Learn how to write 5 letters: <ศ, ษ, ส, เออะ and เออ
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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 letters ข and ฉ, and the vowels สระ เอียะ and สระ เอีย. Do you remember how to write them all? |
| In this lesson, you’re going to learn about three high class consonants, plus another tone rule. |
| You're learning three new high class consonants, but they all make the same sound. From left to right, they are ศ (sǎaw sǎa-laa), ษ (sǎaw ruue-sǐi), and ส (sǎaw sǔuea). As an initial consonant they make the sound of letter S, and as final consonants they make a T-stop. |
| The word ศาลา (sǎa-laa) means "pavillion", ฤๅษี (ruue-sǐi) is a "hermit", and เสือ (sǔuea) means "tiger". |
| As you can see, all of these letters look like other letters with just one extra line added. |
| ศ looks like ค, so we sometimes call it ศอคอ ศาลา (sǎaw-khaaw sǎa-laa). |
| ษ looks like บ, so we sometimes call it ษอบอ ฤๅษี (sǎaw-baaw ruue-sǐi). |
| ส looks like ล, but we always just call it สอ เสือ (sǎaw sǔuea). |
| Of these three letters, you'll see ส the most. |
| To write these three letters properly, you should pick up your pen from the paper before the last stroke. |
| Here is ศ. Now ษ. And last we have ส |
| But when Thai people write, they often don't pick up the pen between strokes, so each letter gets written with one continuous line, like this: |
| ศ, ษ, ส |
| Let's use these new letters to write some words. Here is the word ศีล (sǐin), which means "moral precept". It has ศ as an initial consonant, then the long vowel สระ อี is written above. The final consonant is ล, which makes a sound like the letter N in this position. |
| ศีล is said with a rising tone because it has a high class consonant with a live syllable ending. |
| Your turn. |
| ศ, สระ อี, ล... ศีล |
| For the next word, we need to learn a new symbol. This is called การันต์ (gaa-ran). We write การันต์ above a consonant to indicate that it is a silent letter. |
| For example, here is the word สัตว์ (sàt), which means "animal". The initial consonant is ส, which makes an S sound. The vowel is สระ อะ, which is shown with the symbol ไม้หันอากาศ. |
| And the final consonant of the syllable is ต, which makes a T-stop. |
| Then, at the end of the word is the letter ว with การันต written above it. This means ว doesn't make any sound in this word. |
| So why write that letter at all? We do it to preserve the original spelling of a loanword from another language that gets pronounced differently in Thai. |
| Let's write it together. |
| ส, ไม้หันอากาศ, ต, ว, การันต์. สัตว์ |
| The word สัตว์ also gives us a new tone rule: |
| High class initial consonant + dead ending = low tone. |
| Here is another word that uses การันต์. See if you can figure out how to read it. |
| The initial consonant is ย, which makes a sound like the letter Y. The vowel is สระ อะ written with ไม้หันอากาศ. |
| And the final consonant is ก which makes a K-stop. |
| At the end we have ษ which makes no sound because it has การันต์ above it. So this word is ยักษ์ (yák), which is a "giant". Maybe you've seen statues of ยักษ์ at a Thai temple. |
| ยักษ์ is high tone because it has a low class consonant and a dead syllable with a short vowel. |
| ย, สระ อะ written with ไม้หันอากาศ, ก, ษ with a การันต์...ยักษ์ |
| Let's learn a new pair of vowels to write a few more new words. Here are the vowels สระ เออะ (sà-rà òe) and สระ เออ (sà-rà ooe). They make the vowel sound เออ (ooe), which is a little bit like the ER in "her", only said with a more relaxed throat. |
| When there is no final consonant, สระ เออ is written using สระ เอ before the initial consonant and อ after it. To make it a short vowel, we add สระ อะ to the end to give us สระ เออะ. |
| Ok, let's write these two vowels: |
| สระ เออะ, สระ เออ |
| One word that uses the short vowel is เยอะ (yóe), which means "many". It has the initial consonant ย. And สระ เออะ is written by putting สระ เอ before the consonant. Then อ and สระ อะ are written after it. |
| สระ เออะ is written by putting สระ เอ before the consonant ย, อ, สระ อะ ...เยอะ |
| สระ เออ is often used to represent the sound of the letters ER in loanwords from English. For example, here is the word เบอร์ (booe), which is shortened from the English word "number". The initial consonant is บ, which makes a B sound. สระ เอ is written before the consonant and อ is written after it to make the vowel สระ เออ. Finally, the letter ร is included, along with a การันต์ above it. It is just there to show you that the original spelling of this word in English used the letter R. |
| Let's write เบอร์ together. |
| สระ เอ, บ, อ , ร , การันต์ . เบอร์ |
| In this word, ร doesn't count as a final consonant because it has การันต์ above it. |
| But in other words that have สระ เออ with a final consonant, we have to write สระ เออ differently. |
| When there's a final consonant after สระ เออ, it is written using สระ เอ and สระ อิ. |
| For example, here is the word เสิร์ฟ (sòoep), which comes from the English verb "to serve". The initial consonant is ส, which makes an S sound. สระ เอ and สระ อิ are written to the left and above it to make the vowel สระ เออ. The letter R in the English word "serve" doesn't get pronounced in Thai, so we write ร with การันต์ above it just to indicate what the original spelling was. Finally, ฟ is used in place of the letter V because there is no Thai letter that makes a V sound. But since ฟ makes a P-stop for a final sound we pronounce this word เสิร์ฟ (sòoep) instead of "serve". |
| Let's write เสิร์ฟ together. |
| สระ เอ, ส, สระ อิ, ร , การันต์, ฟ... เสิร์ฟ |
| เสิร์ฟ (sòoep) is said with a low tone because of the same tone rule we had earlier. High class initial consonants with dead syllable endings result in a low tone. |
| Now it's time for Pradthana's Points. |
| You can easily spot loan words in Thai by looking for การันต์ . We like to make words shorter, so many foreign loanwords have การันต์ written above a letter that we don't pronounce in Thai. If you see a word in Thai with การันต์ that doesn't look like an English word, then there is a very good chance that it came from an Indian language. |
| Thai people like to eat snacks. Do you know the word for "snack" in Thai? In the next ตัวอักษรไทย Made Easy Lesson you'll learn how to say it, and of course, how to write it! See you there! สวัสดีค่ะ! |
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