Making Sense of the Thai Writing System

The Thai Writing System is notoriously complicated, this video is an attempt to make sense of it, explaining why its many quirks exist, and hopefully make it easier to learn.
thank to ItsPForPea, check out his channel if you like PvZ! @ItsPForPea

[@CookieFonster]

I like how the answer to "why is this writing system so illogical?" in most cases boils down to sound change. It might make writing systems confusing to learn, but it also tells you about the history of the language and helps you recognize words in related languages. French spelling is a great example.

[@56independent42]

Yeah, when i visited Paris i kept having moments of "THAT'S where English got that word from!", the most jarring being the realtively-rarely-used English "rendezvous" being used everywhere as "Rèndez-voùs" to mean arrival.

[@marcusaureliusf]

I don't think rendez vous has any diacritics in French... 🧐

[@randomguy-tg7ok]

I'd say that it also makes the language far more backwards-compatible. Present-day English speakers have a few problems with understanding Shakespeare, but (at least for me) reading the words off of the page isn't one of them.

[@declup]

An old, historic writing system used in the present is interesting and occasionally helpful. But shouldn't people in the present use a present writing system rather than a past one? How often do people turn to a dictionary or rely on spellcheck in order to write a word they say in everyday conversations? And how often do people turn to a dictionary to look up how Shakespeare would have written or pronounced the word -- if it even existend in his time?

[@hughmungus99]

or english, we might as well just have logograms like chinese because english spelling is borederline arbitrary at this point

[@Kairikey]

This is probably the best thai pronunciation for a linguistic video made by non-speaker so far. The only pronunciation rule he skipped out on is how a short syllable with glottal stop coda in a non-stress syllable is pronounced in mid-tone and without glottal stop. But that's a pretty obscure one anyway. I've never seen any video gave thai script sich justice as this pne before so this is really amazing!

[@sweathogstickerpicker]

Fully agree!

[@mtg8968]

Okay. Thai person here and can speak thai fluently. Did I speak my language with all those rule???? Damn. Props to everyone who learn thai as additional language. You're legends.

[@nothing5779]

I had to learn all of it in grade 1-5 but I think it was my mom that just bought old school workbooks for me to do at home. The books were kids friendly but covered all the rules in the video. There were like a whole series of them lol

[@Sam-gq8cl]

Bro, like I can speak Thai but still fail my Thai test at my school, like bruhhhhhhh,😅😅😅

[@cryoblossom12]

As an (another) Thai person who watched this video, I can confirm that informations is actually detailed, even some of the information I don't really know at all. But still, Many people found out that Thai is very complicated to write and some letters doesn't even use in daily life like ฃ and ฅ which is kind of questionable. Most of Thai people name and Places usually have their own meaning but people don't really know what's the meaning of it (as he said in the video that its about historical) So when you learn Thai I would like to recommend to learn about daily basic words that will help you a lot.

[@merry_tutorials3877]

The way he says „ho hip“

[@decimozs]

There's a joke in Thai that foreigners can't say ใครขายไข่ไก่ (Who sold chicken eggs) because, for them, it's all "Kai Kai Kai Kai' but I felt like you'd be able to. Your pronunciation here is IMPRESSIVE!!!

[@gosnooky]

To be fair, the first ใคร isn't "kai", but "khrai" - Khrai khǎi khài kài 😜

[@caragio]

@@gosnooky Only when you try to impress your Thai teacher. 555

[@redbloody946]

​@@gosnooky You'll be surprised when you know that many thai ignore the "r" sound

[@ItsPForPea]

Thanks for having me! Glad to help you with the video and thank you for making a video about my language! I really appreciate it!

[@bearfinn]

Thank you for accurate representation of Thai words! His pronunciation is very good (at least the tones are correct, which is hard)

[@3_14pie]

This really is one of the writing systems ever created

[@killualaura]

As a person who speaks another Tai language, the fact that Thai script keeps its historical spelling actually helps me a lot to recognise the cognates words when I read Thai. Once I get it, it makes more sense to me than "simplified" spelling which only represents their local pronunciation. For example, we still distinguish ไ/aj/ and ใ/aɯ/ in our spoken language. Written Thai keep these two letters separate is so easy for me to recognise those words and I can read it with my accent (if I don't need to communicate with Bangkok Thai).

[@soranuttwilawan660]

What's the other Tai language you speak, friend?

[@Obojama_Arale]

​@@soranuttwilawan660 คิดว่าไม่ไทใหญ่ก็ภาษาเหนือแน่ๆ

[@guillaumeprince7332]

I lived in Thailand for a year and tried my best to learn the language but it was so complicated….. on the other hand, I became fluent in Chinese in the same time. I guess some people have predispositions or that Thai is simply so hard

[@user-ok7do2vk3b]

Well Pronouncing ง and ร took me ENTIRE YEAR when I'm a kid And then you need to learn how it sound (without knowing word) and I give up on all vowels And we have 5 different sound like กอ ก่อ ก้อ ก๊อ ก๋อ and some word don't always follow this pattern Some vowels need to be speak at the same time like กล- or กร- but then there's ทร sound like s And yes This is about basic writing and speaking without actually learning how to put sentence together Thai is not just hard It's extremely painful

[@tarrinpun3798]

@@user-ok7do2vk3b I'm thai and I gave up on being good at it.

[@ILFforever]

@@user-ok7do2vk3b Thank god I was born here and don't have to learn it as my second language lmao. Thai is just sooo complicated, especially when reading poetry.

[@capucinococo]

If you can communicated in Thai that will be good enough. Learning to speak or conversation would be easier than learning to write or grammar you doing great don't worry 😊

[@panotch]

As a Thai native I really appreciate your explanations in this video! There are things that I took for granted and things that I didn't know before especially the sound changes that led to the hot mess we have today. Also, you do well on the pronunciation!

[@RedWoolYT]

As a Thai person that watches your videos, thanks for making this video explaining our writing system's complexity. Love your content

[@ideac.]

how long it would take for someone to be fluent in thai?

