Why memory aids help at the start
A new script asks you to tie three things together for each letter: a shape, a sound and, in Thai, a class. Mnemonics help by giving the shape a meaning. Psychologists have long argued that material stored both as words and as images is easier to recall than material stored one way only (Paivio’s dual coding theory), and experiments bear out the practical version: in a study of high-school students learning Chinese characters, those who made up their own memory aids, and those given both a picture and a verbal cue, did better on the test than students who saw only the translation (Kuo and Hooper, 2004). The classic study of the keyword method, in which learners linked Russian words to English sound-alikes and an image, found clearly better recall than rote study (Atkinson and Raugh, 1975).
The important word is early. A mnemonic gets a letter or word into memory; practice keeps it there and makes it fast. Plan to use the aid for a few days and then forget it.
The mnemonic Thai already has: name words
Every Thai consonant has a name word: ก ไก่ (chicken), ข ไข่ (egg), ค ควาย (water buffalo), ง งู (snake). Thai children learn the alphabet this way, with a rhyme that runs through all 44, and the name words are how Thais spell aloud: “ส เสือ” means “s as in tiger”. Learning the names is not extra work; it is the most useful mnemonic you will get, because it is shared by every Thai speaker.
Make the name word do double duty by picturing it in the letter’s shape. Some are almost drawn for you: ง curls like a snake, ป has the tall fin of its fish, ฐ stands on a base like its pedestal. For the others, invent your own picture: aids you make yourself tend to work better than ones you are handed, and odd images stick better than sensible ones.
Shape stories for the letters that look alike
Most confusion in the Thai alphabet comes from families of letters that differ by one stroke. A story for the difference is worth more than a story for each letter:
- บ and ป: the fish (ป ปลา) has a fin sticking up; the leaf (บ ใบไม้) lies flat.
- ด and ต: the turtle (ต เต่า) has a notch in its shell; the child (ด เด็ก) is smooth.
- ข and ช: the elephant (ช ช้าง) raises its trunk; the egg (ข ไข่) has none. ซ, the chain, is the elephant with a notch, a link caught on its head.
- ผ and ฝ, พ and ฟ: the letters with the tall tail (ฝ ฝา, lid; ฟ ฟัน, teeth) are the f sounds; the ones without are ph.
- อ and ฮ: the owl (ฮ นกฮูก) has a tail feather; the basin (อ อ่าง) does not.
Write each pair side by side, large, and say the story while you write. Then check yourself across very different fonts: the letter pages show each letter in every font in the collection, and a story that only works for one typeface is not doing its job.
Sentences for the classes
Thai schools teach the consonant classes with sentences whose words begin with the letters of a class:
| Class | Sentence | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Mid | ไก่จิกเด็กตายบนปากโอ่ง | the chicken pecked the child to death on the rim of the jar |
| High | ผีฝากถุงข้าวสารให้ฉัน | a ghost left a bag of rice with me |
| Low, unpaired | งูใหญ่นอนอยู่ณริมวัดโมฬีโลก | a big snake lies at the edge of Wat Moli Lok |
Every letter not in the mid or high sentence is low class, so you need only the first two to classify any consonant; the third picks out the ten low letters with no high-class twin. The writing guides for the mid, high and low classes go through each one.
Aids for tones
- Gesture the tone. Draw its shape in the air as you say a new word: flat for mid, low and flat for low, up and over for falling, high for high, a dip and a rise for rising. The movement is a second memory of the tone.
- One step up for the low class. Mai ek and mai tho give low and falling on mid and high letters, and falling and high on low letters. Picture the low class standing one step higher on a staircase.
- Colour the classes. Many learners colour consonants by class on flashcards; this site uses gold for mid, vermilion for high and paper white for low throughout.
Mnemonics for vocabulary
The keyword method works for Thai words too: find an English word that sounds like the Thai one, and make an image linking it to the meaning. The catch is the tone. A keyword captures the consonants and vowel, but not the pitch, so add the tone to the image: something that rises for a rising tone, something that drops for a falling one. หมา mǎa (dog, rising) could be a puppy whining “maa?” with a questioning rise.
Use keywords sparingly. They are slow to make, and the image can outlive the word. For most vocabulary, retrieval practice, actively recalling a word rather than rereading it, is the better investment: in a well-known experiment, students who tested themselves remembered far more a week later than students who kept studying the same material (Karpicke and Roediger, 2008). The Anki guide shows how to set that up for Thai.
References
- Atkinson, R. C., and Raugh, M. R. (1975). An application of the mnemonic keyword method to the acquisition of a Russian vocabulary. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 1(2), 126–133. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.1.2.126
- Karpicke, J. D., and Roediger, H. L. (2008). The critical importance of retrieval for learning. Science, 319(5865), 966–968. doi:10.1126/science.1152408
- Kuo, M.-L. A., and Hooper, S. (2004). The effects of visual and verbal coding mnemonics on learning Chinese characters in computer-based instruction. Educational Technology Research and Development, 52(3), 23–38. doi:10.1007/BF02504673
- Paivio, A. (1991). Dual coding theory: Retrospect and current status. Canadian Journal of Psychology, 45(3), 255–287. doi:10.1037/h0084295