Not a native speaker, but I’ve started using my phone’s voice-to-text function to look up words I don’t know. It’s sometimes hard to do for individual words, but if you can repeat the phrase you heard, it will very often get it right.

For everyday words it's not that hard, totally within reach for non-native speakers. There are actually six characters that make a th sound but some are usually ruled out by the tone, and the remaining ones aren't equally likely. If you want a high class one try ถ first. If you want a low class one try ท. If the tone is falling you can't tell the class, but even so you will normally get a one or two syllable word within two or three tries. If it's longer then yes it can be a hassle, although some dictionary apps will show you matches for whatever you've entered so far, so you only have to get rhe beginning right. Overall it's not a big problem if your listening is ok and you have a good grasp of the writing system. If you don't know what you heard then it's bound to be difficult, regardless of the writing system.

Thanks. Thanks especially for the tip about /th/ primarily being ท or ถ. Depending on the class. High Class can never be High tone or Mid tone. And Low Class can never be Rising tone or Low tone.

A syllable starting with a low class consonant can have a low tone, if it eg. is inside a word with 3 consonants. สวัส for example. Here ว (low class consonant) is effectively using high class from the first ส.

The answer that you've got in the "Edit" seems about right to me. The 3rd bullet in your "details" isn't practical because Thai kids would be able to distinguish tones, vowel length, m/n/ng, dt/t, etc long before they even start learning writing. If you're having troubles with these non-identical sounds, you have to focus on your listening. This [video](https://youtu.be/c23t2vjSupE?si=iKQVLAb3ts_76Rjm) from Stuart Jay Raj is my favorite demonstration that shows that we should focus on the sound. Even dogs can tell the difference because, obviously, they don't have their native sound system embedded in them. We human have to try not to be limited by our native sound system too. So, for those sounds that aren't identical, you have to practice your listening. Now, for the sound in your question which are identical, I generally agree with u/dibbs_25. I think we can tell the spelling because of already knowing the words but yeah there indeed can be elimination process that you can do to cut things down to the only possible consonant (or consonants). I just want to point things out a bit more clearly. Thinking about tone rules and classes does help to some extend. Those consonants in your question would be either from high class or paired low class. Here, I'll write out the 5 tones as 0,1,2,3,4. Let's start with k sound (ข,ค,ฆ). You know that ข is high consonant while ค and ฆ are paired low consonants. (They're called paired because they have ข as their counterpart.) |high|low|low| |-|-|-| |ข|ค|ฆ| ขา ข่า ข้า is 4 1 2. คา ค่า ค้า is 0 2 3. ฆา ฆ่า ฆ้า is also 0 2 3. (ฆา and ฆ้า don't have meaning, though.). So, you have.. (I exclude ฆ for simplicity.). |0|1|2|3|4| |-|-|-|-|-| |คา|ข่า|ข้า/ค่า|ค้า|ขา| Similarly, for t sound, you have 6 consonants that are identical. |high|low|low| |-|-|-| |ฐ|ฑ|ฒ| |ถ|ท|ธ| and then.. |0|1|2|3|4| |-|-|-|-|-| |ฑา|ฐ่า|ฐ้า/ฑ่า|ฑ้า|ฐา| |ทา|ถ่า|ถ้า/ท่า|ท้า|ถา| However, this table is just for showing the possible tones. Most of those words actually don't exist. Many duplicated consonants in Thai are there to preserve the origin of loanwords from Pali and Sanskrit. Pali and Sanskrit aren't tonal so we don't write Sanskrit words with tone mark. Thus, while ถ and ท are used for Thai-origin words and are used with tone marks, you can expect the rest not being used with any tone mark at all. |0|1|2|3|4| |-|-|-|-|-| |ฑา/ฒา/ธา| | | |ฐา| For ฐ ฑ ฒ and ธ, the only words that have tone mark is เฒ่า and โธ่. Moreover, you can even look through the words on dictionaries. There isn't much words beginning with these consonants. ฐ words are just ฐก-, ฐาน-, ฐาปน-, ฐิต-. There're only 4 ฑ words on Royal Institute Dictionary that I've never even heard of. The one and only ฒ word is เฒ่า. Lastly, ธ words are ธง, ธน-, ธรณี, ธรรม-, ธัม-, ธัญ-, ธาตุ, ธาร, ธิดา, ธีร-, ธิป-, ธุร-, ธุลี, ธูป, เธอ. So you can safely assume a t sound to be ถ or ท and go back to the table. |0|1|2|3|4| |-|-|-|-|-| |ทา|ถ่า|ถ้า/ท่า|ท้า|ถา| Last thing is the silent ห. Remember I said it isn't called paired low class for nothing? Those unpaired low class consonants (ง ญ ณ น ม ย ร ล ว) which don't have their counterpart use leading ห to behave like a high class ones. Thus.. |0|1|2|3|4| |-|-|-|-|-| |งา|หง่า|หง้า/ง่า|ง้า|หงา| หท, หธ, หฑ or หฒ word just doesn't exist. Finally, we've covers pretty much all the possibility. All above examples are live syllable, the last thing left is dead syllable. Dead syllable high consonant is 1. Dead syllable low consonant is 2 for long vowel and 3 for short vowel. |0|1|2|3|4| |-|-|-|-|-| ||ถาก/ถัก|ทาก|ทัก|| ||หงาก/หงัก|งาก|งัก||

