Vocabulary

Learn New Words FAST with this Lesson’s Vocab Review List

Get this lesson’s key vocab, their translations and pronunciations. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.

Or sign up using Facebook
Already a Member?

Lesson Notes

Unlock In-Depth Explanations & Exclusive Takeaways with Printable Lesson Notes

Unlock Lesson Notes and Transcripts for every single lesson. Sign Up for a Free Lifetime Account and Get 7 Days of Premium Access.

Or sign up using Facebook
Already a Member?

Lesson Transcript

สวัสดีค่ะ, ดิฉันปรารถนาค่ะ! Welcome to Thaipod101.com’s ตัวอักษรไทย Made Easy!
The fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn the Thai alphabet: ตัวอักษรไทย!
In the last lesson you learned the letters ร and ล and the vowels สระ แอะ and สระ แอ. Do you remember how to write them all?
In this lesson, you’re going to learn about 3 middle class consonants and a pair of vowels.
The 3 consonants you'll learn in this lesson are middle class consonants. So far, you've learned 3 other middle class consonants and the rest have been low class consonants. Do you remember which 3 of these letters were middle class? (pause)
ก, ด, and บ
The first new middle class consonant of this lesson is จ (jaaw jaan) . This letter is named after the word จาน (jaan), which means "plate" or "dish". When จ is the initial consonant it makes the sound "j" similar to the J in "jump". When จ is the final consonant, its sound changes to become a T-stop just like the letter ด.
Get your pen ready, and let's practice writing จ.
Start with a clockwise head in the middle, and make the line go down to the right. Then it hooks back up and curves over to the left. จ
Here is the next middle class consonant. It's called ต (dtaaw dtào). The word เต่า (dtào) means "turtle". The sound ต makes as an initial consonant is "dt", which is between an English D and T. In technical terms, the sound of ต is an unaspirated T. As a final consonant it also makes a T-stop.
ต is written almost exactly the same as ด.
The only difference is that ต has a small indentation at the top of the bump.
Maybe you can think of a turtle with a bumpy shell to remember which is which.
Let's write ต together.
A clockwise head, down to the left, up to the top, indentation, and down on the right side. ต
The last consonant of this lesson is ป (bpaaw bplaa). The word ปลา (bplaa) means "fish".
The sound of ป as an initial consonant is "bp", which is in the middle between a regular English B and P. We can also call this an unaspirated P.
As a final consonant, ป makes a P-stop, which is simply done by closing your lips.
You're probably already thinking that ป looks a lot like the letter บ. As you can see, the only difference is that the line on the right side of ป extends higher than the head.
Let's practice writing ป together.
It's very easy. start at the head and then draw 3 straight lines. ป
Let's learn a new vowel pair to write a couple more words.
This is สระ โอะ (sà-rà ò) and สระ โอ (sà-rà oo). They make the vowel sound "o" like the O in "go". Can you guess by looking at them which one is a long vowel and which is a short vowel?
That's right. The short vowel is this one: สระ โอะ
As you can see, สระ โอ is written to the left of the initial consonant.
Here is an example of a word written with สระ โอ. This is the word โจร (joon), which means a "thief" or "robber".
We have to write สระ โอ first, then the initial consonant จ, and after that the final consonant ร. Remember that ร sounds like letter N when it's a final consonant.
สระ โอ, จ, and ร.... โจร
When the short vowel สระ โอะ is followed by a final consonant it will be unwritten.
For example, here is the word บน (bon), which means "above" or "on".
As you can see, the only letters written are the initial consonant บ and the final consonant น.
The vowel is not written, so you just have to remember that a word containing only two consonants and nothing else will have a short vowel "o" in the middle.
Now it's time for Pradthana's Points.
If you're in Thailand, one way to practice reading is to look at the Thai names of products when you go shopping. Often you already know the name of the product or the brand, which can make it easier to read the whole word. For example, see if you can read the label on a Thai bottle of Coke. You'll notice that the name Coke is written using a stylish version of the สระ โอ that we learned in this lesson.
Do you know how to ask the question "who" in Thai? In the next ตัวอักษรไทย Made Easy Lesson you'll learn how to say it, and most importantly, how to write it! See you there! สวัสดีค่ะ!

Comments

Hide