The sonorants: ง น ม ย ร ล ว

Seven letters you can hum

The last seven common letters, and they are the friendly ones. ม is m, น is n, ล is l, ย is y, ว is w. ร is r: rolled if you can, a quick tap of the tongue if you can't, and Thai speakers will forgive either. Together with ง they are the sonorants, the sounds you can hum or sing on. No puff, no twin, nothing to hold back.

The one to practise is ง. It says ng, the sound at the end of "sing", except Thai is happy to put it at the start of a word, which English never does. Say "sing", hold the ng, then let go into aa: งา ngaa. Sesame. Do it a few times and it stops feeling wrong.

• มาม + ◌า → maa. To come.
• นาน + ◌า → naa. A rice field.
• ลาล + ◌า → laa. A donkey.
• ยาย + ◌า → yaa. Medicine.
• งูง + ◌ู → nguu. A snake.

No twins

Last lesson every letter came in a pair: a high twin that rises and a low twin that doesn't. These seven are low class, and they have no high twin at all. There is no letter that says m and rises. So with a long vowel and nothing else they are flat, every time: มา maa, นา naa, ลา laa, ยา yaa, งู nguu, มี mii, รู ruu.

Thai does have a trick for giving these seven a high-class tone when it needs one. It uses a letter you already know, kept silent. It gets its own lesson, and until then you will not meet it in anything you are asked to read.

• มีlow, long vowel, nothing else → flat. mii. To have.
• รู→ ruu. A hole.
• งา→ ngaa. Sesame.

The last ten names, and all forty-four

Seven more names to chant, and three rare cousins: ญ sounds like ย, ณ like น, ฬ like ล. Say them, copy them, let them be.

Three of the name-words start with a ห you don't hear: หนู nǔu, หญิง yǐng, แหวน wǎaen. That is the silent trick from the section above, and it is why you are copying these and not reading them yet.

And that is the alphabet. Nine mid, eleven high, twenty-four low: forty-four, and you have now met every one of them by name. The checkpoint next is all of them at once, and nothing in it is new.