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Learn Thai

Learn to read Thai and hear its five tones, one short lesson at a time.

Free to start. Built from a single prompt. No credit card.

Thai has five tones: mid, low, falling, high and rising. Its script is an abugida with 44 consonant letters split into three classes, and vowel signs that sit before, after, above or below the consonant. The tone of a syllable comes from the consonant class, vowel length, syllable ending and any tone mark, which sounds complex but is fully rule-based. Words are written without spaces between them. The grammar is simple: no conjugation, no plurals and polite particles like khrap and kha at the end of sentences. Learnr builds a personalized Thai course from a single prompt and teaches it in short lessons.

How to learn Thai, step by step

Train your ear on the five tones. Start by listening, not reading. Practice the tones with near-identical syllables like mai, which can mean wood, new, not or silk depending on tone, and imitate native audio until you can tell them apart reliably.
Learn the sounds English lacks. Thai separates aspirated and unaspirated stops, like ph, p and b, and has the ng sound at the start of words, as in ngoo (snake). Long and short vowels also change meaning, so practice them in pairs.
Learn the consonants by class. Group the 44 consonants into mid, high and low classes as you learn them. Their class decides the tone of each syllable, so knowing it from the start saves you relearning later.
Add vowels, tone marks and tone rules. Learn where each vowel sign sits around the consonant, then the four tone marks. Practice working out the tone of real words from class, vowel length and whether the syllable is live or dead.
Use polite particles and simple grammar. End sentences with khrap if you are male or kha if you are female. Thai verbs never change, so add words for time and use mai at the end of a sentence to turn it into a yes-or-no question.
Read real Thai and practice daily. Read menus, signs and short texts, splitting words where there are no spaces. Short daily Learnr lessons keep the tone rules and vocabulary fresh while your reading speed grows.

What you'll learn

Hear and produce the five Thai tones
Read the Thai script and work out tones from consonant class and tone marks
Use polite particles and common pronouns correctly
Build simple sentences with time words, classifiers and questions
Handle everyday conversations about food, prices and getting around

What's inside your Thai course

A sample path Learnr builds for Thai. Your real course adapts to your goal and level.

1. Thai sounds and the five tones
2. Greetings, polite particles and essentials
3. Consonants and the three consonant classes
4. Vowels, tone marks and reading rules
5. Sentences, questions and classifiers
6. Everyday conversations: food, shopping and travel

How long does it take to learn Thai?

Basic spoken phrases come within weeks. Reading the script and its tone rules usually takes a few months of daily study, and comfortable conversation takes a year or more. The more listening you do, the faster tones become natural.

What you need before you start

Patience with a new script and a willingness to train your ear on tones matter more than any grammar background. No prior language is needed.

Common mistakes to avoid

Relying on romanization, which varies between systems and often leaves out tones and vowel length; learn the Thai script early.
Treating tones as decoration instead of part of the word, which leads to being misunderstood in simple exchanges.
Forgetting polite particles, which can make otherwise correct Thai sound abrupt to native speakers.

How Learnr builds your course

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Thai questions, answered

Do I need to learn the Thai script?

You can start speaking without it, but the script shows tones and vowel length that romanization hides, so learning it early makes pronunciation and listening much easier.

Why does Thai have no spaces between words?

Thai writing runs words together and uses spaces mainly to separate phrases or sentences. Readers recognize word boundaries from vocabulary and spelling patterns, which becomes easier as you learn more words.