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The Thai Script

The Thai alphabet was created in 1283 by King Ramkhamhaeng and was probably derived from the Old Khmer alphabet. Thai has an alphabetic script with a few distinctive features – it has no spaces between words as well as no small and capital forms like the Roman alphabet. Each unit of the alphabetic script represents a sound.

In this book, you are primarily learning conversational Thai, but Thai script is included so that you can start to become familiar with the language in its written form. In this introductory section you will find guidelines for the correct pronunciation of each Thai vowel and consonant. Throughout the book, each time a Thai word or phrase is used, romanized pronunciation is included, using the sounds below.

The simplified set of instructions that follow will help the beginner in Thai, working alone, to achieve level of pronunciation sufficient for basic daily communication.