If you can more or less recognize the classic fonts, with all the loops in the right places, you are probably ready to have a go at recognizing the more stylish, minimalistic modern fonts.

Modern Fonts are actually quite easy to read, once you get used to them.

Please download this PDF handout to see how the fonts differ (or not, as the case may be).

Most of the letters are the same, with bulges or blobs where the loops (heads) were. And if something isn’t important then it’s simply left out. For example, ม and น and ห don’t bother with the “head” (the loop on the top left). The main distinguishing factor is where the loop changes – e.g., for ม it’s on the bottom left, for น it’s on the bottom right, for ห it’s on the top right.

You’ll get to recognize these very quickly. Sometimes if you’re not sure about a particular letter because it could one of two possibilities (e.g. the ด letter, which could be either ด or ถ in a modern font) then you might have to find another example of the letter, or its counterpart, in the text (hopefully it’s a long enough text to contain more than on example of the same letter).

Sometimes you’ll see a word you recognize, it becomes a ‘sight word’ – and by a process of deduction you’ll figure out what the letter is. It takes a bit of practice, but after a while you’ll find that the modern fonts are actually easier to read. They’re cleaner and have fewer distracting lines and loops than the classic fonts.

Obviously, it also helps to have some vocabulary so that you can more or less guess what the word is likely to be from the context.

Attached is the hand-out that identifies the differences that you do need to know in order to be able to read the modern fonts. The letters in black are easily recognizable in the modern fonts, so just focus on the red and blue letters.

• The traditional fonts are in the left column. The next columns are the modern & handwritten forms. All that has happened is that the unimportant bits of the letter are left out, usually the extraneous loops. If you look at the 3rd & 4th letters down (ม and น) you’ll notice that the essential difference between these is the loop at the bottom is either on the left of the right. So the loop on the top left can be discarded. No other letters looks like these, so it’s safe to do so.
• Sometimes the ห looks more like a K than an H or h. But if you think of the K as a kind of h but with the dash (representing the ‘baby’ of the hump-backed mother) then it’s easier to recognize.
• Another potentially confusing letter is the ข (cackling old witch). It’s often just a skinnier version of บ or sometimes a kind of lazy V. But it can also sometimes look like a cursive X . If you write it very fast and lazily, the curl of her neck can easily intersect and become like an .
• The ช and ซ are often quite difficult to distinguish, either from the regular ข or from each other because the dent of the ‘chop’ is often very slight, and the dent in the ‘slice-and-dice’ neck is usually a hint of a curve, no more.
• Some letters look quite different – and I’ve highlighted them in red. Some are only slightly different – and these are in blue. The blue ones just need to be noted and you’ll recognize them easily. The red ones can be understood when you know how Thai letters are written. They start from the main loop. So the letter ว is written starting from the loop at the bottom. In English, we’d normally write it starting from the other end. Try writing it the Thai way. Now write it again, but very fast. And again, dropping the loop. And again. Notice that it starts to look like a lazy backwards “C”.

  So you could maybe think of it as a backwards WC or , which is how wiggly ladyboys use the lavatory anyway!

  Another way to think of this is simply to “see” a different picture that represents the same sound (W) – the “wiggly” ear of a cartoon face…!

• Remember, all Thai letters are written starting from the loop. So what looks like an “S” is actually the ร written very quickly from the bottom, which eventually looks like our “S”. Think of a Snake Rearing its head to give you the “r” letter.

  

• The backwards “G” is actually the อ written quickly or stylistically. Very often, you will see it simply as an “O”.
• Finally, the “U” is simply the u-boat บ and the upside down “U” is the male chicken in the sky without its beak ก.

As for the vowels, these are mostly the same except for the following potential ambiguities:

• The ‘igloo’ vowels are fairly obvious: either a single horizontal dash for the “igloo”, a horizontal dash and a vertical line on the right for ‘chiminey’, two vertical lines for ‘birdy’ and a blob for ‘burp’. However, the ‘puppy/pizza topping’ has the vertical line or curve on the left.
• The ‘surfer’ tone mark and ‘puppy’ vowel can sometimes look the same. Keep in mind that the ‘surfer’ tone mark is actually a zig-zaggy character like a “Z” (actually the number “2”), whereas the ‘puppy’ is at most a slighly concave horizontal line.
• The เ and แ vowels are quite obvious, but often appear as two vertical lines, | or ||. And the ‘end-puppies’ ะ often appear as two dots like a colon :

Once you’ve become familiar with the ‘classic’ style of the letters, you’ll notice that It’s only a few letters that look ‘different’; the rest are more or less obvious.

Print out the handout (above) for reference and then see if you can make out the following signs:

		ซัก อบ รีด
		เปา ยูวีคัลเลอร์ สะอาด สีสดใจ เพือสุขภาพ 4000 กรัม
		แว่นบิวตี้ฟูล
		ซื้อ 1 แถม 1
		ประหยัด 20-40 บาท เริ่มต้นที่ 59 บาท

Modern Fonts

As for the modern fonts, if you can more or less recognize the classic fonts, with all the loops in the right places, you are probably ready to have a go at recognizing the more stylish, minimalistic modern fonts.

