Purpose of the Thai Alphabet Cards
Most of the elements can be learned individually using the cards. For example, covering up a part of one side of the card and prompting for covered elements (e.g., show the picture and prompt for the written form, show the English meaning and prompt for the Thai word pronunciation, etc.)
Design Goals
The cards have been devise for maximum information density while balancing composition with a focus on the learner who wants to learn how to write and read Thai characters as well as how to pronounce the characters correctly. In particular, we have innovated in the creation of symbols to indicate various tone, sound, and syllable class rules, as well as the innovation of showing frequency as well as duration of tone in the form of a graph.
- Thai character sound
- Thai name of character
- Thai character with drawing indicators
- Common handwritten form
- Color coding of the consonant class
- If the consonant appears in the final position, symbols are used to indicate live (triangle) or dead (circle) syllable
- Also, the sound of the consonant in final position
- Symbol of tone rules for the consonant class (first line indicates tone for long vowels, second line indicates tone for short vowels)
- Drawing illustrating the character name
- Name of consonant class
- Consonant order number (in Thai numerals)
- Phonetic transcription of Thai sound in English
- Tone frequency and duration graph
- Mouth position diagram
- English translation for character name
- Consonant class
- Consonant order number (in Arabic numerals)
- Thai character sound
- Thai name of character
- Thai character with drawing indicators
- Common handwritten form
- Color coding of the vowel class
- Vowel pair, if present
- Vowel categories indicating short or long, diphtongs, and combined (vowel+consonant)
- Drawing illustrating the character name
- Tone rules for long and short vowels when applied to high, mid and low consonants
- Vowel order number (in Thai numerals)
- Phonetic transcription of Thai sound in English
- Tone frequency and duration graph
- Mouth position diagram
- English translation for character name
- Vowel class
- Vowel order number (in Arabic numerals)
