A low-class consonant. It says r at the start of a syllable and -n at the end. 35th in the alphabet, 14th of the 44 to learn here. You will meet it constantly.
01The sound it makes
ร is the only one of the 44 letters that opens a syllable with r. 6 letters close one with -n, and ร is among them.
Low class takes the same two marks high class does and means something different by them: on ร, ◌่ gives falling rather than low and ◌้ gives highrather than falling. A dead syllable then turns on the vowel’s length.
Live — carried on ◌า
Dead short — ◌ะ
Dead long — ◌าก
The 3 tones this ladder reaches
→Mid (สามัญ)A flat, neutral tone at a comfortable mid-pitch. No rise or fall.
↘Falling (โท)Starts high then drops. Like English when expressing disappointment: "Oh..."
→↑High (ตรี)Starts at a high pitch and stays high, slightly rising. Energetic and bright.
The same letter is two sounds: ร is r at the front of a syllable and -n at the back. Of the 4,271 words in this app it opens 213, sits inside 1,621 and closes 188.
Position here is orthographic — where the letter is written, not where it is said. The five leading vowels เ แ โ ใ ไ are skipped when deciding what comes first, so ไก่ counts as a word that starts with ก.
Written first213
…and 207 more.
Inside1,621
…and 1,615 more.
Written last188
…and 182 more.
04Text it turns up in
A word list is a specimen jar. 92 of the 221 sentences and phrases in this app are written with ร somewhere in them — here are 4, shortest first, with every ร lit.
05The class it belongs to
ร is one of 24 low-class consonants. That membership is the single fact the ladder in 02 is built on — change the class and every tone in it changes. Here they all are, with ร lit among them.