How does Thai compute tone?

Thai tone depends on four factors: the initial consonant class (high, mid, or low), the presence and type of tone mark, the vowel length, and whether the syllable is live or dead. The tool applies the standard tone-rule table to derive one of five tones.

What are the five Thai tones?

Mid (˧), low (˨˩), falling (˥˩), high (˦˥), and rising (˩˩˦). The tool marks each with the matching IPA chao tone letters so the contour is explicit, not just a name.

What is a live versus dead syllable?

A live syllable ends in a long vowel or a sonorant (m n ŋ j w); a dead syllable ends in a stop (p t k) or a short vowel. Dead syllables follow different tone rules, which the tool detects from the final.

Does it handle silent letters?

It does not resolve the karan (thanthakhat) silencing mark or complex cluster reordering. It is a syllable-level transcriber: give it clean syllables for the most accurate tone and segment output.

Thai IPA Transcription Tool

Email me this result

Get this tool's output sent to your inbox, plus one useful tool a week. No spam, unsubscribe any time.

Thai IPA transcription maps Thai script to International Phonetic Alphabet symbols, including the language’s five contrastive tones. Unlike many scripts, Thai tone is not written directly — it is computed from the interaction of the initial consonant’s class, any tone mark, the vowel length, and the syllable’s live/dead status.

How it works

The transcriber maps consonants and vowels to IPA, then derives tone from the classic Thai tone-rule table:

consonant classes:  high (ข ส ห …)  mid (ก จ ด …)  low (ค ง น …)
syllable type:      live = long vowel / sonorant final
                    dead = stop final / short vowel
tone marks:         ่ (mai ek)  ้ (mai tho)  ๊ (mai tri)  ๋ (mai chattawa)

e.g. mid class + no mark + live → mid tone (˧)
     low class + mai tho        → high tone (˦˥)
     high class + no mark + live → rising tone (˩˩˦)

Each resolved tone is printed as IPA chao tone letters so the contour is unambiguous.

Example and notes

ขา (leg) is a high-class initial /kʰ/ with a long live vowel /aː/ and no tone mark, giving rising tone: /kʰǎː/ → [kʰaː˩˩˦]. ค่า (value) is a low-class /kʰ/ with mai ek over a long live vowel, giving falling tone: [kʰaː˥˩]. The same mai ek yields different tones on high versus low initials — which is exactly why the consonant class drives the rule. Provide clean, single syllables for the most reliable tone computation.