The Male Sex Change Doctor

There are only four/five words that use the อ sex-change doctor, all of them starting with ย.

อยาก	to want (to do something)	“dead boy” – sad tone
อยู	to live/reside, to be at (a place); to be happening continuously (-ing)	“singing boy” – boring, no tone
อย่า	don’t	“dagger on boy” – sad tone
อย่าง	type, kind, sort, a quality of an object or person; as, like, in the way of… (changing an adjective to adverb as in -ly)	“dagger on boy” – sad tone
อย่างไร	how; whichever (usually written informally or spoken as ยังไง)

Get to know them because then for all other words spelled using อ, it can only either be:

a silent consonant “placeholder” for any vowel that is attached to it
the “awe” vowel if attached to the right side of any consonant.

When a vowel is attached to it then it just becomes the sound of the vowel. The อ letter itself is silent (actually, it’s the “glottal stop” so that you can launch into the vowel sound):

อา โอ ฮี อึ เอา

When it’s attached to the right side of a consonant then it is the “awe” vowel:

รอ บ่อ นอน

The only time it can be potentially confusing is when it’s a two-letter word with the invisible or implied “o” vowel in-between; or when it’s fused together with another consonant, making it unpronounceable as it stands:

อก	chest	invisibe “o” vowel: “ok”
อบ	bake; to scent/perfume	invisibe “o” vowel: “ob”
อด	to go without, miss, refrain	invisible “o” vowel “od”
อม	suck, keep in mouth; hide; embezzle/cheat	invisible “o” vowel: “om”
องค์	organ, body part	invisible “o” vowel: “ong”
อร่อย	delicious	spacer “a” vowel: “a-roi”
องุ่น	grape	spacer “a” vowel: “a-ngun”
อโศก	Asok	spacer “a” vowel “a-soahk
อธิบาย	to explain	spacer “a” vowel: “a-tibaai”

In general, except for the top five 2-letter words, which are single-syllable words, if you see อ as the first letter of a multi-syllable word and no vowel written then it is most likely to be the spacer “a” vowel.