Learn Thai Like a Local

1. How many Thai vowels?
2. Thai vowels chart
3. Key things you should know when you learn Thai vowels
4. Learn Thai vowels pronunciation
5. Learn Thai vowels with examples
6. Learn Thai vowels changing forms
7. Review the Thai vowels

Learn Thai vowels and consonants as first things when you want to learn how to write and read Thai. In this article, we will show you a Thai vowels chart, Thai vowels list, Thai vowel pronunciation, Thai vowels with examples and special rules about Thai vowels that you should know to learn to write and read Thai.

How many Thai vowels?

There are 32 Thai vowels intotal. That sounds a lot right? but they are mostly long and short vowels with a little bit of written differently. Some are also obsolete or rare to see as well. 

So, there are only 28 main vowels that you should remember when you learn Thai vowels as beginners because there are 2 additional vowels that are obsolete (ฦ, ฦๅ) and the other 2 which are rarely used in daily life (ฤ, ฤา).

The difficult part when you learn Thai vowels really is that some of the vowels also change the forms when they are used to build words and look differently from the original forms.

You can see the overall Thai vowels chart below.

Thai vowels chart

Key things you should know when you learn Thai vowels

• Vowels is called สระ (sà-rà) in Thai.
• – is situated the initial consonants.
• There are 12 short and long main vowels.
• Most of short vowels have “-ะ”. So you can try to remember the long ones and the short ones just add -ะ after.
• เ-ีย is the only vowel with “ย” and -ัว is is the only vowel with “ว”
• เ-าะ and -อ is kind of the only pair that looks different from each other makes it difficult to remember. So we need to work on this.
• Change the forms when combined with final consonants.

Learn Thai vowels pronunciation

As you can see from the above Thai vowels chart, there are 24 main Thai vowels which are divided into short and long sounds. You can take a look at the Thai vowels list below to learn Thai vowels with its pronunciation.

Thai vowels	Romanized characters	Thai vowels	Romanized characters
-ะ, -า	a, aa	-ัวะ, -ัว	ua, uua*
-ิ, – ี	i, ii	ใ-, ไ-	ai
-ึ, – ื	ue, uue*	เ-า	ao
-ุ, – ู	u, uu	รร	a, an
เ-ะ, เ-	e, ee*	-ำ	am
แ-ะ, แ-	ae, aae*	ฤ (pronounced รึ) ฤๅ	rue *don’t see often
โ-ะ, โ-	o, oo*	ฤ (pronounced ริ)	ri *don’t see often
เ-าะ, -อ	aw, aaw*	ฤ (pronounced เรอ)	roe *don’t see often
เ-อะ, เ-อ	oe, ooe*	ฦ, ฦๅ	lue *obsolete
เ-ียะ, เ-ีย	ia, iia*
เ-ือะ, เ-ือ	uea, uuea*

Learn Thai vowels with examples

Let’s take a look at Thai vowels with examples together below.

• จะ = will
• วัน = day
• จาก = from
• กิน = eat
• ดี = good
• ดุ = blame
• ดู = look
• ฝึก = practice
• มือ = hand
• ลืม = forget
• เตะ = kick
• เห็น = see
• แตะ = touch
• แขน = arm
• โต๊ะ = table
• หก = six
• โสด = single
• เบาะ = cushion
• ช้อน = spoon
• เลอะ = dirty
• เจอ = meet
• เตย = pandan leaves
• เงิน = money
• เรือ = boat
• วัว = cow

As you can see, there are some of the Thai vowels changing forms when they are combined with final consonants. Let’s take a look at how Thai vowels change forms below.

Learn Thai vowels changing forms

• -ะ + final consonants = -ั X
• -ือ + final consonants = -ื X 

When -ื is used without final consonants, there will be “อ” after but when it is combined with final consonants, “อ” will be gone.

• เ-ะ, แ-ะ + final consonants = เ-็ X, แ-็ X (neutral and low)
• เ-าะ + final consonants = -็อ X (neutral and low)

When there are tone marks, -็ is gone and the ton emarks are there instead.

• โ-ะ + final consonants = the whole vowel is gone.

When โ-ะ is combined with final consonants, -ะ is gone. So it will appear as 2 consonants next to each other.

• เ-อะ, เ-ียะ, เ-ือะ and -ัวะ have no words with final consonants.
• เ-อ + final consonants = เ-ิ X

When เ-อ is combined with final consonants,“อ” is gone and -ิ comes above the main consonants instead except with ย.

• -ัว + final consonants = -ว X

When -ัว is combined with final consonants, -ั is gone.

Review the Thai vowels

Let’s work on remembering Thai vowel form and the Thai vowel pronunciation through our online flashcards.

There are many main vowels in Thai and it takes quite some time to work on remembering them when you learn Thai vowels but it doesn’t end there as some of them change the form when combined with final consonants.

The real work when you learn Thai vowels is when you learn each class of Thai consonants and work on practising reading with the reading rules to be familiar with the rules and the forms of words. 

If you want a native Thai teacher to guide you on reading and writing Thai step by step and help you on remembering and practising in an effective way, try a trial class with Learn Thai Like A Local and you will see that the right method will help you reach your goal on reading and writing Thai faster!