{"id":1172,"date":"2012-03-19T15:51:35","date_gmt":"2012-03-19T15:51:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/thai\/?p=1172"},"modified":"2012-03-09T15:59:43","modified_gmt":"2012-03-09T15:59:43","slug":"thai-tones-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/thai\/thai-tones-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Thai Tones, Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>What are the Thai Tones?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Thai has five (5) tones. They should be memorized in this below numerical order. Why? Because that is how Thai\u2019s learn it. If you ask your Thai friend \u2018what tone is that?\u2019, they will count on their fingers for a bit while mumbling until they finally say something like \u20183<sup>rd<\/sup> tone . . . I think\u2019. They have no concept of \u2018falling tone\u2019, \u2018low tone\u2019, \u2018mid tone\u2019, and such. It\u2019s just that they\u2019ve been doing it since birth, making it natural for them to use tones sub-consciously.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, here are the tones:<\/p>\n<p>1) mid<\/p>\n<p>2) low<\/p>\n<p>3) falling<\/p>\n<p>4) high<\/p>\n<p>5) rising<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Print that numbered list out and tack it to the wall if you haven\u2019t already. Below is a chart of the tones relative to each other:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/thai\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/21\/2012\/03\/thai_tones_chart2.png\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>This tone chart is a bit oversimplified, but it\u2019s what you should strive for. In reality, the human tongue, palette, and voice box just aren\u2019t fast enough to shift between all these tones perfectly while keeping up with normal speech. So, you might see more complicated tone charts elsewhere created using sophisticated measurement electronics \u2013 but don\u2019t worry about them. Just focus on this simple chart, and as you get better, your \u201cmouth\u201d will naturally tend towards those more complicated tone curves.<\/p>\n<p>What about someone with a naturally high pitched voice, and someone else with a naturally low pitched voice? How does that work? Thai tones are not set at a fixed frequency \u2013 it\u2019s all relative to the frequency of the other words in the same sentence. It\u2019s like going up an octave on a musical instrument \u2013 the song still stays the same, it\u2019s just higher pitched.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right\"><em>to be continued . . .\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<img width=\"350\" height=\"267\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/thai\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/21\/2012\/03\/thai_tones_chart2-1-350x267.png\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image tmp-hide-img\" alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/thai\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/21\/2012\/03\/thai_tones_chart2-1-350x267.png 350w, https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/thai\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/21\/2012\/03\/thai_tones_chart2-1.png 412w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/><p>Like Chinese, Thai is a tonal language. It should only take about a week to learn the tones, but more than a year to really get the hang of them. And then plenty more years before you no longer need to ask what the tone is for a particular word. The tones are extremely important&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-item__readmore\"><a class=\"btn btn--md\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/thai\/thai-tones-part-2\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":2924,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[10208],"tags":[964,7465,10177,2687],"class_list":["post-1172","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beginner","tag-introduction","tag-learn","tag-thai","tag-tones"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/thai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/thai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/thai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/thai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/thai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1172"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/thai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1180,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/thai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1172\/revisions\/1180"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/thai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/thai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/thai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/thai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}