r/learnthai • u/nutchanon_ja • 1d ago

Resources/ข้อมูลแหล่งที่มา Hi, I have made a website which includes all practical Thai grammars!

Hi everyone,

I recently made a website that covers all the practical Thai grammar points. They’re organized by usage, and each one is labeled with its difficulty level.

I should mention that the content was generated with the help of AI. However, I’ve checked it all myself (I’m a native Thai speaker), and about 99.9% of it is currently correct. Some example sentences, such as those for TG141 จวน/จวนจะ, still sound a bit unnatural, but I’ll fix them soon. I hope this website helps you learn Thai!

I’ll keep making incremental improvements to both the content and the site structure so that every example sentence is 100% correct and natural. The site is currently hosted on my own computer (through Cloudflare), so I’m not sure how stable it will be.

Any feedback is welcome!

Link: https://learnthai.itsmenutchanonj.cc/

27 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

41 comments sorted by

6

u/SufficientPainting67 1d ago

I wouldn't use a modern Thai font for learning materials, since most Thai learners are initially taught to read using traditional Thai fonts. Switching to a modern, stylized font can make it harder for beginners to recognize familiar letters and may limit their ability to read the text comfortably. I would recommend using a clear, traditional Thai font, at least as the default, with an option to switch to a modern font.

3

u/nutchanon_ja 1d ago

Hi, I’ve already fixed my website so that all Thai script is in the Sarabun font (which is used in all official Thai government documents), so all computers and phones are forced to render it in the same font.

Thank you for the feedback!

4

u/JaziTricks 1d ago

Very nice. Shared with a few friends and added to the resource thread

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u/nutchanon_ja 1d ago

Thank you very much! Also, I hope I can finish the proofreading myself as soon as possible.

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u/SufficientPainting67 1d ago edited 1d ago

** UPDATE: romanization has been fixed **

Unfortunately, the romanization is terrible. I'm wondering which LLM got this so wrong?

For example:
https://learnthai.itsmenutchanonj.cc/points/TG187.html

  • ถูก: thǔ → thùuk (low tone, not rising)

  • หมา: má: → mǎa (rising tone, not high)

  • กัด: gǎt → gàt (low tone, not rising)

  • ผม: phóm → phǒm (rising tone, not high)

  • จับ: jǎp → jàp (low tone, not rising)

  • เจ้า: jà → jâo (falling tone, not low) and "ao" sound

A good Thai romanization system should accurately represent all five tones (mid, low, falling, high, and rising), distinguish between aspirated and unaspirated consonants, and clearly indicate long and short vowels. These distinctions are essential for correct Thai pronunciation, so getting them right is particularly important in learning materials.

-1

u/nutchanon_ja 1d ago

Hi, the romanization rules is not the same as in other sources. I decide to use tone mark to be the same as in Chinese Pinyin except for เสียงตรี, also the final consonant ว is treated as u instead of o.

However i will have the option for those who want to use standard romanization later. Right now it is based on the rule that i wrote in "Thai transliteration used in this material"

3

u/SufficientPainting67 1d ago

That’s quite unusual. The vast majority of Thai learning resources use standardized tone marks, and I’ve honestly never come across a Thai learning website that uses Chinese Pinyin conventions for Thai. I would strongly recommend sticking to the conventions that learners are already familiar with, rather than introducing a new system that could confuse them. Or at least, optionally choose "Chinese Pinyin" , but don't make it the default

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u/nutchanon_ja 1d ago

I have fixed it, thank you for the feedback

3

u/pihkal 1d ago

If you're taking feedback, I'd like to cast a vote for the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).

None of the common romanization methods are as clear as IPA, especially with vowel sounds. Admittedly, you have to learn some IPA, but I personally found that worth it for reading Thai.

2

u/cycling4711 1d ago

Thank you, great work. I'm a beginner, can you add an option to change the Thai writing to alphabet?

1

u/nutchanon_ja 1d ago

Hi, do you mean the Latin alphabet?

2

u/SufficientPainting67 1d ago

Here are some gaps I* noticed that might be worth adding:
*actually I asked claude to make suggestions o)

Particles / discourse

  • ต่างหาก (contrastive: “it’s actually X, not Y”)

  • นั่นเอง (“that’s exactly it / none other than”)

  • มั้ง (sentence-final “I guess / probably”)

  • ล่ะก็ (topic-setting: “as for… / if it’s…”)

  • ฮะ / คับ / ค่ะ variants in casual speech

  • น่า (coaxing: ไปเถอะน่า)

Aspect / verb patterns

  • กลายเป็น (to become / turn into)

  • เริ่ม / เลิก / หยุด + V (start / quit / stop doing)

  • V + ต่อ (keep doing, continue)

  • V + ใหม่ (redo, do again)

  • V + ไปเรื่อย ๆ (keep on…)

  • อีกแล้ว (“again!”, usually annoyed)

  • จนได้ (“finally / sure enough, after all that”)

  • ว่าจะ (planning: “I was thinking of…”)

  • เผลอ (do accidentally / without meaning to)

  • ทำเป็น (pretend / act as if)

Clauses / connectors

  • จะได้ (so that, purpose)

  • กลัวว่า / เกรงว่า (worried that / I’m afraid that)

  • ใช่ว่า (it’s not as if…)

  • แทบ / แทบจะ (almost, hardly)

Quantity / numbers

  • ทีละ + CLF (one at a time)

  • Fractions and percentages (ครึ่ง, เศษ…ส่วน, เปอร์เซ็นต์)

  • V/Adj + จะตาย / แทบตาย (colloquial intensifier, “to death”)

Pragmatics

  • เสียดาย / น่าเสียดาย (expressing regret)

  • Softening refusals and polite “no” strategies

A few of these show up inside example sentences already, but they don’t have their own pages yet.