[@RedWoolYT]

​@@ideac.I don't know though. Maybe a year or less than that I think. (I'm not sure about this but probably around 7 months)

[@Im_the_G.O.A.T]

​@@RedWoolYTI'm learning Thai to watch Thai bl, is it worth it? (No offense😅)

[@RedWoolYT]

@@Im_the_G.O.A.T Perhaps yes, it is worth it. Hope you enjoy learning Thai :D

[@kigurumii]

@@ideac.depends on your motivation, methods, and input/output As a tip, do learn the script first, it helps a lot with speaking as romanizing the script simply does not work

[@massoluk]

Yup, spoken street Thai may be one of the easiest to learn because of the easy Grammatical rule, you just add same two or three words to indicate times and numbers. But once you go to writing and formal speaks (government, royal, relgions), hell begins

[@ttyt4078]

Thai's writing system is something that doesn't happen everyday

[@rursus8354]

Actually, it looks pretty similar to the Indic writing systems that ... happened very often.

[@masterthg3137]

It's a once in a lifethaime occurrence

[@FairyCRat]

I think Burmese looks a lot weirder, despite also descending from Pallava.

[@TheSincerety]

@@masterthg3137 badum tsh!🥁🤣

[@CDCHexaku]

as a thai speaker i hope it never happens again no one deserves this

[@TheMarisaRoy]

I’m half-Thai and can speak the language but I’m learning to read it as an adult. This made so much sense of what my mom could only explain as “that’s just the way it is, memorize it.” I really appreciate the effort you put into this!

[@sayajinmamuang]

It's a shame most thais can't explain why their language is such and they don't even know the history or sanskrit meanings behind certain words.

[@TheMarisaRoy]

@@sayajinmamuang to be fair, the same thing could be said about most english speakers 😂

[@sayajinmamuang]

@TheMarisaRoy not really. There's are no in depth meanings in English unless we're talking about Olde English or maybe queens English. Don't know about you but American English is pretty straight forward. Don't get offended just learn the history of your language and you'll discover alot more 😉

[@river.1008]

⁠@@sayajinmamuangthis stuff is actually kind of taught in Thai public schools. I’m not entirely sure of it’s mandatory or not but I remember learning this in year 5 and 6 (obviously not as in depth as this video). I moved to international school after that, but I know some friends who could tell you the root and original meaning of certain words and sometimes even names (which is something I wish I could do, it’s rlly cool :D)

[@jkthegreat5687]

@@sayajinmamuang I am certainly sure most English speakers couldn’t tell you which parts of their language stem from the germanic language tree & which influences came from latin…

[@ItsPForPea]

By the way, if you think this is bad, I suggest taking a look at Cambodian, where instead of dividing consonants for different tones, different consonant groups change the sounds of the vowels, and there's ~32 vowel script 😂

[@pierreabbat6157]

I second Cambodian. Thai, Chinese, Hmong, and Khmer, despite belonging to different language families, all underwent the same tone split at the same time - but Khmer was not tonal before, and the tone split ended up creating lots of new diphthongs instead of new tones.

[@konokiomomuro7632]

And then there's Burmese, which went thru English level of vowel shift, plus tones.

[@ItsPForPea]

@@konokiomomuro7632 Oh definitely. But I'd argue, it's not just vowel shift: the consonant shifts too!

[@pia_mater]

The origin is the same tho. In Old Khmer consonant groups were diveded for voicing as in Old Thai but over time the voicing distinction was lost and new vowels developed (unlike Thai which developed tones instead). Same origin, different outcome

[@ItsPForPea]

@@pia_mater well, yeah ofc, but I personally think the Cambodian outcome is more interesting.

[@nlama9663]

hi lingolizard, can you make one for the tibetan writing system too. I personally think that its the most beautiful script in the world.

[@szecr]

Fr

[@timthelittlemusicfox]

Completely agreed!!

[@osasunaitor]

I absolutely agree, Tibetan letters are beautiful. The Burmese script with all those round shapes is very pleasant too

[@OmegaTaishu]

Such a beautiful language, full of history and interesting features... Thank you so much for the hard work on this vid

[@gosnooky]

The consonant classes, tone markers, vowel lengths and all that is just ancillary to learning the language through immersion. I lived in Thailand for a long time, and the key is to learn how to speak properly, and how to read by recognizing common words as single units. The rest comes naturally. That being said, it is a very complicated system to learn, but once it clicks, it clicks - the tones come naturally when speaking.

[@sayajinmamuang]

Yes i agree. The tones do come naturally when speaking and regular use of those words.

[@bencharits]

Wow that is the best description of Thai language from a non-native. I am impressed. Great work!

[@terachetrojrachsombat2810]

Incredible video and one of the best pronunciation of Thai words and linguistics KZbinr does!

[@Manueltion15]

When I start learning Thai, I’ll make sure to check out this video

[@E1hanP]

As a person who is Lao American, Your pronunciation is excellent! ❤❤❤

[@insomniadreamer]

As a Thai person and consider myself quite good in Thai language, I have learned a lot from this clip. You are superb!!!

[@MrYellowAndYacello]

I'm a native Thai of myself and I want to say that the way you pronounced Thai consonants is so delicate and slightly adorable for a non-native speaker, buddy. Keep up the good work.

[@JTanis]

Your pronunciation is so spot on!! Good job 😮

[@sakurahikxri]

As a Thai person, this video is really well made. Frankly, I didn’t even know most of the history of Thai. Your pronunciation is also amazing by the way, I was surprised.

[@jayiwa]

As a Thai, I learned all these rules in 6 years in my primary school time. You summed it up nicely just over 13 mins! Btw, I'm impressed with your Thai pronunciation. Wouldn't surprise me if you've also invested time learning it properly, as opposed to just making this content!

[@seekthuth2817]

Dude, this sounds easy compared to what I'm used to with Japanese. Like just have to learn like 60 characters? Sign me tf up! Better than learning the 20 ways to read 上 in my opinion.

[@gunjchowwiwat8357]

Yeah. Thai is not hard at all. It's pretty straight forward.

[@etersven]

As a Thai Native, I really appreciate your vid! It is really easy to understand and it is a correct. Ps. Your Thai accent is really good.

