thaiophilus

and the "high - mid - low" are mouth positions, not Thai consonant classes which are a separate lesson ;-)

Sorry, ignore the above. Mistyping on a tiny phone keypad and the Thai has come out wrong. It should look like this: Front Centre Back อี อื อู High เอ เอิ โอ Mid แอ อา ออ Low

It helps to know that Thai has 9 vowel sounds (so it's easy: English has between 14 and 21 depending on where you are from!) Think of them on a 3x3 grid according to how high the jaw is and how far back in the mouth the tongue goes: Front Centre Back อี อื อู High เอ เอ้ โอ Mid แอ อา ออ Low or (British) English equivalents (don't pronounce the Rs) something like: ee eu oo eh er oh air ah or The 'eu' sound isn't found in English, it's a bit like the German ü-umlaut or the French u in 'tu' Then each vowel can be short or long, there are diphthongs and a couple of triphthongs, and each syllable can have one of 5 tones: level, low, falling, high or rising. Apart from that it's straightforward ;-)

Hi all, long-term lurker and amateur linguist here but I feel I know some of you already ;-) Currently watching the world pass by at what I still think of as Cocobanana... Regarding tuu yen, just a guess on my part: many so-called "self-cleaning" refrigerators have a drain hole at the back which sometimes needs, ahem, special attention.