Shangri Lingua

How to say “tooth” in Thai

ฟัน

fan

/fan/

ฟัน means tooth, teeth.

Pronunciation and usage

Tone: mid

Thai doesn’t mark plurals, so this is both one tooth and all of them. A dentist is หมอฟัน (mǒr fan), “tooth doctor”.

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

  • เด็กแปรงฟันทุกวัน

    dèk bpraeng fan túk wan/dèk prɛːŋ fan tʰúk wan/

    The child brushes their teeth every day.

How it’s spelled

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

  • ฟ

    “f” starts the word.

    fo fan, from ฟัน (teeth)Low class

    Same as พ, but the right side rises tall.

  •  ั

    The vowel “short a”. Sits on top, when a final consonant follows, as in รัก.

    mai han akat

    A small loop with a stroke rising to the right.

  • น

    “n” ends the word.

    no nu, from หนู (mouse)Low class

    A loop at the top left, ending in a small loop at the bottom right. Compare ม.

Why the tone is mid

  1. It starts with ฟ, which is low class.
  2. There’s no tone mark, so the kind of syllable decides.
  3. It ends in “n”, a sound you can hold, so the syllable is live.
  4. Low class and live gives a mid tone.

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

Learn to write it

The Shangri Lingua app teaches ฟัน 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.