[@Nammon_nmpk]

I’m Thai native and I’ve studying Thai language in linguistics view as a hobby and I knew pretty much what the video have, it’s either I’ve research it or the school teach me, in either way I’m still amazed on how you pull it off efficiently except the tones pronunciation (it’s impressive as a foreigner but it sounds like a provincial accent or สำเนียงเหน่อ in Thai, not like standard Thai like the school teaches) Not even halfway through the video, the information mashes into my brain like a flashback of my linguistic studies and give me headaches due to receiving too much information in short period You’re Awesome, Very cool 👏🙏

[@robscovell5951]

As a student of Thai language I applaud you for the quality of your explanation. It is hard, painful and slow to learn but not impossible if you persevere.

[@darrylandmixadelisthebest3796]

Thanks for clearly explaining Thai writing system in completely full details and even though I'm Thai that's doesn't mean I was also great in Thai either.

[@MitordyADR]

Even english spelling "rules" could be explained in a shorter amount of time

[@andrew_ray]

Yep. "Just memorize it."

[@TheTHEMEYO]

Thank you for the video one of the easiest Thai Writing video so far with clear Thai pronunciations. As Thai, when I was in studying Thai during Primary to High School, we spent weeks to study 1 of your slide, and when studying hard spelling words we rememberd the words and learnd by dictation with vowel/syllablel breaking, e.g. กรกฎาคม (กะ-ระ-กะ-ดา-คม). Back then, I was able to write correctly Thai with all these rules during the Middle School, however I was still misspelling the tone "mai ek" and "mai tho" in my senior year. Note for you studying Thai: LEARNING THESE RULES IS JUST ABLE TO WRITE THAI CORRECTLY.

[@zyahaoyustudio1532]

My brain blew up so hard while watching, that i dont think i’ll ever find all the pieces

[@bombbay7529]

As a thai, this is the best video explaining about Thai language!! Just so you guys know most of thai people don’t know or cannot remember all of these rules lol And if you can’t remember the tone rules or mess them up a lot it’s fine, it’s very hard. Some people live in Thailand for like 10 years + and they still can’t pronounce it right (which is totally fine) Good luck yall ❤️❤️

[@SivaranjanGoswami]

I can relate to it. My mother tongue is Assamese. It is the official language of Assam, a state in North-East India. Assam shares ethnic and cultural similarities with the people of Myanmar and Thailand. In Assamese, the alphabet has the same number of letters as the Devnagari Alphabet and they come in the same order as the Devnagari Alphabet. However, the script is not the same. Assamese script is similar to Bengali script (with 2 letters written differently). In Assamese also we don't have distinct sounds for some letters. But they exist because Assamese is supposedly derived from Sanskrit. It becomes difficult for us to memorize the spellings of many words because of it. However, the number of such letters is more in Thai than in Assamese. To understand the transition of pronunciation from Northern/Southern India to Thailand, you must consider Assamese. Then you have to consider Myanmar. In Myanmar, they use the Burmese language. In Burmese, you will find more letters without a distinct sound (compared to Assamese). And then you will land in Thailand. You will find even more letters without a distinct sound. Hindi/Bengali -> Assmese -> Burmese -> Thai (In an increasing order of letters without a distinct sound)

[@oiSinCryo]

I mean, 99% of Thai natives don't even know these rules. We use the script on the basis of 'it seem right' 😂

[@DAVID-kd3qy]

I love your comment. I get great enjoyment from watching Far Eastern series and films.

[@Faluk0]

Yep 😂

[@subhashanvs3229]

My language (telugu) also uses abugida but Thai will be a nightmare for us. Our script is consistent and doesn't have exceptions at all. It take very little time to learn it.

[@alexisakbar516]

the struggling not just enough yet, probably been learning Thai for 1 year now, and now the struggling is with Thai font, its like to learn a new language once again when it comes to the Thai various fonts😂

[@erehinater]

Wow, this video is really informative. Many of drop off sound is also because we are too lazy to pronounce that sound 😂😂 But we can not change how its spelled like how Japanese need Kanji to recognized words. Thais also need those rarely pronounce letters to recognize the word 😢

[@Alvionalx]

11:11 I think that "ถนน" would be better translated as road much more than passage

[@cyberdragon4249]

Wish I had this video earlier, as many sources discussing Thai don't do the best job at describing the tone rules or class system as you did.

[@heyhianxiety1070]

he pai ki ahau āu ataata. mahia tonu tēnā koa 🙏

[@lurkertech]

Nice history! 8:14 there are a few common exceptions for ทร compared to how you formulated it, both for English loanwords ("electronic" อิเล็กทรอนิกส์ ì~lék-trɔɔ-nìk) and older loanwords ("Ram Intra" รามอินทรา raam-in-traa place name in Bangkok, the second part of which looks likely to come from "Indra" พระอินทร์ prá-in but I'm not 100% sure of the origin) @lazspencer496 also mentions there are other exceptions where ทร can be separate syllables, another example being "torture" ทรมาน tɔɔ-rá~maan.

[@infinite5795]

As an Indian and Hindu, abugidas are the best for our languages, because the abugidas actually helped us preserve 4000-6000 year old literature, with nil changes in pronunciation and accent and our phonologies are basically unchanged, we still use the same phonemes except 1-2 letters or so, that too we do pronounce while reading old dramas and literature like Abhigyanam Shakuntalam, Mahabharatam, Soundarya Lahari, Patanjali sutras( All are traditional Hindu literature) it in Sanskrit or our local languages. We are thankful to write in the same old 2500-3000 year old scripts, which have just gotten stylized over time but correspond to the same values perfectly. This was very evident when i learnt French and German. I feel Spanish is the most fitting for Latin script, but still not as fitting as abugidas. I dont know anything about Arabic, so i can't comment anything on the middle-east. Abugidas are perfect for Indo-aryan languages( from PIE family), Dravidian languages, Sino-tibetan languages. It is surprising that Burmese and Punjabi are tonal languages and they get away with abugidas, but not Thai. Now, i found the reason.

