Learn how to write 1 letter: อ
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| สวัสดีค่ะ, ดิฉันปรารถนาค่ะ! Welcome to Thaipod101.com’s ตัวอักษรไทย Made Easy! |
| The fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn the Thai alphabet: ตัวอักษรไทย! |
| In the last lesson you learned the vowels สระ ไอ ไม้มลาย, สระ ใอ ไม้ม้วน , and สระ เอา. Do you remember how to write them all? |
| In this lesson, you’re going to learn about a very special middle class consonant which is usually a silent letter. |
| This is the letter อ (aaw àang) , which we introduced briefly in lesson 6. The word อ่าง (àang) means "basin". อ is a middle class consonant, but it has no sound as the initial consonant of a syllable. We only use it to start a syllable when we need to have a vowel for the initial sound. |
| All the vowels in Thai need to be written attached to a consonant. But if a word begins with a vowel sound instead of a consonant sound, we need to have a silent consonant that the vowel can attach to. So อ is a dummy consonant that can just be used as a placeholder to give an initial vowel a place to go. |
| It's easy to write อ. We start with a counterclockwise head, and just continue into a counterclockwise curl. อ |
| This is the word เอา (ao). It's the verb "to take". As you can see, it has อ as the initial consonant. The vowel is สระ เอา, which is written with สระ เอ before the consonant and สระ อา after the consonant. |
| อ makes no sound in this word. So all we have is the vowel เอา (ao). |
| Now look at this word. Do you think you can read it? The initial consonant is อ, which makes no sound. Then we have the vowel สระ อี written above. The final consonant is ก, which makes a K-stop final sound. So this word is pronounced อีก (ìik). The word อีก means "again". |
| Did you notice the tone when I say อีก ? |
| It's a low tone. We didn't have the tone rule for this type of word yet, so let's learn it now. |
| Middle class initial consonant + dead ending = low tone. |
| Remember dead endings are short vowels or one of the 3 stopping sounds K, T, or P. |
| So อ doesn't make any sound when it's a placeholder consonant like this, but it can also be used as a vowel -- and it *will* make sound then! |
| When อ is used as a vowel, it's called สระ ออ (sà-rà aaw). It makes the long vowel sound "aaw" like the AW in "saw". You can tell that อ is acting like a vowel when it follows a consonant and doesn't have another vowel attached to it. |
| For example, here is the word ตอบ (dtàawp), which means "to answer". |
| The initial consonant is ต. It is followed by อ acting as สระ ออ. And the final consonant is บ, which makes a P-stop dead syllable final. ตอบ follows the same tone rule we just learned. Middle class consonants with a dead syllable form a low tone. |
| Let's practice writing ตอบ together. |
| ต, อ, บ, ตอบ. |
| There is a short version of สระ ออ called สระ เอาะ (sà-rà àw). It looks totally different from the long version of the vowel, so look carefully to remember all of its parts. |
| สระ เอาะ is written with สระ เอ in front of the consonant. Then it has สระ อา and สระ อะ after the consonant. |
| One word you will surely hear สระ เอาะ in is the word เกาะ (gàw), which means "island". |
| เกาะ also follows the same tone rule we just learned. ก is a middle class initial consonant, and สระ เอาะ is a short vowel that gives us a dead syllable. So เกาะ is low tone. |
| Okay, now you write "island"! |
| สระ เอ, ก, สระ อา, สระ อะ ... เกาะ |
| Now you can write the name of one of Thailand's most famous tourist destinations, เกาะพีพี (gàw phii-phii). |
| Let's practice writing it together. |
| Last one for this lesson! Write "Phi-Phi Island" |
| สระ เอ, ก, สระ อา, สระ อะ makes เกาะ for the first syllable. |
| Then พ, สระ อี makes พี |
| And another พ, สระ อี makes พี again. |
| เกาะพีพี |
| If you're wondering why we aren't using the ๆ to duplicate the พี, it's because we don't usually use it for names. |
| Now it's time for Pradthana's Points. |
| In Thailand, you'll hear over 90% of tourists pronouncing the word เกาะ incorrectly. เกาะ is usually written in English letters as K-O-H, so many foreigners end up saying โค (khoo) instead of เกาะ (gàw). After learning to read Thai, you'll notice many more common words that foreigners usually pronounce incorrectly. And it's all because of the difficulty in representing Thai sounds with only the Roman alphabet. |
| So when you learn to read Thai, you can get around easier, because you can pronounce names of places so that Thai people will understand you easily. |
| You're learning to write in Thai, but can you write the word "write" in Thai? In the next ตัวอักษรไทย Made Easy Lesson you'll learn the verb "to write" and of course, how to write it! See you there! สวัสดีค่ะ! |
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