The high class: ข ส ห ผ ฝ ถ ฉ

Seven more letters, and a puff of air

Last time you got seven letters and the flat, well-behaved mid class. Today you get seven more, and four of them you already half know.

Remember the hand in front of your mouth, "top" and "stop"? ต was the t from "stop", the one with no puff. The t from "top", puff and all, is a letter too: ถ. Same story three more times. ก has no puff; ข has one, the k in "key". ป has no puff; ผ has one, the p in "pin". And จ is j, while ฉ is ch, as in "cheese", which already comes with a puff when you say it.

So these four are easy for an English mouth. They are the sounds you make anyway. The hard part was holding the puff back last lesson, and you have done that.

The other three are letters for sounds you already have: ส is s, ห is h, ฝ is f. Nothing to practise there but the shapes.

In our romanization the puffed sounds are written plainly, k t p ch, and the puff-free ones get the odd spellings, g dt bp j. If you see a plain k, breathe out on it.

• ขาthe k of key → kǎa. A leg. (The little mark on the vowel is coming up.)
• ถูthe t of top → tǔu. To scrub.
• ผีthe p of pin → pǐi. A ghost.
• หาh + ◌า → hǎa. To look for.

The same three vowels

Nothing new here, which is the point. ◌า after the consonant, ◌ี on top, ◌ู underneath, all three long. The new letters take them exactly the way the old ones did.

• สี◌ี on top → sǐi. Colour.
• หู◌ู underneath → hǔu. An ear.
• ฝา◌า after → fǎa. A lid.

The high class, and the tone it gives

These seven, plus four rare ones I'll get to, are the high class. Eleven letters. That's the second of the three classes done.

Now the interesting part. Last lesson: a mid-class letter with a long vowel and nothing else is read flat. A high-class letter with a long vowel and nothing else rises. Your voice starts low and lifts, the way it lifts at the end of "really?". ขา kǎa. สี sǐi. หู hǔu. Say each one as a small question.

In the romanization the rising tone gets a little dish over the vowel, like this: ǎ. The dish opens upward, and so does your voice. Put กา gaa next to ขา kǎa: same vowel, different class, and the tone follows the class.

That is the first tone you have worked out from the spelling instead of just hearing it. The whole Tones module is more of this, and it is not harder than this.

• ขาhigh class, long vowel, nothing else → rising. kǎa.
• สี→ sǐi.
• หู→ hǔu.
• กาmid class, same vowel → flat. gaa.

Seven more names

Seven more names to chant, on the chart above. As before, the name-words are real Thai words that use tricks you don't have yet: ไข่ kài has a tone mark, เสือ sǔea wraps its vowel round the letter, ผึ้ง pûeng has a mark and a final consonant. Say them, copy them, and let them be. You are not reading them yet.