The pitch of a syllable can be high, low, rising, falling or in a mid-level tone. Depending on the tone, the otherwise same word has a different meaning. It is therefore essential to find the right pitch. But this is the point where beginners have serious problems when learning the Thai language. Unnecessarily, I believe. Anyone who passes this step, or moves it to a later date, can learn vocabulary as much as he wants: with incorrect intonation he will not be understood.
All the words in the following table despite different spellings but are pronounced as ma:. However, the tone is different, and therefore also the meaning.
| mid-level tone | low tone | high tone | rising tone | falling tone |
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 |
 |
 |
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- The middle tone is (nearly) flat, ie a so pronounced syllable changes the pitch only insignificantly.
- The deep tone is also almost unchanged over the duration of the syllable.
- The high tone starts at a higher level and then rises still a little bit.
- The rising tone begins at a low level, falls off a little, and then rises sharply.
- The falling tone starts at a higher level, rising slightly, then fall sharply.
Here nothing is said about the absolute pitch, the information and the graphics are based relative to the middle tone. The frequency of the middle tones is very much dependent on the particular speaker. So a woman speaking normally at a higher frequency than a man. From a single syllable spoken therefore we can not secure the mid different from the low or high tone. Throughout the set the other hand you will easily make the individual medium tone.
The Foreign Service Institute (FSI) in Washington D.C. has developed a Thai Basic Course providing training to government employees in 1970, starting with an introduction to the phonology (the sound system). Since this course is available free as public domain on the Internet, I've made an own version of the phonology for ClickThai using parts made from the original. You'll find it at the Training Area.
