Before even reading this article, ask your Thai friend to say ‘near and far’ ไกลและใกล้ in Thai. To most Thai language beginners these two words will sound exactly the same.

Is it important to understand the pronunciation difference between ‘near’ and ‘far’? One day you’ll find yourself asking if the trip to the beach from your Phuket hotel is a short or long walk. If you can’t distinguish between the two, you may find yourself on a very long walk regretting not reading this article thoroughly . . .

The difference between the two words is the tone: glai1 ไกล and glai3 ใกล้. As the ไ- and ใ- make the same ‘eye’ sound, the mai-tow tone mark is what changes the tonal sound.

note: My students always ask me what the difference between ไ- and ใ- is. There is none. I always tell them if I was the inventor of the Thai language, I wouldn’t have invented two different characters for the same sound. But language evolution in general is very ad-hoc so it often doesn’t make sense . . . The ใ- vowel is only used in a small handful of words, about ~20 actually. But . . . those words are extremely common! My students then sigh and trudge on.

As it is understandably hard to remember which tone is used for which ‘glai’ word, I will share with you a mnemonic that I invented to remember back when I was a Thai language beginner myself. See the below image of a cannon firing a cannon ball. If the ball travels in a straight line and hence goes ‘far’, then it is a mid tone. If the ball falls and hence lands ‘near’, it is a falling tone.

The following are a few example sentences to give you practice:

 

Is it far?

Man1 glaai1 mai5

มันไกลไหม?

 

Nope, not far.

Mai3 glaai1 rawk2

ไม่ไกลหรอก

 

My house is really close.

Baan3 pom5 yuu2 glaai3 glaai3

บ้านผมอยู่ใกล้ๆ

 

Really close together. (physically located not far apart)

Yuu2 glaai3 glaai3 gan1

อยู่ใกล้ๆกัน

 

Below is a song that uses both glai1 and glai3 that you can use to practice. The song is called ไกลแค่ไหน คือ ใกล้ which means ‘however far away, it is close’. For the more advanced/ambitious learner, the song also has subtitles for most of it. Just pause the video to read and practice.