1

u/nutchanon_ja 1d ago

Will add all of these once I have time, thank you very much !

By the way I think I will upload to github soon so anyone can collab/send feedback directly.

2

u/porkbacon 1d ago

This actually looks pretty useful, thanks for sharing. Two suggestions:

  1. Dark mode option

  2. Review mode: something where you're shown a random example sentence (from the grammar points you're reviewing) and you try to figure out what it means.

1

u/nutchanon_ja 1d ago

Will add soon, thank you so much!

1

u/medbud 1d ago

Nice, this is not another AI slop app! I like the detailed work through and explanations, and all the internal links on the site!

1

u/charte 1d ago

THIS IS 1000000% AI

anyone who has ever prompted claude can instantly recognize all of the design elements on this website.

2

u/nutchanon_ja 1d ago

Hi,

I recognize that I rely a lot on AI to build the website and craft the content. To be honest, I’m also surprised at myself that AI can draft this in such a short time. Making a website that collects all the grammar for foreigners has been on my to-do list for a long time, but obviously I haven’t had the time to do it. It’s only now, since AI capabilities have become so much stronger recently, that I can do it in my free time (I’ve made some GitHub Pages to host my own website before, but with difficulty).

However, as you said, AI can’t be trusted completely, and I will proofread all the content carefully. I will update everyone later. For now, all changes made are compiled on the “Changelog” page.

Thank you very much for the feedback!

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u/charte 1d ago

this is an extremely AI response as well.

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u/nutchanon_ja 1d ago

I'm sorry that I'm not a native English-speaking person that I need to rely on grammar checker. I type this by myself. Hope you understand that not everyone can use English in a very good way as you do.

1

u/Badestrand 1d ago

Where is the transliteration! The one from thai2english is best IMO

2

u/SufficientPainting67 1d ago

Actually, Thai2English isn't always very accurate and has several shortcomings. I personally prefer the Haas or Paiboon+ romanization systems because they represent Thai pronunciation more precisely, particularly vowel quality, vowel length, and tones.

For example, ร้อน (hot) is romanized as rón by Thai2English, which doesn't clearly distinguish the long /ɔː/ vowel from /oː/. The correct IPA transcription is /rɔ́ːn/, with a long open o vowel and a high tone.

Compare this with นม (nom, milk), which has a short /o/ vowel. These are two distinct vowel sounds in Thai, not simply long and short versions of the same vowel. A good romanization system should make this distinction clear.

1

u/Badestrand 1d ago

Thanks for the extensive reply and the example!

In that case you are absolute right, rɔ́ɔn is a much better romanization.

Interesting, I had memorized that thai2english with their proprietary system was the best but I guess I should switch, Paiboon+ looks more solid with what else I looked up.

3

u/Mike_Notes 1d ago

Paiboon and Paiboon+ really aren't very good. In many ways it's worse than AUA transcription (which in my opinion is the best out there - with a few tiny reservations) upon which it's based.

I've written a fairly detailed comparison of three systems, Haas, AUA and Paiboon at https://thai-notes.com/notes/comparisonofthreetranscriptionschemes.html

Haas is hardly ever encountered these days and can probably be ignored. AUA is probably the most widely used - popular with serious Thai language courses, particularly in universities.

The reservations are:

- AUA doesn't show stress
- Syllable boundaries can be ambiguous (e.g. ฝึกหัด as fʉ̀khàt - is it fʉ̀kˑhàt or fʉ̀ˑkhàt?)

The Thai Dictionary Project (initiated by Haas in the 1950s) fixes these issues by indicating stress and using a superscript "h" for aspirated consonants. ฝึกหัด is /fʉ̀k ˈhàt/. ขัด is /ˈkʰàt/.

0

u/Badestrand 1d ago

And also, you should go through everything with a Thai native. IMO there's quite a few things that are textbook-correct but not real-life-correct. Like พวกเรา or พวกคุณ, afaik nobody says that.

1

u/Badestrand 1d ago edited 1d ago

Another one: "ฉัน + ค่ะ marks a female speaker." is not correct in this way. Afaik there are situations where men use it too, male kids as well.

And where is the nuu pronoun? One of the most widely used.

Probably guu/mueng should also get mentioned, of course with a warning.

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u/nutchanon_ja 1d ago edited 1d ago

Hi, thank you for the feedback. I’ve already added more pronouns to the page.

You are correct, ฉัน is also used by some men. ค่ะ is also used by some males, but only when they are talking to girls or when they deliberately want to sound soft. The same goes for ครับ, which some females use.

Edit: พวกเรา or พวกคุณ are still used in many settings. I think for the beginner it is good to stick with the safe options first.

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u/eldridge_horror 1d ago

I actually like it as is! I agree that what you're saying is right, but for a learning module imo it makes things easier and more approachable to lay out this way and not bogged down by the nuances.

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u/Habou09 1d ago

I'm new in the language I've practiced the thai alphabet a little but I want a web site o a Channel that can help me memorize it and go forward with my lessons

1

u/SufficientPainting67 1d ago

While the page lists common Thai pronouns for “I” and “you”, you could also add more informal variants like กู, มึง, ชั้น, เค้า, as well as the use of พี่, น้อง and nicknames instead of personal pronouns. It would also be useful to mention that กู and มึง are very informal and can sound rude or aggressive depending on the context.

https://learnthai.itsmenutchanonj.cc/points/TG016.html

1

u/SufficientPainting67 4h ago

I suggest adding a “Thai script only” option under Pronunciation style. This would allow learners to hide romanization completely and focus on reading Thai script without relying on transcription.

1

u/SufficientPainting67 3h ago

Another useful improvement would be Previous and Next navigation buttons on each grammar page, making it easier to move between grammar points without having to return to the main overview/index every time.