Thai Tone Rules Explained in 8 Minutes

[@yoshnaka9430]

I've been trying to read tones and so far this method has resonated most with me. Thank you very much. The cheat sheet is awesome.

[@abw070]

This is so helpful. No awkward face making & completely understandable.

[@davidslchan]

I generally play it by the ear because I live in Chiang Mai but have many friends from Isaan. Their tone rules are different again from standard Thai. After hearing a word or phrase for four or five times I just say it like them to be understood. I speak Cantonese Chinese that has six tones and Chinese has no tone mark, so I'm used to winging it. OTOH, your explanation is the cleanest I've seen, without wadding into Sanskrit and history. Bravo.

[@andymora6749]

Thank you very much! This is like the best video explaining Thai tones. I've finally found it.

[@studythainow]

Wow! Thank you so much, I'm glad it is helpful!

[@DanielYeoh2266]

I am impressed with your in-depth Thai knowledge. You must have put lots of effort. I admire your determination and perseverance. Thank you for making the VDOs and sharing them to all who share the same passion for this beautiful language.

[@studythainow]

Thank you for the encouragement. I think teaching is a good way to help others learn and help yourself learn at the same time.

[@orlandowan5847]

This is a very efficient way to summarize the tone rules. I was a bit skeptical at first but it is an easy way to deal with a complex set of rules which most other channels make complicated rather than simple.

[@gavin1971]

Very good video. I just learned the vowels and consonants. This looks a bit tricky but I will give it a valid shot. I will check out your other videos here. Thanks a lot Travis!

[@ДмитрийГерман-ю3ы]

The cheat sheet is amazing!

[@studythainow]

Thanks, I've spent a lot of time developing it.

[@SelinaAllinson]

Thanks for this video and for the cheat sheet!

[@pdakhrap0711]

The best explanation! Thank you so much for sharing this. 👍

[@danielvolonnino9316]

I have memorize this cheat sheet and visualize it when needed!

[@veevanglak8147]

hi I would like the PDF of that cheat sheet you posted in description but it's not a working link. Can you fix it? 😢

[@studythainow]

Hey there! Yeah, my site went down for some reason but I just got it back up. You should be able to access the link now.

[@veevanglak8147]

​@@studythainowgot it! Thank you so much. 😊

[@zchencabusora3152]

Thank you very much! I just found the perfect vid that can help me study Tone rules

[@kitssam1520]

If you study Thai literature, you'll understand more about the concepts of dead and live syllables. Basically, when you sing a Thai poem, the live syllables allow you to extend and play with their sounds. The dead syllables, however, do not, like you're coming to a dead end.

[@wargoddess1704]

"if you study Thai literature" when you are just trying to deal with vowels and consonants. Absurd.

[@teacherdmitry]

Благодарю. Хорошее объяснение

[@polyglotpengyou]

Thank you !!!! I feel like this is the best video and it was so hard to find this

[@MrWoongQ]

Thank you youtube algorithm to find this guy and his video.

[@lutherjones503]

this was very helpful i did feel like it be better if while explaining the tone rule nuances you did not read but look up and speak with out pausing to read what you were saying

[@sidly9324]

Great lesson! Thank you,

[@Darkangel-A-c8z]

Sawadee ka. I was adopted from Bangkok by Swedish parents, when I was 6 weeks old, and grew up in Sweden so I only speak Swedish (a part from English and German). How ironic, when trying to learn Thai from a farang 😂😂😂 (joke)

[@pongkammaplamchang7508]

It's really helpful thank you

[@orgami100]

Thank you. . I've already saved previous cheat sheet. Your right it's a lot to utilize properly but I'm not giving up..

[@lagsya9195]

well explained compared to other videos regarding thai tone rules

[@DarxKies]

Thank you very much

[@maiqueashworth]

Thank you. Though I'm struggling to hear the Thai you're speaking since I'm a beginner.

[@bnjtrrspnlb]

thank your for this !! :)

[@1ex1uger-prank-calls]

Why does ค่อย get a falling tone? It has a low class initial consonant (ค) plus a live vowel ending (ย), so shouldn't it get a mid tone pronunciation? I don't think this word has a long vowel sound, but even if it does, we were taught to only check vowel length if we're dealing with low class initial consonants that have dead endings. ย is a live ending.

