Shangri Lingua

How to say “ear” in Thai

หู

hǒo

/hǔː/

หู means ear.

Pronunciation and usage

Tone: rising

It also appears in หูฟัง (hǒo fang), “ear listen”, the Thai word for headphones.

Reading the romanization: the mark over a vowel shows its tone. bp and dt are a p and a t with no puff of air, while plain p, t and k have the puff. The IPA shows the exact sounds, and Learn the IPA explains how to read it.

Examples

  • หูของช้างใหญ่มาก

    hǒo kǒng cháang yài mâak/hǔː kʰɔ̌ːŋ t͡ɕʰáːŋ jàj mâːk/

    An elephant’s ears are very big.

How it’s spelled

Thai is written in a fixed order, which isn’t always the order you hear. Here’s each letter of หู in the order you’d write it.

  • ห

    “h” starts the word.

    ho hip, from หีบ (chest)High class

    Like ท, with a small extra loop at the top of the right leg. Also silently raises the letter after it.

  •  ู

    The vowel “long u”. Hangs below the consonant.

    sara uu

    Like sara u, with a loop added.

Why the tone is rising

  1. It starts with ห, which is high class.
  2. There’s no tone mark, so the kind of syllable decides.
  3. It ends on a long vowel, which you can hold, so the syllable is live.
  4. High class and live gives a rising tone.

New to consonant classes and live or dead syllables? See how Thai tones work.

Learn to write it

The Shangri Lingua app teaches หู in its Thai writing course. You write the word one letter at a time, with your finger or Apple Pencil, and the app checks each letter and gives you more help if you get stuck. Get it on the App Store.

More body parts

Browse all Thai vocabulary.