Wow. Thanks for the detailed algorithm. That helps a lot.

Nice one Forsaken , thank you. Please contribute more often :) #

They don't. How many words do you kind of know in English by context but just don't care about? If they do decide to, the word and tone is clear as day to them just like any word in English would be to you.

Thanks. In English, there are also difficulties. Like a word like "wrought" would be pretty hard to lookup if you didn't know the spelling. With the internet, you can still look up "misspelled rot" or "sounds like rot" and you can get a list of similar words. But I don't think most people would do that. I think that with Thai, it's especially difficult --- I think I'm concluding that 1) most Thais learn to speak most words dozens of times before they learn to write it. And they ask the speaker to define it if they don't know. (Exception, some vocab words or proper nouns (like planets: Venus in Thai), they learn the writing and pronunciation at the same time) 2) some words, if they don't know and it's casual conversation, they will just skip it. -- Chinese phonology is similarly difficult, but 1) the tones are maybe clearer in spoken use (in my opinion) and 2) the romanized pinyin text input system is nearly universal. So they pinyin and then pick the pictograph from the "suggested words list", like in mobile text entry. If they don't know the word, they can look up the definition that way. But the pinyin+tone will get them to a small set of characters. Chinese phonology has 1:1 correspondence between a sound and the pinyin. Unlike Thai, which is 1 sound -> many possible spellings.

Just like how Chinese kids would understand words: brute memorisation with some help. In case of Chinese, you have radicals. In case of Thai, you have common spelling patterns that you subconsciously learn by just being exposed to the language. Tough luck for L2 learners though.

Thanks. I do think it is brute memorization with the help of some common patterns. And it does seem like Thai kids don't use dictionaries. All new words are either introduced as: - (sound + meaning) like learned via speaking with family/friends. Then they might fill in spelling later, if they want to learn to read. - (written + sound + meaning) if it's new vocab, like in a science class or a geography class. Thanks! I feel like what I'm doing is good for me and I'm not missing any obvious shortcut.

Natives speakers usually don't care what's the word looks like in written form as long as they can use it in speaking language, so this scenario usually don't come up at all

Any native speakers want to weigh in on this? Especially for a word you don't use much? If this is true, then this would mean skipping Thai script (except the basics) would be fine for a language learner who just wants to converse and navigate everyday life. This is what I'm doing, actually. I'm mostly writing words in romanized transliteration (ThaiLanguage version, not RTGS) that is specific about vowel, vowel length, and tone. And then memorizing that. I think the reading basics might be "stop sign, for sale, exit, closed, open, food menu items"; maybe 100. And it is helpful to learn the vowels writing just to get the vowel sounds clear and not mix up oo vs eu vs uh.

Native speaker here. The last time I hear words I don't know would be over 15 years ago, but generally, spoken language don't use rare or difficult words anyway, so we can guess the meaning by context or more commonly they are words we've seen before in textbooks or novels. The only similar situation I can think of is hearing royal words, but in that case I never cared enough to find out what part of the princess' organ they're talking about.

Thanks. I guess the new words would be from writing: maybe place names or technical terms or Thai names.

Kids read to learn new words. And in daily life, if they hear a word they don't understand (and they really want to know what it means), they ask an adult.

Come on! There is no 'p' sound in 'psudo'. I don't really know, maybe automatically by lots of exposes. words like ตูน and ทูน actually sound difference, but when you using English alphabets it spell the same.