[@aidenbooksmith2351]

Modern Standard Arabic would probably work a little with an abugida but the informal dialects wouldn't. Abugidas require relatively simple syllable structures and Modern Standard Arabic as a general rule has syllables consisting of only an onset and a vowel (such as consonant and a vowel without a consonant after). Except in three cases: 1) some function words like from; 2) when the next consonant is germinated/doubled, it becomes essentially the last consonant of the previous syllable and the first consonant of the next one. I think this can be fixed by simply adding a diacritic to the next consonant to indicate that this is the case. 3) the last consonant of a word usually has no inherent vowel and instead gets a vowel that acts as a case marker (telling you if it's a noun or verb or so on). While this sounds simple enough, this would actually be too much on many speakers who usually skip the last vowel because they can't be bothered to analyze and find out which case a word is in. If we transition to an abugida, they would HAVE to indicate what vowel it should be, or else they can't write the word. A solution would be to simply find a way to write a consonant without an inherent vowel. BUT if we do that we're basically just using an abjad or alphabet all over again. In conclusion, it would be too much of a hassle for not a huge practical difference. Sure, this would force us to write all the vowels of a word which would make reading easier, but most words have a vowel template and it is usually pretty easy for a fluent speaker to guess the vowels in a word even if we don't write them.

[@RickMICROTECH]

I gotta say, I came in here knowing what to expect after watching a few famous videos about the Thai alphabet but what really impressed me was 8:53 because I didn't even know that since I have never been in a situation to have to worry about that 😂 Respect 100

[@jacobaeden]

how did you figure most of them out?! it took finding so so so many resources to understand how to pronounce certarn words like the 3 consonants have a and o vowels and 4 consonants a a o vowels

[@5555amba]

It's always fascinates me as a native to see non native speakers try to learn Thai. I have to admit that I understand around 25% of this video 5555 Maybe because this is aimed toward linguists? I think the best way to learn Thai for ordinary people is like the way children learn here in Thailand. Starting with learning how to pronounce words used in real life and the tones. Then learning how to speak in common sentences. In the same time memoize all the 44 consonants and vowels then do the "เขียนตามคำบอก" or dictation. I think this is the most efficient way to learn Thai and other languages as well.

[@sussybaka3420]

I am Thai and a few years ago I never pronounce ร/r/ as itself and always pronounce it as ล/l/ until I realized I did it then I try to pronounce ร correctly. I think this is because there are a lot of people that are lazy so they just pronounce ร as ล because it's a lot easier to pronounce and I picked up that habit from them.

[@MaoRatto]

In my accent. If rhotic R is at the end but the word itself has L, that L can become R. Pill, it's normal, Pillar it becomes tapped R, Fill is normal, filler it's swapped L for L+tapped R at times move front when it is in the back. I don't know if it is me. J, Ge/Gi, and Dge are being devoiced in English if at the ends words. Becoming CH. Everyone seems to say tree as chree. Which it is easier to say T + tapped R

[@MaoRatto]

I view the more aound changes, the worse writing is, and the more in need of a reform is necessary.

[@sussybaka3420]

@@MaoRattoI think the Thai writing system is not that bad. At least, you know how to pronounce words from looking at their spellings unlike English.

[@sheepketchup9059]

That's called linguistic hypercorrection. The people who use the language are the one determining the rules of the language, not the scholars. If everyone uses it that way, then that is the correct way. Also, it's not people being "lazy", it's efficient. Why say lot word when few do trick?

[@sheepketchup9059]

Also, it's not a "habit", it's a natural way people use this language, trying to force it otherwise is linguistic prescriptivism. Remember, simplicity isn't bad

[@Jungwons_GrapeJuice]

Omg thank you so much, I’m learning thai so I’m able to understand and communicate with my family without using a translator and I always get so confused with the writing system. Edit: okay I just realized I have to learn Isan too because there are other relatives that speak it)

[@sayajinmamuang]

Bring back the use of old letters in the writing system. Especially when describing sanskrit words. They have good and valuable meanings.

[@vitob.]

I decided to learn Thai script 2 days ago... Whoa, this answered.

[@ThalattaHaralus]

As a Thai, your pronunciation is ok, though I must say that it kinda sounds like you have a Vietnamese accent. Try reducing or shortening syllables a bit more, as Thai is stress-timed, also you missed some vowel lengths, though these are sometimes not represented in the transliteration so it's understandable. For example in ชฎา, it's not chaa-daa, but cha-daa, with the first a being barely audible and reduced in duration, which is further compounded by the fact that it is short and unstressed, since Thai always stresses the last syllable. That's all I have to say though, thanks for making this video!

[@TheThailightZone]

"ARAI WAH!"

[@nicholazburkinton3856]

thai ppl here! p.s. ur accent is pretty much on point.

[@samchan3458]

