thai-language.com

Pronouncing the Tones

Every syllable in Thai is pronounced in one of five tones: low, mid, high, falling, or rising. By default, the phonemic transcription shown throughout our dictionary indicates the required tone with a superscripted capital letter after the syllable; L, M, H, F, or R, respectively.

This page discusses the system of tones in the Thai language. A syllable is always spoken in one of the five tones, and generally the tone must be correct for the word to be understood. This is very different from Western languages, where pitch and tone are freely added by the speaker to convey emotion. In English, a statement can be made into a question by raising the tone of the last syllable:

You're hungry.
You're hungry?

Speaking the Five Tones of Thai
tone	example word		how to say it
low	ไข่	khaiL (egg)		spoken in a constant or slightly falling lower pitch, starting at a pitch lower than your normal vocal range.
mid	ไป	bpaiM (to go)		spoken in a constant pitch in your normal vocal range. Do not vary the pitch as the syllable is pronounced.
high	ครับ	khrapH ([a grammatical particle])		spoken at the top of your normal vocal range, producing a somewhat stressed sound.
rising	หนัง	nangR (cinema film)		rising sound, as in a question spoken in English
falling	ใช่	chaiF (yes, agreement)		starting slightly above comfortable speaking range, rise just a little before falling below the starting point.

The following image shows a more technical analysis of the pitch (frequency) of spoken tones over time.

Unless you are exclusively studying the Thai script, it is very important to note, learn, and speak the proper tones (shown as superscripted capital letters — L M H R F — in the phonemic transcriptions throughout these web pages).

Technical note for advanced students:

A minority view that some linguists take is that the high tone is further divided into two tones, giving a total of six tones in the Thai language. As the graph shows, the high tone has a short drop-off in pitch near its end. The proposed additional tone is a shorter-duration high tone which does not descend like this. McFarland (Thai-English Dictionary, Stanford University Press, 1944, page x) calls this the "high staccato" tone, as opposed to the "circumflex or emphatic" tone (which we call "high"). Others argue that this distinction is covered by the long-versus-short characteristic of Thai vowels—in other words, by viewing the high tone on dead syllables as though it didn't have time to fall off.

Since this subtlety is not represented in the phonemic transcriptions on our site, once again the best plan is to be guided by a native Thai speaker or our audio clips.

Audio Tone Comparison

It is crucial to listen to native Thai speakers when learning tones. As a start, please study the tone comparisons given below:

ไม่	maiF	not; no
ใหม่	maiL	[is] new; modern; fresh
ไหม	maiR	[word added at the end of a statement to indicate a question]
ไหม้	maiF	to burn

เขา	khaoR	[3rd person pronoun] he; she; they; them; him; her
เข่า	khaoL	knee
เข้า	khaoF	to enter; go in; to penetrate; to insert; to approach

Comparing the preceding group with the following group also illustrates the important difference in vowel length (duration). For more information on this, see the vowels page.

ขาว	khaaoR	white
ข่าว	khaaoL	news; tidings; information received; message
ข้าว	khaaoF	rice

If you think you've got it, you can practice with the quiz, Listening for the Tone of One-Syllable Words.