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| Intro |
VOWELS
with Interactive Audio |
CONSONANTS
with Interactive Audio |
FIVE TONES
with Interactive Audio |
OTHER CHARACTERS
with Interactive Audio |
| A TONAL LANGUAGE |
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As you probably know, Thai is a tonal language, which means that a word may assume different meanings according to the
tone used to pronounce it.
For example: depending on the tone adopted, the word Mai could mean: No - Not ? (question) Silk Wood To burn News Undoubtedly, this represents the main obstacle for a westerner who wish to learn Thai language. |
| THE TRAP OF THE TRANSLITERATION |
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Many people that want to learn Thai try to follow the easy path of the "transliteration". The transliteration adopts
the writing system based on latin characters variously accented in the attempt to reproduce the tones typical of Thai
language. So, the above mentioned
example could be written in the following way : No = Mai question mark (?) = Mái Silk = Mâi Wood = Mài To burn = Mai New = Mài and so on... The transliteration looks the best way to make a quick start, but there is a problem largely undervalued: it inevitably fails to reproduce accurately all the tones of Thai language. Would you be able to pronounce correctly the sentence "the new silk doesn't burn, isn't it?" relying exclusively on the transliteration? Mai mai mai mai mai? No way.. the battle is lost from the beginning. So, the transliteration is an attractive road, apparently very comfortable, easy, and above all quick!!! But it is a road that brings soon in front of a wall impossible to cross. In other words, it's a trap that offers only two solutions: give up the idea to continue learning Thai language, or start over from the beginning with a radically different approach. If you are determined in learning this language, you should necessarily find another path, initially uncomfortable, sharp and rich of obstacles. The first thing to do is to learn as well as possible the Thai alphabet with all the tones involved, giving up forever the idea to rely on latin characters.. there are no easy shortcuts available. If your target is learning Thai language, get used to native characters first. After having overcome that (big) obstacle, the path will become much more comfortable, easy and even funny.. The grammar is the easiest one could imagine: Verbs: they don't have any conjugation. Nouns: there is no singular or plural form. Adjectives: they don't need the support of an auxiliary verb. A sentence as "the table is big" in Thai would sound as "table big". Articles: as you have guessed from the previous example, there are no articles Structure of the terms you'll be amazed to see how it is easy to enrich your own vocabolary with new words. Many words may be considered as the union of other terms... Let consider, for example, the following words. Water = Naam Hard = Ken From their union we can get another words: Naamken did you guessed what "hard water" could be?.. yesss.. it's ICE One more example... Sand = Sai Sea = Talee Desert = Taleesai and so on... Not so bad, right? So, now you know that the path is difficult, but you also know what is the direction to take. Let go forward with an overview on the Thai alphabet.. many surprises are waiting for you!! |
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