Ailin
How do you grasp the 5 tones of Thai? อ อ่ อ้ อ๊ อ๋

I think it's a little difficult,can you give me some advice?

Oct 30, 2014 2:13 PM
Comments · 5
2

I lived in Thailand and the '5 tones' where the most difficult to learn and I still say them 'wrong'. The nice thing is that I can have whole conversations, so even if I don't use them correctly all the time, people understand the meaning of my sentences. 

The following video might help: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=naLui46T15A and ofcourse a private Thai language teacher could help you further! Good luck!

October 30, 2014
1

Of course you need to listen and repeat, but here's some additional info for a Mandarin speaker:

อ - something like the 5th tone in Mandarin, but in Thai it can be long or short, where in Mandarin it's always short

อ่ - not similar to any Mandarin tone. Just a low, flat tone that can be long or short

อ้ - something like the 4th tone in Mandarin, but in Thai it can be long or short, where in Mandarin it's always short

อ๊ - something like the 2nd tone in Mandarin, but in Thai it can be long or short, where in Mandarin it's always short

อ๋ - something like the 3rd tone in Mandarin, but in Thai it can be long or short, where in Mandarin it's always long

 

November 9, 2014

I personally watch thai tv shows and listen to thai music, this actually helps getting used to the tones and the pronuntiation so give it a try, it may help you.

 

 

April 18, 2015

Hi :)

I think the best way is to memorize the tones. Like sing it or sth and then try to come up with your own little symbols to mark each tone (in case you are not learning how to write). Other than that, if you are serious about this, y o u should definitely  learn the alphabets (each comes with a specific tone) and then we have little tone indicators (kind of) which help us know how to read the word. At least that's how young Thais are learning it :)

 

Good luck!

January 23, 2015

Jannette is utterly right,

and you can also use Google Translate to help you with pronunciation, for example :

https://translate.google.com/#th/en/%E0%B8%AD%E0%B8%B2%20%E0%B8%AD%E0%B9%88%E0%B8%B2%20%E0%B8%AD%E0%B9%89%E0%B8%B2%20%E0%B8%AD%E0%B9%8A%E0%B8%B2%20%E0%B8%AD%E0%B9%8B%E0%B8%B2

There is a button to hear it pronunced in thai language it's quite useful

November 9, 2014