When I teach a new set of beginning learners in my class, the very first lesson I give is on Thai tones. To scare them a bit I present various words that sound the same, but change meaning depending on the tone. While most teachers prefer to give the famous ‘mai’ example, I prefer the ‘kow’ example because it’s even worse (harder?).

What makes ‘kow’ really hard is that there are so many different similarly sounding words (to the English ear) with no easy way to remember which is which. I’m just going to list them out below, and leave it up to you to memorize.

Before we start, I must differentiate between เอา (ow) and อาว (aow). For the English speaking ear these vowels sound almost exactly the same.

The เอา (ow) vowel sounds just like ‘ow’ in English, as in ‘ow that hurts’.

To say the อาว (aow) vowel, start off by making a long ‘aa’ sound. Then follow it off with a ‘w’ at the end.

Ask a Thai to listen and let you know if you’re pronouncing them right.

He ate white rice.

เขากินข้าวขาว

Kow5 gin1 kaow3 kaow5

A bat came and ate his knee.

มีค้างคาวเข้ากินเข่าเค้า

Mee1 kaang4kaow1 kow3 maa1 gin1 kaow2 kow4

The reporter entered Khao San road.

Nak4kaow2 kow3 ta2non5 kaow3 saan5

นักข่าวเข้าถนนข้าวสาร