The Thai script has 44 consonant letters (2 now obsolete) split into three
classes — Low, Mid, and High — plus a set of vowel symbols that can appear before, after,
above, or below a consonant. The consonant class is the key you'll need for working out tones in the next
section, so it's worth getting familiar with which class each letter belongs to.
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Low class (24)
Mid class (9)
High class (11)
Vowel length matters for tone rules — a short vowel and a long vowel can lead
to different tones even with the same consonant. The dash (–) shows where the consonant sits relative to the
vowel symbol.
Thai has 5 tones — mid, low, falling, high, and rising — and changing the tone changes a
word's meaning entirely. The tone of a written syllable can almost always be worked out from its spelling using
two things: the class of the initial consonant, and whether the syllable is
live or dead (or has a tone mark). Tap the words below to hear the tone difference.
Live syllable: ends with a long vowel (open syllable) or ends in a sonorant sound
(ง, น, ม, ย, ว).
Dead syllable: ends with a short vowel (open syllable) or ends in a stop sound
(ก, ด, บ — many written finals reduce to one of these three stop sounds).
Tone rules — no tone mark
Tone rules — with a tone mark
ไม้ตรี and ไม้จัตวา only ever appear over mid-class consonants — that's why the other two columns are blank for those rows.
Thai grammar is in some ways simpler than English (no verb conjugation, no plurals) and in other ways quite
different (classifiers, particles, adjectives after nouns). Here are the essentials.
1. Word order: Subject–Verb–Object
Thai uses the same basic word order as English.
ผม กิน ข้าว
phom gin khaao
I eat rice.
2. Adjectives come after the noun
Opposite of English — the describing word follows what it describes.
บ้านใหญ่
baan yai
house big → "big house"
3. No verb conjugation — tense comes from context or markers
Thai verbs never change form. Time is shown by context or by adding words like จะ (future), กำลัง (ongoing), or แล้ว (completed).
จะไป · กำลังไป · ไปแล้ว
ja bpai · gamlang bpai · bpai laew
will go · am going · already went
4. Negation with ไม่ (mai)
Place ไม่ directly before the verb or adjective you want to negate.
ไม่อร่อย
mai aroi
not delicious
5. Questions
Add ไหม (mai) to the end of a statement for a yes/no question. Question words (อะไร, ที่ไหน, ใคร, etc.) usually sit where the answer would go — Thai doesn't "front" question words the way English does.
คุณสบายดีไหม
khun sabai dee mai
Are you well? (literally: you well QUESTION)
6. Classifiers
When counting nouns, Thai inserts a classifier word between the number and the noun — the classifier depends on the type of noun.
หนังสือ 2 เล่ม
nangsue song lem
book two [classifier for books] → "two books"
Common classifiers: คน (people), ตัว (animals/furniture/clothes), อัน (small objects), เล่ม (books), ใบ (leaf-shaped things: fruit, cups), คัน (vehicles).
7. Politeness particles
Added to the end of sentences to sound polite. Male speakers use ครับ (khráp); female speakers use ค่ะ (khâ) in statements or คะ (khá) in questions.
ขอบคุณครับ / ขอบคุณค่ะ
khop khun khrap / khop khun kha
thank you (said by a man / said by a woman)