For non Thais : This video is very informative and too compact lol I mean Thai kids not even learn this depth and about historical information. Thus, from this video, to make it more simple, the basic things to know are: 1. ALPHABET There are 44 alphabets but only 21 consonant sounds. 1.1 There are 3 alphabet class >> Middle, High, Low (Low1+ Low2) ** Why you should know alphabet class? Ans. The alphabet class affect pronouncing tone of a word 1.2 There are consonant cluster -- which involve another grammar point of คำควบกล้ำแท้, คำที่ไม่ประวิสรรชนีย์ (eg. กลาง กร่าง กวาง // ทลาย read ทะ-ลาย// จร- of จรวด -- which this จรวด read จะ-หรวด is another grammar point : อักษรนำ // สราญ read สะ-ราน) & คำควบกล้ำไม่แท้ (eg. ทร- of ทราย read ซาย// จร- of จริง read จิง// สร้าง read ส้าง) 1.3 FINAL CONSONANT: There are 8 + 1 of final consonant which are: 1) แม่ กง ( /ง/ sound) 2) กน (/น/) 3) กม (/ม/) 4) เกย (/ย/) 5) เกอว (/ว/) AND for DEAD syllable will use one of the rest 3 6) แม่ กก (/ก/) 7) กบ (/บ/) 8) กด (/ด/) The problem one is "แม่ กอ-กา" which is the word with no ending consonant eg. คะ & คา (of แม่ กอ-กา >>> the short sound would made a word to be DEAD syllable // the long sound is LIVE syllable) ** Why you should know ending consonant? Ans. It affects which word will be "LIVE syllable word" OR "DEAD syllable word". **Why you should know which word is LIVE or DEAD syllable? Ans. the DEAD syllable word apply another set of pronouncing rule. 2. Vowel 2.1 Forms 2.2 Pairs of short & long vowels 2.3 อำ ไอ ใอ เอา // ฤ ฤา 3 Tone mark 3.1 There are 5 usage which are: nil / ไม้เอก ่ / ไม้โท ้ / ไม้ตรี ๊ / ไม้จัตวา ๋ normally ONLY middle class can use ไม้ตรี & ไม้จัตวา 3.2 There are 5 tones in Thai: 1) สามัญ mid tone 2) เอก low tone 3) โท falling tone 4) ตรี high tone 5) จัตวา rising tone Just to remind that words with the same "tone mark" might not pronounced in the same tone DUE TO: 1) Which alphabet class for initial consonant (or alphabet clusters) ? + 2) Is it LIVE or DEAD syllable word? >>> what is FINAL consonant of that word? [5 แม่ : กง กน กม เกย เกอว of LIVE syllable VS 3 แม่ : กก กบ กด of DEAD syllable] OR [no final consonant -- short-or-long vowel sound] Wish this help simplifying lol PS. In real life -- Thais don't think; processing which word is LIVE or DEAD syllable. We KNOW frequently use words (which tone to pronounce). For unfamiliar words, okay we check initial consonant or consonant cluster first together with tone mark. // We focus on LIVE or DEAD syllable word when writing poems which some of them can use DEAD syllable word in stead of "a low tone pronouncing word" -- that be fixed on that position in a verse.

[@Agent-ie3uv]

Sometimes I wish my language is complicated as this 🤣 mine is soooooooo boring it uses latin alphabet, no tone and you read as you write the words.

[@user-jf3vz8xj6i]

ขอบคุณแอดมินมากครับ

[@nazdizen8275]

Thanks video ❤

[@saddasish]

The phonetic evolution of Thai has some similarities with that of Cantonese. Both languages have a tone split on "dead" syllables that arose from differing vowel lengths. Unlike in Thai where this occurs only on syllables which were historically voiced (low class), Cantonese instead has it occurring on syllables that were historically voiceless (陰入 yin ru). An example in Cantonese would be 識 [sɪk˥] "to know" and 惜 [sɛːk˧] "to kiss". Both of these languages merged /ɲ/ with /j/; ex. Thai ยี่สิบ [jiː˥˩ siːp˨˩] and Cantonese 二十 [jiː˨ sɐp˨ ] both meaning "twenty", from Middle Chinese *ɲi3 dʑip. One other thing is that Thai had reduced the amount of consonants clusters that have /w/ in them (their existence is evidenced by their retention in Lao) to just /kw/ and /kʰw/, which is very similar to Cantonese gaining /kʷ/ and /kʷʰ/ as a result of /w/ retaining after velar stops in spite of the massive loss of medial glides. Even though Thai's writing system is hard, I sometimes wonder how it'd look like when adapted for Cantonese.

[@bnarit]

Thai , bangkok Thai, has been influenced by Teochew dialect since many immigrants came from Chinese before WW2. My Thai teacher, who is of Chinese descent but graduated in linguistics, one said that the standard Thai for news reporters has changed, and their pronunciation has shifted from the original Thai.

[@nathanlamaire]

I have to say, as a Thai with native level of speaking and writing, and Isan as my first language. You can even pronounce some consonants even more accurately than actual Thai natives. It's so infuriating for me to hear so many Thais (and ironically, highly-educated ones) pronounce ช /tɕʰ/ and they ended up pronounce /ʃ/ instead. One interesting quirk about pronouncing words from languages based on western language (especially English) written in Thai is that there are also "mutually agreed tone rules" that don't even follow any tone rules described here. For example, the word "คอมพิวเตอร์" (computer) generally won't be pronounced as "คอม-พิว-เตอ", but instead "คอม-พิ้ว-เต้อ" (adding high-pitch tones) indicating that this is a foreign word. Or does the word กอล์ฟ (not กอบ but ก๊อบ, and it's also popular to add /f at the end for the accent) and บุฟเฟต์ (not บุบ-เฟ but บุ๊บ-เฟ่), as what gets presented in this video also have high-pitch tones on certain syllables, which mostly exist at end positions.

[@garfield3972]

In opposite way, English pronunciation is a nightmare for me as a native Thai user because many sounds in english don’t exist in Thai, for example Th, R , diphthongs like ou, ei etc. Also how to spell many words in English are very arbitrary particularly french origin one not straightforward like how we write most of word in Thai script. Grammars are also another nightmare too the tense system also doesn’t exist in Thai too. In contrast , when I learn Japanese and Chinese are much more easier for me in terms of pronunciation and grammar, and I feel they are more logical to me when compared with european languages.😂

[@darasoth8117]

May you can a similar video to this but Khmer It would be interesting to see how accurate you get and it could also educate the world of The Khmer language please 🙏

[@s.chitratta5894]

A native Thai here. Have you guys ever been curious about how a Thai kid learns these complicated rules? Well, I remember when I'm about to get into grade 1 (6 years old) my parents taught me a few simple rules like how to read กา (ka) ขา (kha) คา (kha) etc. and then forced me read the actual Thai textbook for grade 1("ตามารถไฟ/Grandpa comes by train") straightaway. It was like teaching a kid how to swim for five minutes and then throw him into the fucking ocean. I made mistakes a lot and they corrects me (took many drops of tear). Not long before everything started to make sense and I can read mostly correctly. If I remember correctly, those complete sets of rules in the video are being taught in grade 2 or 3 as a part of Thai grammar and orthography course after students can read basic texts to some extent. I think most native Thai kids learn to read by actually remembering word by word with very few rules in mind (of course they can do that without much difficulty because they already speak the language and hence can guest the corresponding tone given the meaning of the word in context). I don't remember having difficulty with tones or consonant classes because I just remember how the word is pronounced and not how to apply the rules. I imagine this is almost impossible for a non native.

