Cell Phone

[Lost in LOS]

I am finally going to school and learning to read and write Thai. I want to text on my cell phone but dont understand how to find the letters. it seems like each number have 7 thai characters. how is the grouping done on cell phone to write Thai. i am assuming, like a keyboard, all phone have the same configuration

Edited July 15, 2009 by Lost in LOS

[sigeena]

I believe it varies from Nokia to Sony Ericsson.

My Sony Ericsson is grouped alphabetically. Consonants begin from number 2 to 9, with about 6-8 each. *,0 and # are vowels and tone marks.

It's pretty intelligent, if I want to write คุณ I'll just press 204 and there'll be choices starting with คิด คุณ Scroll down to select

[everydaysthesame]

I have a nokia and use it to text in thai quite alot. It's arranged alphabetically and you access alist of vowels by pressing the star key. There appears to be a speed text function but no-one seems to be able to get it to work..

[Rikker]

On my Nokia, the consonants are divided in alphabetical order into short ranges on the keys 1-9:

1 = ก ข ฃ ค ฅ

2 = ฆ ง จ ฉ

3 = ช ซ ฌ ญ

4 = ฎ ฏ ฐ ฑ ฒ ณ

5 = ด ต ถ ท ธ

6 = น บ ป ผ ฝ

7 = พ ฟ ภ ม ย

8 = ร ฤ ล ฦ ว ศ ษ

9 = ส ห ฬ อ ฮ

The 0 key is for vowels that come to the left or right of a consonant (ignore the hyphens used as consonant substitutes):

0 = เ แ โ ใ ไ ะ า ำ ๅ

And the star key is for vowels and other diacritics that come above or below a consonant:

* = -ั -ิ -ี -ึ -ื -ุ -ู -็ -่ -้ -๊ -๋ -์ as well as ฯ ฿ ๆ

The key to making this all manageable is having prediction on.

After I've typed in the keys I want it will give me the most common word with that combination. Then I use up and down to select other possibilities.

[withnail]

I have a nokia and use it to text in thai quite alot. It's arranged alphabetically and you access alist of vowels by pressing the star key. There appears to be a speed text function but no-one seems to be able to get it to work..

Actually I think predictive text for Thai script is very helpful. Learning the alphabetical order of Thai letters takes a long time. From my experience it is not something all Thai people can do easily, unless they go through that ridiculous poem.

I can read and write Thai fairly well but I couldn't write the alphabet completely in order unless I sat down and learned it that way first. There really is very little value in doing this though compared to say memorizing the different classes of consonants and tone rules. However, I do have a rough idea what letters come in roughly what order and have quickly learned how to use the predictive text. The benefits are that it's obvious when you've pressed the wrong key and you can work out unusual spellings through trial and error without a dictionary.

[sigeena]

Compare my Sony Ericsson to Nokia, the consonant list runs from 2-9. 1 is for spacing and western symbols

2 = ก ข ฃ ค ฅ ฆ

3 = ง จ ฉ ช ซ ฌ ญ

4 = ฎ ฏ ฐ ฑ ฒ ณ ด ต

5 = ถ ท ธ น

6 = บ ป ผ ฝ พ ฟ

7 = ภ ม ย ร ฤ ล ฦ

8 = ว ศ ษ ส

9 = ห ฬ อ ฮ

* = เ แ โ ใ ไ ะ า ำ ๅ

0 = -ั -ิ -ี -ึ -ื -ุ -ู

# = -็ -่ -้ -๊ -๋ -์ ฯ ฿ ๆ

Not an awful lot of difference bwt the both systems.