Most of the letters are the same, with bulges or blobs where the loops (heads) were. And if something isn’t important then it’s simply left out. For example, ม and น and ห don’t bother with the “head” (the loop on the top left). The main distinguishing factor is where the loop changes – e.g., for ม it’s on the bottom left, for น it’s on the bottom right, for ห it’s on the top right.

You’ll get to recognize these very quickly. Sometimes if you’re not sure about a particular letter because it could be one of two possibilities (e.g. the ด letter, which could be either ด or ถ in a modern font) then you might have to find another example of the letter, or its counterpart, in the text (hopefully it’s a long enough text to contain more than one example of the same letter).

Sometimes you’ll see a word you recognize – and by a process of deduction you’ll figure out what the letter is. It takes a bit of practice, but after a while you’ll find that the modern fonts are actually easier to read. They’re cleaner and have fewer distracting lines and loops than the classic fonts.

Obviously, it also helps to have some vocabulary so that you can more or less guess what the word is likely to be from the context.

Below is a table that identifies the differences that you do need to know in order to be able to read the modern fonts. The letters in black are easily recognizable in the modern fonts, so just focus on the red and blue letters.

Consonants

(For “snaggle-tooth” letter ธ refer to “rolling” ร below…)

The traditional fonts are in the left column. The next columns are the modern & handwritten forms. All that has happened is that the unimportant bits of the letter are left out, usually the extraneous loops. If you look at the 3rd & 4th letters down (ม and น) you’ll notice that the essential difference between these is the loop at the bottom is either on the left of the right. So the loop on the top left can be discarded. No other letters looks like these, so it’s safe to do so.

Note that when the “push” letter has no indentation, it defaults to the ladyboy version.

Clearly this is looking inwards, showing that it is the girl version.

Some letters look quite different – and I’ve highlighted them in red. Some are only slightly different – and these are in blue. The blue ones just need to be noted and you’ll recognize them easily.

The red ones can be understood when you know how Thai letters are written. They start from the main loop. So the letter ว is written starting from the loop at the bottom. In English, we’d normally write it starting from the other end. Try writing it the Thai way. Now write it again, but very fast. And again, dropping the loop. And again. Notice that it starts to look like a lazy backwards “C”. So a good way to help you get from “c” to “w” is to think of “WC” – but backwards!

But keep in mind that it’s not always “w” – this is a tricky letter because it can be a vowel or a consonant, so make sure to spell out the idea in “long hand” in your mind: The waving ladyboy on her head shouting “ooh aah”… (In fact, even in English, the “w” is treated as a consonant but produced by making the “oo” vowel sound very quickly.)

Remember, all Thai letters are written starting from the loop. So what looks like an “S” is actually the ร written very quickly from the bottom, which eventually looks like our “S”. Think of a snake rearing its head to give you the “r” letter.

The backwards “G” is actually the อ written quickly or stylistically. Very often, you will see it simply as an “O”.

Note: ข is often identical in shape to บ but just a little thinner.

ช and ซ are very similar, it’s sometimes hard to see “slice” (the extra dent).

Finally, the “U” is simply the u-boat บ and the upside down “U” is the male chicken without its beak ก.(

Vowels & Tone Marks

As for the vowels, they’re mostly easily recognizable in any font.

However, there are two or three vowels that are potentially confusing. The modern font for “puppy pizza topping” seems very similar to the “igloo” vowels. But by a process of elimination, it’s the only one that has a stroke or bulge on the left side, while all the “igloo” vowels have some kind of feature on the right (or nothing at all for the plain “igloo” vowel).

Also, the “puppy pizza topping” vowel is sometimes confused with the “surfer” tone mark. Notice that the latter mark is more of a zig-zag, like a “2” or “Z”.

And the “gag duct tape” could also sometimes be confused with the “surfer” tone mark. Notice which way it rolls. Besides, it’s easy to guess from the context that it’s likely to be a silent letter underneath than one with a vowel or tone mark on top.

And that’s it, it’s really that simple!

(BTW, if you haven’t learnt to read with the Rapid Method then you won’t understand my reference to “puppies” or “chickens” or “ladyboys”, etc. in the notes because I’m referring to the terminology I’ve invented for teaching people to read Thai using an accelerated approach. You can still figure out how to recognize the modern fonts from the tables above.)

The most effective way to gain fluency* in Thai is to read aloud and listen to modern, colloquial texts.

CHILDREN’S STORIES

Children’s stories are not easy! The language used is often a little obscure and “literary”. Many are irrelevant for everyday conversation, often about witches, animals or monsters. Even those that are about everyday family life are not particularly relevant to adults traveling or living as an expat. Fables are useless, avoid them.