Shangri LinguaHow to say “five” in Thai
ห้า
/hâː/
ห้า means five.
Pronunciation and usage
Tone: falling
Because five sounds like “ha”, Thai speakers type 555 online to mean “hahaha”.
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
- ฉันซื้อไข่ห้าฟอง
chǎn súe kài hâa fong/t͡ɕʰǎn sɯ́ː kʰàj hâː fɔːŋ/
I bought five eggs.
How it’s spelled
Thai is written in a fixed order, which isn’t always the order you hear. Here’s each letter of ห้า 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.
- ้
Mai tho, a tone mark. It goes above the consonant.
mai tho
A small curve, like a tiny 2.
- า
The vowel “long a”. Written after the consonant.
sara aa
A hook over the top and a straight drop down.
Why the tone is falling
- It starts with ห, which is high class.
- It has mai tho. High class with mai tho gives a falling tone.
Mai tho doesn’t always mean one tone: it gives a falling tone on mid and high class letters, and a high tone on low class.
New to consonant classes and live or dead syllables? See how Thai tones work.
Learn to write it
The Shangri Lingua app teaches ห้า 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 numbers
Browse all Thai vocabulary.