Thai Consonants

[Lost in LOS]

Do any of you have advise on how to remember the Thai consonants? writing them over and over while speaking them doesn't seem to work for me but making words helps. Anybody have any tricks they discovered to remember them?

Edited August 8, 2009 by Lost in LOS

[Richard W]

Do any of you have advise on how to remember the Thai consonants? writing them over and over while speaking them doesn't seem to work for me but making words helps. Anybody have any tricks they discovered to remember them?

As you say, learning a few words will help to fix some of them. First learning letters in words that you see everyday (if you live in a town), such as ทางเข้า ทางออก บ้าน หยุด ชาย หญิง may help.

When writing the whole alphabet out, try writing it out as six or seven rows - five rows (varnas) of up to 8 characters each, ending in a nasal - 7, 6, 6, 6, 8; and the 11 left-overs - 4 'semivowels', 3 sibilants and the final total miscellany.

[size=3]
 1a 1b 2a 2b 3a 3b  4  5
1) -  ก  ข  ฃ  ค  ฅ  ฆ  ง
2) -  จ  ฉ  -  ช  ซ  ฌ  ญ
3) ฎ  ฏ  ฐ  -  ฑ  -  ฒ  ณ
4) ด  ต  ถ  -  ท  -  ธ  น
5) บ  ป  ผ  ฝ  พ  ฟ  ภ  ม

6) ย  ร  ล  ว  ศ  ษ  ส
7) ห  ฬ  อ  ฮ 
[/size]

In the first five rows, pairs of consonants in rows 1a and 1b, in rows 2a and 2b, and in rows 3a and 3b, differ only by the second mamber of the pair having an extra dent or a tail. So here you can learn two letters almost for the effort of learning one. Row 3 and column 4 only occur in loanwords, so thay can be the last letters you learn.

After that, it's down to individual mnemonics. ห bears some resemblance to 'H'. ล is Loopy (and a bit like a Greek small Lambda), but it is ส that goes one loop further to be truly Serpentine. If you know the IPA, there is some match between ɔ and the vowel sign use of อ. (Comparing it to an apostrophe for a smooth breathing is a bit of a stretch and rather arcane.) There are three further pairs of apparently derived consonants - ฮ from อ, ท from ฑ and พ from ฬ, though the last is definitely a coincidence.

For those who thoroughly know another Indic script, the extra stroke to make ศ so kho sala from ค kho khwai and ษ so bo ruesi from บ bo bai mai will be familiar. However, these two sibilants are fairly rare letters, most significantly occuring in ฝรั่งเศส 'French' and อังกฤษ 'English'.

[Lost in LOS]

Do any of you have advise on how to remember the Thai consonants? writing them over and over while speaking them doesn't seem to work for me but making words helps. Anybody have any tricks they discovered to remember them?

As you say, learning a few words will help to fix some of them. First learning letters in words that you see everyday (if you live in a town), such as ทางเข้า ทางออก บ้าน หยุด ชาย หญิง may help.

When writing the whole alphabet out, try writing it out as six or seven rows - five rows (varnas) of up to 8 characters each, ending in a nasal - 7, 6, 6, 6, 8; and the 11 left-overs - 4 'semivowels', 3 sibilants and the final total miscellany.

[size=3]
 1a 1b 2a 2b 3a 3b  4  5
1) -  ก  ข  ฃ  ค  ฅ  ฆ  ง
2) -  จ  ฉ  -  ช  ซ  ฌ  ญ
3) ฎ  ฏ  ฐ  -  ฑ  -  ฒ  ณ
4) ด  ต  ถ  -  ท  -  ธ  น
5) บ  ป  ผ  ฝ  พ  ฟ  ภ  ม

6) ย  ร  ล  ว  ศ  ษ  ส
7) ห  ฬ  อ  ฮ 
[/size]

In the first five rows, pairs of consonants in rows 1a and 1b, in rows 2a and 2b, and in rows 3a and 3b, differ only by the second mamber of the pair having an extra dent or a tail. So here you can learn two letters almost for the effort of learning one. Row 3 and column 4 only occur in loanwords, so thay can be the last letters you learn.

After that, it's down to individual mnemonics. ห bears some resemblance to 'H'. ล is Loopy (and a bit like a Greek small Lambda), but it is ส that goes one loop further to be truly Serpentine. If you know the IPA, there is some match between ɔ and the vowel sign use of อ. (Comparing it to an apostrophe for a smooth breathing is a bit of a stretch and rather arcane.) There are three further pairs of apparently derived consonants - ฮ from อ, ท from ฑ and พ from ฬ, though the last is definitely a coincidence.

For those who thoroughly know another Indic script, the extra stroke to make ศ so kho sala from ค kho khwai and ษ so bo ruesi from บ bo bai mai will be familiar. However, these two sibilants are fairly rare letters, most significantly occuring in ฝรั่งเศส 'French' and อังกฤษ 'English'.

thanks, i am going to play with this and give it a shot. sure is hard to learn another language when you are old............and American