Thai Alphabet

Many beginners will be put off from learning written Thai, because at first it does seem daunting

trying to remember all 44 characters. But it can be made easier visualizing each character with images. When I was learning I bought one of those kids tables which had all the pictures on the face of the table together with each Thai Character. With visual aids I was able to learn the thai alphabet much faster than if I had gone on one of those sites where you click and play the sound of each character. But, when I started I didnt even bother will all 44. I just took note of what the common ones I saw on sign street streets, in newspapers and shop fronts copied those down and learnt them. You will find some alphabet characters such as ฏ(to pa-tak or goad) and ฎ (d0-cha-da or headress).

Once you have the alphabet down pat, the fun begins with the vowels sounds sara a, sara e, sara u. With these its best to do out a chart obtainable from here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thai_alphabet

and go through the pairing sounds.

Im attaching a picture of a kids table I learnt from. Also good for learning the alphabet and building up your vocabulary is Manee and Friends which you can find at www.learningthai.com