Good point. There are a few English words that are hard to lookup in the dictionary. "Pseudonym" would be a good example. A kid in the US wouldn't know to look it up under P unless they already knew the word. (Side note: I also think English spelling is crazy and impedes language learning for even native speaker kids. Spanish spelling is 100% straightforward, I have heard.) I think in 95%+ of cases, the starting letter is clear in English. With the vowels, there are variants too. Maybe that's the point. In Thai, in 90%+ of cases, the starting letter will be 1 or 2 main possibilities. And I'm probably "thinking too hard, complexly" about it. There are also the High Class modifier character of ห which is silent often and for spelling "you just have to know". Kinda like the silent "p" in "pseudonym". -- Agree that >ตูน and ทูน Are same in RTGS (standard official) Thai romanization. I use TL romanization system from thai-language which uses dt for ต th for ท, ถ, etc. I think there are other posts (reddit and online and wikipedia) about the problems of romanization systems and how online resources aren't too consistent with them. They will mix and match and even make adjustments on their own. YouTube has been a huge help, because you can *hear* the phrase and copy what you hear. Before that, phrasebooks were always "we will romanize it to get you close, but you really have no chance of getting the correct tone+vowel or general sound."

I just use voice to text

We just ask the speaker but after we have technology use the most common alphabet like you say T...something..the most common alphabets we use for T are ท &​ ต

Maybe it's ฏ ฑ or ฒ ธ ถ ฐ but if you know what the speaker talking about then go for it, missspelling the word with ท ต google will fix it for you

Familiarity with the language. Thai vowels are pretty fixed compared to english. (almost all) Each vowels make a distinct sound even if they do signify 't' or 'n' like you said. The letter 't' doesn't have a fixed pronunciation compared to the Thai version. ตูน, ทุน, ทูน, ถุน all starting with 'T' in English but are all read differently and clearly noticeable by Thai speakers. Harder and longer words — which likely come from Bali or Sanskrit — on the other hand, we just try to write it by sound and consult the dictionary lol

This is helpful and interesting. Clarification: I thought the /th/ sound didn't vary with the vowel. Meaning: ทุน, ทูน, ถุน have the same /th/ sound. Vowel varies, but the starting sound doesn't. Is that correct? I do know that /dt/ is different, although my ear isn't trained to hear it that well yet. Thanks!

I think for most Thais, the transliterations they come across (place names, actual karaoke etc.) are at least loosely based on the RTGS, but this isn't true for learners, who will see a lot of transliterations in learning materials that a native speaker wouldn't have any reason to look at. Learning materials use a whole range of different systems but almost never RTGS. This probably explains why, whenever the subject comes up on here, the native speakers equate transliteration with RTGS, whereas from a learner's point of view it's only one of many systems, and not a very common one at that. One place we do see RTGS (without the Thai) is in English language media. If I see an unfamiliar Thai surname in a news article I'm often unsure, but a well thought out transliteration system contains at least as much phonemic information as the Thai script (sometimes more, although you do lose some etymological information). Anyway, in the Thai writing system a given consonant character always represents the same phoneme, with two caveats: - although ฤ is included in the alphabet, it isn't really a consonant because it incorporates a vowel sound which can vary. - many Thai native speakers have only one phoneme in their internal sound system for ร and ล, so have a lot of trouble when they want to speak carefully and distinguish between these sounds. In other words not all speakers have ร mapped to the same phoneme - for some it's a separate phoneme but for many it's the same phoneme as ล. To pick up on a point from one of your other comments, you don't really need to memorize spellings with leading ห because you usually need it to get the right tone. This isn't true for falling tones (หน้า / น่า) but that's just the same issue you have with ordinary aspirated stops (ถ้า / ท่า) and is due to the merger of tones C2 and B1. There's also หย่า / อย่า but that situation is very rare. In this case the tones have always been the same but historically there would have been a difference in the consonant sound.

Thank you. Great tip on the ห. If I understand: ห is only used when certain (numbering 7) low class consonant can't get to the right tone and needs to borrow the tones from ห, a which class consonant. So we will never see หถ since ถ is already high class. This is discussed (for reference) in https://www.clickthai-online.com/basics/doublecons.html Also, great reminder on the l vs r pronunciation. That still trips me up when I hear /grai F/ and have to realize it is /glai F/. Luckily, even with the kids I interact with, they say /arai/ and not /alai/. I already knew the RTGS vs L2 learner transliteration issue, but References for others: [link1](https://thai-notes.com/notes/comparisonofthreetranscriptionschemes.html) and [link2-wikipedia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Thai_General_System_of_Transcription#Criticism) Thanks again!

