How Tone Is Decided

1. Identify the Consonant Class
The linked High, Mid, or Low classes are spelling groups, not the names of the resulting tones. For a simple onset, identify its class first. The linked Consonant Clusters entry explains the displayed cluster spellings separately; do not treat every pair of written consonants or every multisyllable word as one onset.

2. Separate Marks From Tones
There are four physical marks, while the tone names are mid, low, falling, high, and rising. In the standard marked patterns taught here, mai ek gives low with mid/high classes but falling with low class. Mai tho gives falling with mid/high classes but high with low class. The mid-class live series กา, ก่า, ก้า, ก๊า, ก๋า illustrates mid, low, falling, high, and rising respectively. This lesson does not use an online spelling or a tone mark alone as proof of pronunciation.

3. Read Unmarked Syllables
For syllables with no tone mark, distinguish Live or Dead endings. Long-vowel open syllables and syllables ending in the sounds m, n, ng, y, or w are live. Short vowels ending with glottal closure, and syllables ending in p, t, or k, are dead. Classify the sounded ending: อำ has final m, ไอ/ใอ final y, and เอา final w even though no separate final consonant is written.
In unmarked live syllables, mid and low classes give mid tone, while high class gives rising. In unmarked dead syllables, mid and high classes give low tone. For unmarked low-class dead syllables, Short and Long Vowels distinguish high with a short vowel, as คะ and คัด, from falling with a long vowel, as คาด and แคบ. These unmarked rules do not override a written tone mark.

4. Read the Leading-Consonant Pattern
In หมา, the silent ห leads ม so that this unmarked live syllable follows the high-class pattern and has rising tone. See the linked Leading Consonant examples for those patterns. The linked The Silent อ entry treats the specific leading-อ spellings, including อย่า, separately. The presence of an unwritten vowel alone does not establish that the first written consonant governs every later syllable.

5. Read the Requested Contrast
Both ข่า (low) and ค่า (falling) have mai ek; the different consonant classes explain their different tones. The first exercise requests the falling member ค่า, not a claim that ข่า is pronounced incorrectly. The second requests the unmarked low-class long-vowel dead form คาด (falling), rather than the short-vowel คะ (high). Both original tone labels are correct. In the particle example, คะ? and ค่ะ. are polite question and statement particles; they are not literal translations of “yes.”