Here follows a very brief intro to the language. If you want to know more, you can go to
and browse to your heart's content.
I always like to attempt to say the basics {please, thankyou, hello, goodbye etc} in the local language, mainly out of politeness, but this one's very difficult to get into from an Englishman's perspective, and I have to admit to a high degree of frustration with my inadequate attempt/s. The high %age of locals who don't have any English compounds the communication challenges.
Thai is the national language of Thailand, spoken by around eighty percent of the sixty million residents of the South-East Asian country.
Alphabet and tones
The Thai language uses a phonemic alphabet of fourty-four consonant and fifteen basic vowel graphemes. The latter are assembled into about thirty-two vowel combinations. In Thai writing, characters are horizontally placed, left to right, with no intervening space, to form syllables, words, and sentences.
All syllables must contain a vowel sound, but may begin and/or end with a consonant sound. A syllable which ends in a vowel sound is called open, and a syllable which ends in a consonant is called closed. Each syllable is pronounced in one of five lexical tones: mid, high, low, rising, or falling; as a result, speaking correctly creates pleasing melodic patterns which has led the language to sometimes be called a sing-song language by foreigners.
Even this familiar product becomes initially impenetrable!
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