[@laxyboyz8969]

ผมเป็นคนไทยแต่ผมจำไม่ได้ว่าผมเรียนภาษาไทยได้ยังไง สงสัยนี้คือเหตุการ 'Memory suppression trauma' (I am Thai, but I don’t remember how I learned Thai in the first place. Perhaps this is ‘Memory suppression trauma…)

[@lazspencer496]

Bravo. You have just summarised the entire Thai grade school syllabus into a 13 minute video, and also make me realise how messed up my mother tongue's writing system is. A few notes here and there. When Thai children memorise the high/mid/low consonants, qe were taught these in simple phrases that combined all consonants in each category into one. For example, the mid consonants phrase would be ไก่จิกเด็กตายบนปากโอ่ง. This makes it significantly easier for children to remember these and use them properly (or not lol) The loanwords tone standardisation is quite sporadic, since we never have a proper transliteration standard set in stone (we have one now, but society begs to differ in some instances due to unfamiliarity. Case in point: POP = พอป most ppl would use ป๊อป). In some older texts, you will sometimes find ไม้ตรี or ไม้โท scattered all over loanwords rather than none at all. This is due to the nature of how we Thais pronounced some of these words, we tend to curve the tones up high even when there is none (i.e. "sauce" may be written as ซ๊อส or ซ้อส instead of ซอส) There are exceptions to some of the rules you mentioned. ทร can be pronounced as separate ท and ร in loanwords (i.e. โทรศัพท์ torasap, ทรอย troy ทระนง tranong). I would say สระ might not be a good example, since สระ can both be pronounced as สะระ (sa-ra, vowel) or สะ (sa, pond) depending on the context, but the rule remains mostly true. I would say the most fun part in reading Thai would be figuring out what part of a sentence to pronounce, since all letters and written together. As an extension to the 3 and 4 consonants strewn together in a word, try 5 consonants in one! มหรสพ is pronounced as mahorasop rather than maharasop. Good thing these 5 hamstrung consonant words are quite rare. For funsies, try figuring these phrases out. โล่งอก เคยอม กอดอก ค่ายกลดอกท้อ

[@Vandyke0147]

เคยอม 😂😂😂😂 แน่นอก รูปวง

[@grammy1620]

"เคยอมแล้วครับ ขอคนอื่นได้มั้ย"

[@sqohapoe]

nice video. Very nice information and thank you for letting us know about this which helps a lot. But one suggestion if I may say, is to make sure people have enough time to read what's written on the screen before switching to next frame. Not everyone is speed reader. The way I am watching your video is to intentionally pause every time I see something change on screen, and read everything, and then let the video plays and hear you talk. Because I cannot catch up with all the information all at once and having things not read yet but something else is played on it, is a little bit of an annoying experience (like a good professor explaining things nicely but the blackboard gets wiped too quickly you don't have time to read what was written and that's a pity) Another suggestion is to use some colors in your video, for example cf. 11:20-11:28 and 11:30-11:33 2:19 - 2:23. You gave us 4 seconds to read 32 thai and IPA symbols in total. Are you able to read them yourself in four seconds, let alone understanding the information from the words you are saying. 2:30 - 2:35. You gave us 5 seconds to read 44 thai and IPA symbols in total. Although the main idea is not to necessarily read everything on this screen, but to show the idea of "ho hip" able to modify the consonants, since there was no animation or highlighting whatsoever on these frames, we have to read them and extract the information ourselves. Not to say we are lazy and you need to do that for us, but just to show you that 5 seconds is too short of a time. Either highlighting more or show the frames for a longer period of time Marking all the ho hip in a different color will be a lot more helpful. 2:47 the transition would be better shown if you add a middle screen where you bar out those merged consonants before going to another table. 3:00 - 3:03. You gave use 3 seconds to read 22 english and IPA symbols in total. For the tones, some examples can be helpful before talking about how to memorize them. Because it doesn't make sense to memorize before we understand them. For example you could show a minimal pair of, let's say historical taa/ daa/ tak/ dak/ thak. and how do they represent different tones according to their "voicedness" which turned into "consonant class" 11:20 - 11:28. This is a shot with almost full information and also the concept is alien to most reader of the video. 8 seconds are not enough to spot the IPA open long /o/ symbols among all the information. (Marked it with a different color and make it two slides will be extremely helpful) mark it with a different color will be a lot clearer than those barely visible bold face letters. I just want to point out something that can make it potentially even more enjoyable. Thank you for your effort in making this video.

[@saddasish]

I ended up being disappointed over how he explained the tones because it's really lacking in the historical precedence required to make explaining them logical. 1. He explained tones for mai ek and mai tho before explaining tones for lack of tone marker, 2. He didn't mention how mid class is similar to high class and instead opted to just say "high/mid" (with "mid/low" only in that one situation where the mid/high distinction actually mattered!), 3. He didn't mention how low class dead syllables can further distinguish tones by vowel length and in effect unnecessarily mentioned twice that high class dead syllables have low tone when there's no tone marker, 4. As you said, he makes very little connection between the tone split with the voicing mergers and instead explained tones marker-by-marker instead of class-by-class. Because of the list-style of explaining tone determination, it makes it no easier than just reading a Wikipedia article on the Thai script-and at least that article itself actually provides a table (albeit still an unintuitive one) for all the tones. It shows a lack of true understanding of how tones evolved in Thai, as evidenced by the video mentioning that it had 3 tones splitting into 6 then merged into 5, when it's actually 4 tones (3 live + 1 dead) splitting into 9 tones (6 live + 3 dead) before the merger of two of the live tones into the falling tone and of all dead tones with live tones, resulting in the 5 modern tones: low, falling, and high on both live and dead syllables + rising and mid only on live syllables. Here's my very short and succinct explanation for tone determination per consonant class (know that all low and high class consonants come in pairs to complete all 5 tones but not mid class): CLASS - LIVE SYLLABLE W/O MARKER, MAI EK, MAI THO, {DEAD SYLLABLE W/O MARKER} Low class - mid, falling, high, {falling when long, high when short} High class - rising, low, falling, {low} Mid class - high class except the first tone --> copies low class instead and becomes mid tone (high and rising tones rare --> use mai tri and mai chattawa)

