Learn how to write 4 letters: ท, ฮ, เอะ, and เอ
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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 letter ค and the vowels สระ อึ and สระ อื. Do you remember how to write them all? |
| In this lesson, you’re going to learn about 2 low class consonants and a pair of vowels. |
| The first low class consonant of this lesson is ท (thaaw thá-hǎan). The word ทหาร ( thá-hǎan) means "soldier". The sound of ท when it's an initial letter is "th" like the "T" in the word "top". There should be a puff of air coming out of your mouth when you make this sound. When it's the final consonant in a syllable, ท makes a T-stop just like ด. |
| ท looks like the shape of a hill. So you can remember ท by thinking of a soldier standing on top of a hill. |
| Let's write ท together. Start with the head, then draw a line going down. Now make an arch going to the right. ท |
| The second low-class consonant of this lesson is ฮ (haaw nók-hûuk). Do you know which animal it's named after? นกฮูก (nók-hûuk) is Thai for "owl". Maybe you didn't know that we have owls in Thailand too! ฮ makes a "h" sound, just like the H in "hoot". This letter is only used as an initial sound in a syllable, never as a final sound. |
| Maybe you can remember ฮ because it looks a little like the shape of an owl's eye. And owls make the sound "hoot-hoot", which starts with an H. |
| Let's practice writing ฮ together. |
| Start with the head, curl around to the top, and add a loop. ฮ |
| Now let's learn some new vowels. |
| First we have สระ เอ (sà-rà ee). This is a long vowel that makes the sound "ee" like the "AY" in "gray". |
| Remember that some vowels are written above, below, in front, or behind a consonant. สระ เอ is one that is written in front of a consonant. This might seem strange at first, but with a little practice you'll get used to reading it like this. |
| Here is the word เฮง (heeng), which means "to be fortunate". |
| Do you know the tone? เฮง has a low class consonant with a live syllable ending, so it's mid tone. |
| สระ เอ,ฮ, ง... เฮง . |
| Here is another word. Can you read it? |
| It's เทพ (thêep). เทพ means an "angel". เทพ is a falling tone. |
| Now let's write it: |
| สระ เอ, ท, พ... เทพ |
| Remember that most vowels come in long and short pairs. The shorter version of สระ เอ is สระ เอะ (sà-rà è). It makes the sound "e" like the E in the word "red". สระ เอะ can be written two different ways depending on whether or not there is a consonant following it. |
| The basic way is to write สระ เอ followed by a consonant, and then สระ อะ. |
| For example, Here is the word เฟะ (fé), which means "rotten". |
| สระ เอ, ฟ, สระ อะ... เฟะ |
| When there is a consonant following สระ เอะ, we have to write it differently. Instead of writing สระ อะ after the consonant, we'll write a different symbol above the consonant. This little symbol is called ไม้ไต่คู้ (mái dtài-khúu). It has the same shape as the number 8 in Thai. You write it as a squiggly line that starts with the head on the right-hand side. |
| Here is the word เช็ค (chék), which has the same meaning as the English noun "check". |
| Above ช we'll write ไม้ไต่คู้. |
| สระ เอ, ช, ไม้ไต่คู้, ค... เช็ค |
| Now it's time for Pradthana's Points. |
| As you can see from this lesson, Thai is not read in a straight line from left to right. You always need to look around the consonants to see which ones have vowels attached to them. There is usually no space between words in Thai, so you have to get used to looking for groups of consonants and vowels that make syllables. When you can spot the syllables it's much easier to tell where one word stops and the next word starts. |
| Do you know the Thai word for "cat"? In the next ตัวอักษรไทย Made Easy Lesson you'll learn how to write it! See you there! สวัสดีค่ะ! |
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