Thai has 9 short vowels and 9 matching long ones, and swapping one for the other gives a different word — or no word at all. That is why this page teaches them in pairs, always wrapped around the consonant ก (ko, the “g” of “go”). Learn the pair together, and the long one is simply the short one held longer. Romanization here is tone-marked like the phrasebook's, with long vowels written doubled (dii, duu, maa) so that no two pairs share a spelling — the phrasebook itself sometimes writes long i as “ee” (dee), which would collide with long e on this page. Vowel content is pending native-speaker proofreading, as flagged on the alphabet page.
Unlike English, a Thai vowel does not always come after its consonant. It can sit before, after, above, below, or on both sides of it — but it is always pronounced after the consonant sound. Here is the same consonant ก wearing five different vowels:
เ sits in front of ก, but you still say “g” first: gee.
า follows ก, like English: gaa.
ิ perches on top of ก: gi.
ุ hangs underneath ก: gu.
เ in front and ย after combine into one gliding sound: giia.
Once you can spot the position, reading Thai stops feeling like a puzzle: find the consonant, then read the vowel marks around it as one syllable.
Nine short–long pairs, three diphthongs (gliding vowels), and three special spellings that break the pattern. Tap any card for the full story, example words and audio.
No Thai voice was found on this device, so audio will use your default voice and may sound wrong. For proper Thai audio, try Chrome on Android or a desktop browser, or install a Thai voice in your system settings.
15 vowel groups — tap any card to explore it.
a as in “cut” — held longer for aa, as in “father”.
Learn the pair as one unit: the long vowel is the same mouth shape, just held about twice as long.
You have met the vowel system. Put it to work with 76 travel phrases you can say today, each with audio and tone marks.