Thailand Pronunciation

Thai (like Chinese, Lao, Burmese, and Vietnamese) is a tonal language, and word meanings are partially determined by intonation and pitch. The five tones in Thai are middle, low, high, falling, and rising. Middle tones (unmarked) are spoken in a level voice in the middle of a speaker’s vocal range. Low (à) and high (á) tones are spoken in level pitch, and come from the bottom and top of a speaker’s range respectively. Falling tones (â) begin high and end low, as in the English pronunciation of “Hey!” Rising tones (ǎ) begin low and end high, as in the English interrogative “What?”

Simple vowels are roughly pronounced as in English, except for the “a,” “o,” and “eu” sounds. Consonants are mostly similar in pronunciation to English, with notable exceptions listed below. Sometimes the “l” sound is substituted for “r” so that a word like aroy (“delicious”) is pronounced “aloy.” Occasionally, when there are two consonants next to each other in a word, Thai native speakers will drop the second consonant so that a word like glai (“far”) is pronounced “gai.” A more extensive guide to pronunciations counterintuitive to the English speaker is presented below.

Phonetic Unit	Pronunciation	Phonetic Unit	Pronunciation
a	as in “father”	t	hard t/d sound
o	as in “coat”	ph	as normal English “p,” as in “panda”
eu	as in the French “bleu”	th	as normal English “t,” as in “telephone”
ae	as in “cat”	r	rolled almost as an “l” (see above)
g	hard g, between g and k, as in “gat”	p	hard p/b sound