Learn how to write 3 letters: ค, อึ, and อื
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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 พ and ฟ, plus a pair of vowels. Do you remember how to write them all? |
| In this lesson, you’re going to learn about another low class consonant and a pair of vowels that we don't have in English. |
| Ready to start? Then let's go! |
| The new letter for this lesson is ค (khaaw khwaai). The word ควาย (khwaai) means "water buffalo" and you’re sure to come across many of them in Thailand! ค makes the sound "kh" when it's the initial consonant in a syllable. It sounds like the letter K in "kite" or the C in "cup". As a final consonant, ค makes a "K stop" -- a dead sound. This is the same sound that ก makes as a final consonant. |
| OK, start with the head in the middle. Draw a line going down then arch over the top and back down on the right. Fairly simple, right? |
| Don't confuse ค with ด. Can you see the difference between these two letters? It all starts with the direction of the head. ค has a head written counter clockwise. But ด has a head written clockwise. Because of this, the line that points downwards for each letter is drawn at different angles. ด has a wider angle at the bottom because the line comes down from the opposite side of the head. |
| Do you remember all the vowels that we already learned? We can put them into pairs of short and long vowels with similar sounds: อะ อา, อิ อี, อุ อู. |
| Now let's take a look at one more pair. They are สระ อึ (sà-rà ùe) and สระ อื (sà-rà uue). |
| These vowel sounds don't exist in English, so it may take some practice for you to get them right. The sound อื (uue) is a little bit like the sound that you get when you try to make the อู (uu) sound with the corners of your mouth spread wide apart. |
| Both of these vowels are written above a consonant. |
| To write สระ อึ you start by making the shape of สระ อิ. Then you add a tiny clockwise circle. |
| For สระ อื you start by writing it like the vowel สระ อี, then you add an extra vertical line to the left of the first one. |
| Now that you know how to write สระ อึ and สระ อื we can use them to write many new words. |
| Here is the word นึก (núek), which means "to consider". We have น, then สระ อึ above the consonant, and finally ก. Can you guess the tone of this word? Well, what's the rule? นึก has an initial low class consonant and a final stop that makes it a dead syllable, plus a short vowel. That makes it a high tone: นึก. |
| น, สระ อึื, ก... นึก |
| นึก had a high tone, but do you remember the rule for low class consonants with dead endings and long vowels? They have a falling tone. One example is the word พืช (phûuet), which means "vegetation". Remember that ช makes the same "T stop" sound as a final consonant, just like the letter ด. |
| Okay, your turn: พ, สระ อื , ช... พืช |
| Now let's try a word using the letter ค that we learned in this lesson. คืน (khuuen) means "to return". |
| คืน is mid-tone because it has a low class consonant and a live ending. |
| ค, สระ อื, น, คืน |
| When สระ อื is not followed by a consonant, we need to write it differently. We'll use the word มือ (muue) to demonstrate this. This word means "hand" and we write it using ม, then สระ อื above it. Then to the right we draw another letter called อ อ่าง (aaw-àang). You'll learn more about อ in another lesson. For now, all you need to remember is that if สระ อื has no consonant following it, then we need to write อ instead. This is a mid tone word because it's a low class initial consonant and has a live syllable ending. |
| ม, สระ อื , อ... มือ. |
| Now it's time for Pradthana's Points. |
| Many modern typefaces used in advertisements and magazines don't include the heads of the letters. The first time you see them, they might be hard to read and you may be confused by similar looking letters. But remember that the shape of many letters is influenced by the direction of the head: clockwise or counter clockwise. For example, the difference in the shapes of ค and ด. |
| Even when the head is no longer shown, it still gives each letter a certain shape. That's how we know which is which. |
| Have you ever heard the Thai word เทพ? In the next ตัวอักษรไทย Made Easy Lesson you'll learn what it means, and most importantly, how to write it! See you there! สวัสดีค่ะ! |
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