[@johnwaters111]

ค่อย (Gently, Softly. Then) - Quite simply the tone rule for a syllable with an initial low class consonant that has the tone marker ไม่เอก (maai aehk) is that it is a falling tone. Were the word คอย (To wait for), then you would be right the tone would be the default tone, which for low class consonants with no tone marker is the mid-tone. The length of the vowel is only of relevance to syllables of low class consonants with a "dead" (aka "hard", non-sonorant) final consonant. In the example, the final consonant is ยอ which is of course "live".

[@misterneckbreaker88]

Im beginner its very daunting but just requires more steps and time to master.

[@SDCJabc]

Anybody know what the symbol is above the ด at 5:10? I finally figured out it's not a tone mark, but what does it do?

[@kaityhd3062]

Idk if you’re still looking for the answer but it’s a different way of writing the short form of เ. I think this video should help kzbin.info/www/bejne/iWKqfYOslLhgrJI

[@samchan3458]

it is the changing of the vowel form from เ-ะ to ็ because of added senorant it is ไม้ไต่คู้ | ็| ด + เ-ะ = เดะ ด + เ-ะ + ก = เด็ก ก + เ-ะ = เกะ ก + เ-ะ + ง = เก็ง กร + เ-ะ + ง = เกร็ง กร + เ- + ง = เกรง

[@zorro1487]

Helpful thanks

[@dirgaramadhana3706]

Thanks mate

[@chiruchann]

Thank you very much. As a half-Thai studying the Thai language this was very helpful! But you are missing a few letters of the alphabet in the following: High consonants: missing ฃ (kho khuat) Low consonants: missing ฅ (kho khon) ฬ (lo chula) Thank you

[@jap3059]

those two are now unused in thai thats prolly why he ommitted them

[@MMABeijing]

how can u know so little yet declare he forgot something with supreme confidence?

[@user-zm9gc1kt8b]

Nice cheat sheet but what about a cheat sheet with the Sonorant final for a full set

[@studythainow]

My goal was to try to make this sheet seem as un-intimidating as possible so I tried to limit the options to 'live' and 'dead' instead of defining in the sheet what makes a syllable live or dead. In retrospect, it may have caused the cheat sheet to be lacking necessary information... but the video does explain it. I may revisit the idea later. Thanks for the suggestion.

[@dnyler0n]

Since there are no tone marks for these words, how does the tone rule apply to differentiate their pronunciations? อยาก ===> mid-consonant(อ) + dead ending(ก) = low tone ยาก ===> low-consonant (ย) + dead ending(ก) + long vowel(า) = falling tone

[@studythainow]

Fantastic.

[@dnyler0n]

@@studythainow - All this comes from your fantastic simplified_tone_rule_sheet. I was struggling with the tone marks until I found it.

[@studythainow]

@@dnyler0n Glad to hear it is helping.

[@boss.mimoto6570]

That would be because it have อ at the front. The beginning consonant is ย but since there's อ at the front, the tone changes.

[@s.k.2072]

For the word อยาก , it is under special rule. In Thai language, there are only 4 words under this special rule : อย่า (yaa) อยู่ (Yuu) อย่าง (yang) อยาก (yaak) All these 4 words are read in low tone. อ is leading consonant in this case. Without อ, these words will be read according to basic tone rules. ย่า ยู่ ย่าง ยาก All these 4 words are read in Falling tone.

[@mijinyu2165]

Thank you so much!! The cheatsheet doesn't work though :(

[@studythainow]

I fixed the link. It only took 5 years... but it should be fixed now. Haha.

[@mijinyu2165]

@@studythainow Thank you! :)

[@gavin1971]

HI Travis 5:07 in your video there is a tone mark "mai dtree". Shouldn't this be a high tone? if it didn't have the tone mark it would be a dead end. Correct? Am I confused?

[@gavin1971]

sorry my mistake. I just had that symbol explained. cheers

[@DanielYeoh2266]

At 5:07, the word you see is "เด็ก". The symbol on top of it is "mai dtai kuu" (็) which, in general, makes the sound short. This is how "mai dtree" is written, ๊, both look somewhat identical but they are different :) So, in this case, the word "เด็ก" is pronounced in a low and short tone. Hope this helps.