[@Emumi_Yakasa]

As a Thai person myself , I can say that Thai is a very hard language to learn even for those who are Thai themself . It’s quite useful to know Thai because we got a lot of “ sound “ that might not be in your language but in some others language . . . If you can learn how to speak Thai , then you can probably learn others languages as well . Ngl I still use google to speak Thai with my friend because I am bad at spelling -

[@KettleTea_]

as a native thai whenever i look back to see the countless rules needed in thai script it makes my head hurts a bit and makes me question how i can even recall all that as a kid :')

[@AnnaSky.666]

Just imagine : You are learning Thai, it goes pretty well, you start to read your first book (with of course the help of a dictionnary and alphabet guide) and suddenly you try to read the name of a show on a poster or some posts online and it looks like nothing you've learned. WORSE than that you see letters like W and S in the middle of symbols you don't recognise. You know Thai alphabet ? Meet the "Loopless" thai script witch is a "simplified" version of the classic thai script but it looks so different from the regular alphabet that you have to learn Thai script a second time 🤣😭 (Yes that's EXACTLY what is happening to me 😩)

[@kittinanpakboon8129]

I heard about the whole loopless alphabets problem for foreigner, As a thai native i don't really consider loopless a "simplified" version, Instead, i see it as another one of many custom "fonts", idk what tips and techniques i can give, Just that you'll get used to it after a while.

[@kigurumii]

keep it up haha In time and with enough exposure you'll recognize the words instantly, which bypasses the need to read each letter. Just like in english or your native language. Probably.

[@kraanialepsy]

It's hard and slow to write a loop every single character, so we just go with loop less in daily handwriting. Anyway, even for Thai, it can be challenging trying to read another person handwriting. The same as I'm having trouble with English cursive/handwriting too.

[@Marshalllow]

Great pronunciation!

[@MarkyNomad]

After learning Japanese I thought there couldn’t be a more complex and overcomplicated writing system but here we are

[@nothing5779]

But there are only 48 ish letters! The complications come from how you use them 😅

[@ItsPForPea]

@@nothing5779 48-ish? You mean 44 consonants and 24 vowels with script variations? Okay, still, it's nothing compared to Kanji though.

[@ixfalia]

I am a Thai American who knew next to no Thai when we moved to Thailand when I was 10. I had to go to English speaking international schools. But I did slowly learn to read and speak Thai. I will say that reading Thai is much much much easier than writing Thai, spelling is very difficult in my experience. I took formal classes to learn Thai, I'm about 2nd to 3rd grade formal education, everything else had to be my own efforts. But I think I'm comfortable in saying I'm bilingual, most Thais do not comment on my accent anymore unless I just flew in from the US. I honed my reading by reading Manga in Thai, at first manga I'd already read in English to help with vocabulary. I'd look up the difficult words I didn't learn in class like I remember in Death Note the term คดี (kʰa˧diː˧, I think, I can pronounce but I'm not certain about my idiolect with the first syllable) kept coming up and it refers to legal cases or investigations. I think people should realize that this difficulty with spelling from loan words is something that Thai shares with English. They are both fairly etymological spelling systems. It's why English is actually really difficult for a lot of folks to read and spell. English has it's own strangeness about when you use C and when you use K, and silent letters to represent etymology like 'doubt' and loan words representing social registers in this like "room" vs "chamber" I'd say folks socialized in English have a leg up in tackling Thai in my expert experience 😂

[@starrstruck]

i think the major issue is historical writing: the way people talk changes, but the way people write stays the same, so it's very ancient and feels archaic

[@Liggliluff]

(1:20) As a speaker of a language with /ɕ/, it sounds like you're saying /sj/. However since IPA isn't always used exactly, your pronunciation of the sound in Sanskrit might be correct.

[@OMEGAXD303]

wow your pronunciation is good!

[@nohopefully1025]

6:22 ฮ become a low equivalent to ห unintentionally The letter "ฮ" was added to represent the voiced uvular fricative "/ʁ/" (r sound in French and German) which is used in the Thai Lanna and Lao dialects after The Lanna kingdom was annexed to Siam. The Siamese cannot distinguish this new sound and pronounce it with the /h/ sound instead. It falls into the low consonant category the same as "ร" (/r/ sound).

[@ItsPForPea]

Woah, this is new to me, do you have any further readings for this?

[@nohopefully1025]

​@@ItsPForPeaNo, I'm sorry. There is no any writing for this topic yet. However, we can rely on old books and maps created before King Rama V's reign. These sources spelled place names with 'ร' instead of 'ฮ', which was not yet invented. Additionally, there are equivalent words in these dialects compared with Bangkok, such as 'เรา' and 'เฮา' (we), and 'เรือน' and 'เฮือน' (home), that share the same meaning.

[@TheLadyinblack1989]

You brought me back to my highschool days. 😂😂😂

[@eirinym]

After watching this video, it's quite helpful, but I was wondering how to interpret fonts with Thai where the markers are styled differently or omitted entirely. I have watched a number of Thai TV shows where the font they use reminds me of like a sans serif vs serif situation, and the letters don't have things like the circles or as many squiggles. How does it work? I'm just really curious how to distinguish the representation of the writing as it looks so streamlined there.

[@kigurumii]

it’s simple, we’re used to the language enough we read words instead of individual letters

[@thefolder3086]

I’m probably too slow but this guy somehow makes รรรรร makes sense lmao

[@muhdkamilmohdbaki7054]

I don't understand anything🤣 but I have to agree it is a super complex writing system. I have no idea what the letters are used for and why a single letter is written as 2 words in latin alphabets.

[@GaaraNous]

Even a Thai person like me, look at it being explained like this is still confusing.

[@FKLinguista]

Good on you for putting a bookend to Xidnaf's explanation of Thai writing without disparaging Xidnaf himself.

[@WhizzKid2012]

You realize that Xidnaf died in 2017? stop talking about it

[@FKLinguista]

@@WhizzKid2012 No, he didn't. He still posts videos.

