Read the menu. Ask the price. Understand the answer.

Every phrase here keeps three things apart: what is written, how it sounds, and what it means. Hide the romanisation the day you stop needing it, and the Thai is still there.

Start with the basics Find a situation

No account, no app, no paywall.

Every phrase looks like this

สวัสดีครับ

sà-wàt-dii khráp

Hello.

Male speaker

Works at any hour, unlike English good morning or good evening. A female speaker says สวัสดีค่ะ (sà-wàt-dii khâ).

Female speaker

สวัสดีค่ะ

sà-wàt-dii khâ

Three things, not one blur

Romanisation is a crutch that turns into a limp. It hides tone, hides vowel length, and it is not written on any menu, form or shop sign in the country. So this site never merges the three layers into one line.

Script

เท่าไหร่ครับ

What is actually printed on the sign. This is the layer you will still need in five years.

Sound

thâo-rài khráp

Tone marked on every syllable, so the pitch is something you read rather than guess. Turn this layer off from the header the moment it starts holding you back.

Sense

How much is it?

What you would say in English, not a word-by-word gloss that teaches you to build Thai sentences out of English parts.

What is on the site

Phrases and words: 6,356 pieces of Thai, each written out in script, in tone-marked transliteration and in plain English.
Recordings: 1,543 audio files, male and female. The polite particle changes with the speaker, so a single voice would teach you half the language.
The script, in order: 18 steps from what the writing system is to reading real words, plus 7 reference charts covering all 44 consonants, the vowels, the tone rules and the classifiers.
Situations: 24 of them, from the market and the pharmacy to immigration and the police station.
Food: 33 dishes photographed and explained, including how to order each one and how to ask for it less spicy.
Levels: 24 situations are written four times over, at A1, A2, B1 and C1, so the page does not stop being useful the week after you can order lunch.

Start with lunch

Food is the fastest way in. You already eat three times a day, the vocabulary repeats, and nobody minds if you get it wrong. Every dish below has a photo, the name in Thai, how it is made and what to say to order it.

ส้มตำsôm-dtam

ต้มยำกุ้งdtôm-yam-gûng

ข้าวซอยkhâao-sawy

ผัดไทยphàt-thai

Mango sticky rice (khâao-nǐao-má-mûang), served

ข้าวเหนียวมะม่วงkhâao-nǐao-má-mûang

Grilled pork skewers (mǔu-bpîng), served

หมูปิ้งmǔu-bpîng

แกงเขียวหวานgaeng-khǐao-wǎan

ไก่ย่างgài-yâang

Coconut pancakes (khà-nǒm-khrók), served

ขนมครกkhà-nǒm-khrók

All 33 dishes, explained

Where to go

If you are newStart hereThe three things about Thai worth knowing before your first phrase: it has tones, it has no spaces, and politeness is a word you add rather than a tone of voice.Phrases by situationMarket, taxi, pharmacy, immigration. What to say where.Read ThaiThe alphabet in order, from what the script is to reading real words.LessonsHow the language works, one pattern at a time.PracticeHear a tone, pick the tone. Read a letter, name its class.ReferenceConsonant classes, tone rules, vowels, numbers and classifiers, for looking up.Thai foodEvery dish explained, with photos and the language for ordering it.

Two hours from now you could be reading shop signs

The Thai alphabet takes an afternoon to meet and a few weeks to trust. It is the single thing that separates people who plateau from people who keep going.

Begin at step 1 Or just order dinner

Written by a language teacher living in Thailand, and free because a paywall on survival vocabulary is a strange thing to build. Some of the audio is synthesised and labelled as such where it has not been checked by a native speaker yet. How the Thai on this site is checked.