Thai Tone Rules

Question 1

MID TONE SOUND

Answer 1

starts around the normal pitch of your voice when you talk, sometimes a tiny bit higher. This pitch continues mostly at this level and then has a small drop at the end.

Question 2

LOW TONE SOUND

Answer 2

starts a bit below your normal talking pitch, has a slightly dramatic drop right away and then continues on at a level much lower than your normal talking pitch.

Question 3

FALLING TONE SOUND

Answer 3

starts quite a bit above your normal talking pitch, has a slight rise right at the beginning and then drops dramatically to below even the low pitch sound.

Question 4

HIGH TONE SOUND

Answer 4

starts above your normal talking pitch (somewhere between mid pitch and falling pitch), rises slowly for most of the sound and then drops back down at the end to where this pitch started.

Question 5

RISING SOUND TONE

Answer 5

starts way below normal talking. pitch and even quite a bit below low pitch, at the very start it has a quick drop and the a dramatic rise all the way above all the other tones.

Question 6

English Tone Marks

Answer 6

mid tone = (no mark)
\ = low tone
/ = high tone
⌄ = rising tone
^ = falling tone

Question 7

Thai Tone Marks

Answer 7

mid tone = (no mark)
 ่ = low tone
๊ = high tone
๋ = rising tone
้ = falling tone

Question 8

If a syllable has a tone mark…

Answer 8

If the first consonant is mid or high class initial, the normal tone mark rules apply.

If the first consonant is a low class initial, the low tone mark ่ actually means FALLING tone and the falling tone mark ้ means HIGH tone. (ikr)

Question 9

Dead syllable vs Live syllable

Answer 9

The ending of a syllable determines wether it is “dead or alive”. It is a dead syllable if it has a “Stop Final Consonant” or ends with Short Vowel and it is a live syllable if it ends with a “Sonorant Consonant” or ends with a Long Vowel. There are only 8 possible ending CONSONANT sounds (and most of the consonants are divided into groups that all make one of these sounds when they come at the end of a syllable). K, P and T sounds are all stop final consonant sounds while n, m , ng, y and w are all sonorant consonant sounds.

Question 10

If a syllable has no tone marks and is a DEAD syllable…

Answer 10

low class initial + short vowel = high tone
low class initial + long vowel = falling tone
mid OR high class initial = low tone

Question 11

If a syllable has no tone marks and is a LIVE syllable…

Answer 11

high class initial = rising tone
mid OR low class initial = mid tone