[@WhizzKid2012]

@@FKLinguista yes but he posts every five years

[@FKLinguista]

@@WhizzKid2012 So? If he didn't take his video down, people still have every right to criticize it. Why? Because gullible people interested in learning Thai who don't know any better will watch it and possibly get discouraged by how cOmPlEx and CoNfUsInG it is.

[@nick.tintapura]

As a Thai who knows a thing a two about linguistics, I feel like Thai is super complicated and unnecessary at time. But lucky for people coming to Thailand, most of the time Thai people could just speak English. Also, it's quite funny sometimes when non natives try to speak Thai.

[@belstar1128]

When i started earning Thai and other Asian languages i hoped their writing systems would some how be easier and better tailored for the languages. but no they have similar issues to European languages but often even worse .

[@iustin15c]

most european languages don't have many spelling inconsistencies - just depends how much the language changed since the last orthographic reform, whether they write their loanwords in the orthographic rules of the language, etc. eastern european languages in general have less spelling inconsistencies due to many spelling reforms/script changes, while west and north europe prefer traditional spelling :)

[@the-birbo]

ive noticed that a lot of english-speakers transliterate Thai in a much more rigid way than it's actually spoken, which confuses leraners and native Thai speakers teaching the language. Like the letters for the aspirated velar plosive are also pronounces as a fricative when said quickly or between vowels, but I've never seen that written anywhere. And the letters for the "sh" and "ch" sounds are actually interchangable in most cases unless emphasizing the difference, and I've seen Thai teachers even say that the "sh" and "ch" sounds should be swapped. idk who's in charge of keeping track of that, but it's really frustrating when even the teachers have to work around the weirdness of the incorrect international standardization

[@abarette_]

romanization is pain t. tried korean, never again

[@the-birbo]

@@abarette_ Korean romanization is super easy to overcome just by taking like five to seven days to learn the easiest writing system on earth lol it was literally created to be the easiest to learn and it doesn't disappoint. I was able to learn it in three days as a kid, but most people I've talked to say it took five to seven days, with the longest time being two months because of a slow-paced teacher

[@agytjax]

The Indo-Aryan and Dravidian scripts (from which Thai and other SE Asian scripts have been derived from) are the most logical and sensible scripts. These scripts faithfully reproduce the spoken word, leaving no room for ambiguity in the pronunciation, which English is notorious for. English is the most irregular language in the universe ! English, if possible, should learn and appreciate from Indo-Aryan and Dravidian scripts.

[@MeowCockadoodledoo]

Interesting writing system

[@gunjchowwiwat8357]

Imagine combining sanskrit vowel maker and chinese tonal system together and it's just work. That's Thai writing system.

[@AyoApril09]

2:30 you saying Yo yak were so cuteeee OMG 😔😔😔😔, and It sound exactly likes the native

[@ReganPlaysYT]

I’m Thai, and I don’t even know the low class of consonants, I just know middle and high. And in schools we have a sentence that helps us memorize but for low class, there are so many that we need multiple

[@InfiniteMoves]

You know more about Thai language than me, a Thai native speaker. Great content! A tip for anyone learning this language. Even Thai cannot use ฏ ฎ ฦ ฑ ฒ (or other shift-row character on keyboard) correctly, so don't stress out remembering it. Just remember the word it appears and you should be fine. And also -์ can go to hell.

[@davidfrischknecht8261]

I became interested in the Thai script because of a certain member of a certain South Korean girl group.

[@MaoRatto]

HÈHÈHÈHÈHÈ

[@baskie30]

Who ready to travel in Thailand?

[@nickamarit]

I'm Thai, but I never removed the bottom component when adding vowels below "ญ yo ying" and "ฐ tho than".

[@ItsPForPea]

You wrote it wrong then :v It's official, even your computers will do it for you ญูฐู

[@nickamarit]

@@ItsPForPea Yeah, just found out from this vid.

[@G7P2S6]

สวัสดีครับ ສວັສດີຄັມ

[@valkyrielavol1865]

i wish i saw this video before deciding to learn thai-

[@Who_am_I_999]

I love your accent

[@ahha6304]

as a Thai person, Thai language makes much sense as much as "Cholmondeley"

[@FalKoopa]

I wonder how much simpler the Thai script would be if you are familiar with one or more Indian scripts like Devanagari (like I do)

[@ItsPForPea]

Well first off, you would understand like 40% of the vocabulary immediately if you also understand Pali/Sanskrit. Otherwise, well, it honestly won't help much since it branched off ~ 800 years ago and the changes are just too much. At this point it would be like comparing Greek and Cyrillic. Yes both are using the same system and branched off from the same script, but it was too long ago.

[@qsykip]

It helps making sense of which consonants are supposed to be low, mid or high if you are willing to map out the consonants with the Devanagari equivalent. It really helps if you're the kind that hate the feeling of memorising arbitrary rules. I mean, language by nature is completely arbitrary, but it's a lot less arbitrary if you can draw connections with something that you already know, and reason with them.

[@thastayapongsak4422]

Sanskrit to Thai is as Latin to English. You will be able to read a lot of words, but the pronunciation is very different.

[@kraanialepsy]

there is a YT channel @bhainaithai that talk about Sanskrit and Thai language. Worth a check out.

[@Pattrapim]

As a Thai 5th grader, I would like to tell the internet that I only remember around 10 of the Thai alphabets. (My Thai teacher probably wants me dead.)

[@pitoukeo4867]

As a native Khmer speaker, I would say it’s pretty much easier for us to learn both written and spoken Thai. My best current analogy is that if Khmer write a word as “16”, the Thai correspondingly write that word as “4*4”

[@benhen4714]

Khmers always claim that everything is originated from Cambodia. LoL

[@ItsPForPea]

@@benhen4714 That's unnecessary.

[@ItsPForPea]

I can understand a certain amount of written Khmer too! Mostly from loanwords though, like those from Pali/Sanskrit, when comparing scripts, it's almost one-to-one most of the time! The pronunciations differ heavily though, mostly due to vowel shifts in Khmer. Like I don't want to set my language for a comparison, but Thai vowels are pretty standard compared to the mess that is Khmer's... I guess we have that on tones instead, heh.

[@kdamprae4236]

@@benhen4714 get your history lesson together and U will realised who claimed whosh