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Mid class consonant · letter 1 of 44

ก ko kai

ก (ko kai) is the first letter of the Thai alphabet, a mid-class consonant named after ไก่, “chicken”. At the start of a syllable it is /k/, written k in RTGS; at the end of one it is /k̚/ (k).

See it in 61 fontsAll 44 consonants
กก ไก่ko kai · chicken
Thai name
ก ไก่ · ko kai
Name word
ไก่, chicken
Class
Mid class
At the start of a syllable
/k/ · RTGS k
At the end of a syllable
/k̚/ · RTGS k
Unicode
U+0E01 · THAI CHARACTER KO KAI
In HTML
ก or ก
Kedmanee key
D
Pattachote key
F

How it sounds

The first letter of the alphabet. Its sound is an unaspirated k, like the k in “skin”: no puff of air after it. Learners who hear it as a g are close, which is why some romanisations write it g.

At the end of a syllable it is an unreleased k, as in นก nok.

Easy to mistake for ถ tho thung and ภ pho samphao: compare them at a large size in the grid below.

Class and tone

Mid-class letters are the only ones that take all four tone marks. With no mark, a live syllable has the mid tone and a dead one the low tone; mai ek gives low, mai tho falling, mai tri high and mai chattawa rising.

Syllables with ก and the vowel า
SpellingSyllableTone
No mark, live syllable (long vowel)กาMid
No mark, dead syllable, short vowelกะLow
No mark, dead syllable, long vowelกากLow
Mai ekก่าLow
Mai thoก้าFalling
Mai triก๊าHigh
Mai chattawaก๋าRising

The syllables show the rule, not words to learn. The tone rules explain live and dead syllables.

Words with ก

ThaiRTGSMeaning
กินkinto eat
ไกลklaifar
กลับklapto go back
นกnokbird
มากmakmuch, very

RTGS shows neither tone nor vowel length; type a word into the font tester to see it in every font.

ก in every font

The letter in each of the 61 families you can download here, in its regular style. Looped faces start the stroke from a small circle; loopless ones leave it out. Each card opens the family’s page.