Thai vowels and tone marks
Thai vowels are not letters in a line. They are symbols that attach to a consonant from any direction, and one of them is written before the consonant you pronounce first.
Drill vowels and tones · free accountCreate a free account to open Fire Force.Position is part of the vowel
า follows the consonant, ิ and ี sit above it, ุ and ู hang below, and เ แ โ ใ ไ are written to the left even though they are pronounced after the consonant. Several vowels are built from two or three pieces that surround the consonant on both sides. When a dictionary or a lesson shows a vowel on its own it uses a dotted circle, ◌, to stand in for the consonant — the same convention the games use, so ◌ิ means "this hooks above a letter".
Four marks, five tones
| Mark | Name | Common effect |
|---|---|---|
| ◌่ | mai ek | low on mid and high letters, falling on low letters |
| ◌้ | mai tho | falling on mid and high letters, high on low letters |
| ◌๊ | mai tri | high; used mainly with mid-class letters |
| ◌๋ | mai chattawa | rising; used mainly with mid-class letters |
Note the trap: the same mark does different things depending on the consonant class. ก่ and ค่ are not the same tone. This is why Thai reading is a two-step lookup — identify the class, then apply the mark — and why the class belongs with the letter in your memory from day one.
Marks that are not tones
Two more symbols show up constantly. ◌ั (mai han akat) is a short a vowel, not a tone. ◌์ (karan) silences the letter underneath, which is how Thai writes borrowed spellings such as จันทร์. ๆ repeats the previous word. All of them are typed as ordinary keys on a Thai keyboard and all of them appear in the third and fourth tiers of the game.