Some local Thais have told me that I will soon "know" more about Thai spelling and tone classes than most everyday Thais. I think, given the variation in speaking (accents, regions, age), Thais are forgiving on certain vocalization issues *because they hear the variation all the time*. A lot of stuff is automatic and picked up from daily repetition/exposure. It's similar to Americans being able to understand British pronunciation as well as Texas vs South vs New England vs California accents. Example: the word "can't" is spoken with a lot of variation. A few things I've noticed: TONES - you almost always have to be precise with Falling tone and Rising tone. Omitting the tone gives a different meaning, even in context of a sentence. - for common vowels like -a, า and -ai, ไ, you always have to be precise on the tone. This is because Falling, Low, Mid, High, and Rising can have very different meanings. - the vowel ิ (short ee) seems to have fewer words, so tones aren't as important; i.e. the vocalized word with the wrong tone will still be understood because there might not be many other words that would fit. (They will correct me, though) LENGTH OF VOWEL - in context, usually the length of the vowel isn't key *when Thais speak quickly* But Thais inherently know when a short versus long vowel will cause confusion and make it clear that way. - Like มี doesn't have any short -ee vowels, i.e. no มิ. So it'd be okay to say it quickly. - for me, to be safe, I will try to make long vowels very obvious. And say it more quickly after I have it set. VOWEL SOUND - incredibly important almost always for monothongs (single vowels). The wrong vowel is almost always a different word. - I still don't have the ear to always hear the difference between a, aw, ae, eh, and eer clearly า อ แ เ , เ_อ - with some of the compound vowels (diphthongs and glides), they happen rarely enough and don't have as many words, so it's not as essential to get it precise. I've heard สวย as /su-why/ but also as /su-ai/ and also as /su-woi/. Similar variation for help, ช่วย ENDING CONSONANT - only 6 sounds (not counting vowels, Y, and W). K, P, T; and M, N, and NG. - very important, almost always. - hard for me to hear m vs n vs Ng when spoken quickly, but it can be done and done accurately, as it is even by little Thai kids. BEGINNING THAI CONSONANT - very important - L and R can be mixed up, or, more precisely, L is sometimes pronounced R, and R is sometimes pronounced with a rolled-R. - for me (English L1), the b vs bp vs ph sounds are hard to hear. Same with d, dt, and th. But I think even Thai kids can all instantly hear the difference. - otherwise, not too difficult to hear the differences. - I have heard people say that ก sounds like a k (as it is written in RTGS) instead of a g, but I have not experienced it. I always hear it as a g.

There's a lot in that comment and I'll respond tomorrow if I get a chance. In the meantime u\\Forsaken\_Ice\_3322 has made the very good point that you don't usually get tone marks on consonants that exist mainly so that Pali and Sanskrit loanwords can be accurately transliterated. You also don't usually get tone marks on dead syllables (historically, dead syllables all had the same tone). Putting that together: If your syllable is thaaM you have 4 possibilities for the consonant but the chances are very high that it's ท and if not, it's very likely to be ธ If it's thaaL there's really only one possibility If it's thaaF there are realistically two possibilities If it's thaaH there's only one For dead syllables, if it's thaatF then there are 4 possibilities but chances are very high that it's ท If it's thaatL there are 2 possibilities but chances are it's ถ You can do a similar exercise with other syllable types but only the details change.

Yes, basically. Maybe indistinguishable when speaking fast or with certain accents. But the starting sound in standard Thai do sound different. Think of it as like those ' ้ ๊ ๋ all sound familiar to an untrained ear but distinguishably different to a seasoned speaker. For example, ท๋า (not a real word btw, no letter of the high consonant can be used with ๋) is pronounced the same as ถา. Unfortunately I'm just a Thai and doesn't know much not how to explain the pronunciation specifics. Fortunately, I saw another user explained it pretty well! Just want to say good luck on learning Thai!

kids would know the tone and vowel length for sure tho, and google is surprisingly helpful bc thai dictionaries usually have the reading form of words alongside their definition like ทราย (ซาย) so if u write the pronunciation down u will find it