[@DanielYeoh2266]

BTW......I am a Thai, I am just using someone else' account :P

[@OneMeterTree]

I thought ฉ is read as ch in chaw Ching why did u read it as ng in ngaw ngoo. Am I wrong pls tell me

[@JevTaeye]

I got a question: คน is made by adding ค โ-ะ and น right? And it’s pronounced in the flat tone but if we see any low class consonants combined with a short vowel They are pronounced in the fourth (with nothing on the consonant) or the third tone (with ่ on the consonant)So I am confused rn why คน is flat and also some other words like ชง or even some with ้ like tongue: ลิ้น

[@studythainow]

Wow, interesting observation. I had never thought about this. It appears that words only follow the tone rules of short vowels when that word ends in a short vowel. So words like ละ(high) สะ(low) follow the rule but just like you said, คน(mid) คม(mid) สม(rising) all follow the rules of a long vowel despite being short vowels because of the closing consonant.

[@ArendellianDisnerd]

Too bad the cheat sheet isn't working anymore

[@indianbtsarmy9306]

I like it .........

[@mikedaniels3009]

Travis, let me ask you : do Thai natives learn to discriminate in school between these three classes, eg hi, lo, medium, dead/alive syllables....? Actually NOT ONE native I spoke with seems to bother, care nor to know. And I've lived here for quite a while now. Cheers.

[@dnyler0n]

In the cheat sheet pdf there is a missing consonant from the low class group, ฬ.

[@studythainow]

My goal was to make the cheat sheet as simple and un-intimidating as possible by leaving out unused or extremely rare consonants. I chose to leave out ฬ because it is only used in a hand-full of words.

[@sappreappquatch604]

ฃ and ฅ are mid and low just like ข and ค you can put them in

[@jimjimsandbern9382]

Just learn the high class consonants, then the middle class consonants. All the others will be low class. The consonant class will determine if the tone mark (mai ek) will create a low tone or a falling tone. Likewise, the consonant class will determine if the tone mark (mai toh) will create a high tone or falling tone.

[@sarahcharlesworth1495]

That's a good hack that I used too. I thought, "I'll just learn the smaller groups and then if I see a letter that doesn't fall into those two groups I know it's a low class." Saved me a lot of effort!

[@adrianlorenzs.penaflor3982]

Good Evening, Mr Travise Can I just as for a little help or a helpful advice with regards to learning Thai especially on Tone Rules because i am literally having a hard time understanding some words of why they have this specific tone, of why these words are like these, are like that etc. I mean i was a little confused of which tone i would use for some Thai words with Low/High/Middle Consonants combined with Stop finals and even Sonorant finals. There are actually some words which I find very confusing to me especially when i am about to put the tone mark needed for that word. Thanks Mr.Travis! God bless! I have an example here; Example: ส้ม (som) and ฝน (fon) Mr. Travis, my question here is why do they sound differently? I mean they both used High Consonant with the same sara (o) and at the same time with both sonorant finals (n) and (m). and I just thought that they will actually have same tonemarks used because of that condition. But how come that they have different tone mark?

[@CamichGinuas111121]

Middle consonant+long vowel=Mid tone Low consonant+long vowel= Mid tone High consonant+long vowel=Rising tone Low consonant+Shot vowel=High tone Middle consonant+short vowel=low tone High consonant+short vowel=Low tone

[@adrianlorenzs.penaflor3982]

@@CamichGinuas111121 i already get this pero nalilito lang ako sa ibang thai words. It's just that kailangan lang talagang ifamiliarize ang mga thai words regardless sa consonants or vowels used kasi may mga ibang Thai words na andun na yung tonemark like dun sa mai ek and mai too

[@adrianlorenzs.penaflor3982]

@@CamichGinuas111121 talagang kailangan lang ifamiliariaze yung mga thai words especially yung nasa mai ek and mai too na rules

[@CamichGinuas111121]

@@adrianlorenzs.penaflor3982 umm. I have watched a channel that will help you understand about tone rules in Thai wait i will send you a link.

[@CamichGinuas111121]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/aJaunGSOYtiaeNk

[@wargoddess1704]

I didn't understand a thing. I've seen many videos on thai tones and every teacher gives a different number of rules so we students never know how many rules there are, which is absolutely frustrating.

[@joecostner1246]

no way you can write or read quickly if you have to think about these rules. much better to learn the tones by heart just like Thai children do. Ko kai ai -- kai (mid tone), ko kai' ai -- kai' (low tone), etc

[@ceasarvaliente]

it says 8 min. but your video is 7 min.

[@shamjithbabu7728]

impressive khrap

[@Darkangel-A-c8z]

It's so confusing 😅😅

[@frankcherry3810]

Whew!

[@1ex1uger-prank-calls]

You give examples of words like สา, but don't bother to explain their meaning.