Reading

Syllable builder

Thai tone is not written directly. It falls out of four things: the class of the initial consonant, the length of the vowel, whether the syllable ends live or dead, and the tone mark. Assemble a syllable and watch which tone those four produce.

◌

No tone yet

Pick an initial consonant and a vowel to start.

Initial consonant

Required

Consonants sort into three classes. The class is a property of the letter, not a tone: a high class consonant does not make a high tone. That is why classes are grouped here rather than colour coded.

Vowel

Required

Length matters for dead syllables. The dotted circle stands for where the consonant goes.

Final consonant

Optional

A syllable ending in nothing or in a sonorant is live. One ending in a stop is dead, and dead syllables take a different set of tones.

Tone mark

Optional

A mark does not name a tone. It shifts whatever tone the class and the ending already produced.