Like The Chinese Language, the Thai language is a tonal language, consisting of five tones, mid tone, high tone, low tone, rising tone and falling tone. Meaning that the same word can have a completely different meaning depending on how it’s pronounced.
The Thai Alphabet Today comprises of 44 letters, including 2 obsolete ones, representing 20 consonant phonemes and 15 vowel signs denoting 22 vowels, diphthongs and triphthongs.
Like most of the countries in the orient you need to listen to native speakers to have a clearer understanding of the Thai Language. For instance greetings, hello, good bye (Sawatdee) a man will say (Sawatdee Khrab) a lady (Sawatdee Kaa). Thank you, a man (Kop khun khrab) a lady (Kop khun kaa).
Thai phase books write down the Thai words in Roman letters, because Thai is a tonal language many of the letters don't Romanize. A common example of the difficulty of the tones is (never mind or no problem) in Thai, Mai pen rai, spoken, my ba lie, the P is a B and the R an L.
Many Thai vowels do not have English equivalents. The words and numbers below have been translated phonetically to the most approximate sound, kaa for a lady, khrap for a man, as a guild. We have listed some everyday common words and numbers.
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