lesson, Rawinporn demonstrates the pronunciation of Thai vowels, while the English speaker Ryan is giving explanations. But for the future development, we'll try to focus more native speakers involved in the lesson recording.
Thanks,
Jae
Team ThaiPod101.com
I would prefer to always here a native speaker speak the essential Thai, such as pronunciation of vowels. Us foreigners, no matter how good we think we are, are not 100% accurate in our approximation of native speaker's Thai.