Thai Language Blog

When I teach the Thai alphabet to my students, the letter ห is one of the last I teach them. It’s a bit more complicated than the average consonant, like the อ character. In Thai ห can be used in two different ways – as a consonant, or as a silent tone modifier. Below I go over both cases. 

1) As a Consonant

In cases when the ห is combined with a vowel, it makes an ‘h’ sound. None of the below are real words, just simplified examples. 

เห heh

เหอ herr

เหย hoy

หิ he

หือ huee

เหา how

เหีย heyaa

หอง haawng

2) As a Tone Modifier

In cases where there is no vowel with ห, and the ห comes right before a consonant which does have a vowel, then the ห is silent. Its purpose is to modify the tone of the word, as ห is a high class consonant and the following consonant wouldn’t be.

Compare how the ห changes the tone:

มอ maw1

หมอ maw5

มา maa1

หมา maa5

More example words where the ห is silent, only modifying the tone:

หญิง ying5

หน่วย nuay2

หนัง nang5

หน้า naa3

หนาม naam5

หนึ่ง neung2

หมก mok2

หมวย muay5

หม่ำ mum2

หมู่ muu2

หย่า yaa2

หยุ่น yun2

หลง long5

หลอด lawd2

หลัก lak2

หลัง lang5

หลาย laai5

หลุด lud2

หว่ย woy2

หวาย waai5

The following examples show a following consonant that does not have a vowel, so the ห is not silent:

หก hok

หล hon

หป hobp

note: Do not confuse words found in rule #2 with the invisible vowel rule. There is no vowel – ห is a silent consonant in this case.

This article meant for those beginners who are still learning to read Thai. The most common Thai letter, อ (pronounced aw-ang), is a special character. Remember when you were a kid and you learned that the english vowels are ‘a e i o u . . . and sometimes y’? Well, อ is somewhat like that for Thai. Sometimes it’s a vowel, but sometimes it isn’t. It can be used in any of three ways:

1) As a place holder to support other vowels

2) As a vowel itself

3) To modify the tone of a word

Note that in the following examples that not all ‘words’ are real. They were constructed purely for demonstration purposes.

1) Let’s start with the first use, to support other vowels. Go look up the list of Thai vowels, and you will see อ written for every single one. In this case, it is a silent letter used to support the vowel. If the อ was replaced with a different letter, then that vowel will have that consonant sound used with it. Otherwise, the vowel remains ‘pure’. The below example demonstrates this concept, listing a few vowels both without and with a consonant.

For example:

Note that the temporally short version of อ is เอาะ.

2) The second use of อ is when it is as a vowel itself. This happens when no other vowel is being used in conjunction with it.

For example:

The letter อ does not need to be surrounded by any other letter to make a sound. For example, the BTS station Asok is spelled อโศก. The อ sound in this case is a vowel without a consonant.

3) The third and last use of อ is for modifying the tone of a word to the low tone. This only happens when in front of the consonent ย, which in the Thai language only happens for four words. These four words are very common, so you’ll see them often – they are worth learning now if you haven’t already.

For practice on the third reason to use อ, I’ve listed a few songs below. I honestly think the songs are terrible, but as a Thai beginner you’ll find them worth watching from an educational perspective.

This is a continuation into the description of Thai phonemes of which pose difficulty to the typical native English speaker.

ก

This letter is best pronounced like a ‘g’. Some authors say that this letter is pronounced like a ‘k’, but they are wrong. Their insistance has led to foreigners mispronouncing many of the cities in Thailand. For example, Phuket is really pronounced ‘puu get’, while the Koh of Koh Samui is really pronounced ‘Go’.

the rule:

If the ก is found at the beginning of a syllable, pronounce it as a ‘g’.

If the ก is found at the end of a syllable, pronounce it as a ‘k’.

For example, the word Bangkok is written in Thai as บางกอก. Although it’s written as Bangkok in English, the correct Thai way to pronounce it would sound much more like ‘baang gawk’. Notice that the first ก was written as a ‘g’ and the second as a ‘k’.

แอะ, แอ
Best written as ‘ae’, the short version of this vowel sounds almost identical to the ‘a’ in apple.

อ

This vowel makes the sound ‘aaw’, like in the word ‘awkward’. It’s often transliterated as ‘or’, but this shouldn’t be done – an English speaker would incorrectly pronounce it like the ‘or’ in the word ‘organ’. Here is another example: in Thai, the word for blessing is pronounced ‘pawn’, and is popularly used for names. Unfortunately for them, their names are transliterated as ‘porn’.

One more note on transliteration with respect to my articles. I’m not transliterating Thai letter for letter or to be consistent with someone else’s way of writing Thai. Instead, I spell Karaoke in a way that best helps the American English speaker best pronounce each word.