is there a better way to learn the 3 class

[TY T]

is there a better way to learn the 3 class of consonants?

[Brian L]

Here's the kinda "system" which I used to help me remember them all. It was actually a lot easier than what I had originally thought it'd be, it only took a couple of hours, since once I made the below associations between the letters/classes, it was really easy. (Edit: Oh and yeah, I already knew all of the consonants before I learnt their classes)

High Class:

ขสษศหผฉฝถฐ

I found these easy to remember, as it's all of the "S"s except ซ, the "inside" "P/F"s and ห of course because it converts other consonants to a high class. Which left only 3 for me to actually learn (ฐขฉ).

Mid Class:

กดตจฏฎอบป

Which was also easy, as it's just most of the really "common" letters. Particularly as 4 of them are the "D/Dt"s (ดตฎฏ) as well as the "B/Bp"s (ปบ). ก was easy to remember as the circle moves for each class e.g. ถ is high, ก mid, ภ low. อ just sorta makes sense as it's the most "mid" consonant you could imagine, as it's always used to show vowels etc. So I only really had to actually "learn" จ.

Low Class:

Well this is simply everything else, the biggest problem I have with these is that I forget consonants, since I'm not very good with the letters which have a shape like "ฌ", I always forget their names, and sometimes even the sounds, as I don't see them in writing that often. Well except for ญ and ณ which are used fairly often.

[John B]

I learned all of the consonants originally and then learned which class they were later. I memorized which were high and middle classes specifically then by default, everything else was low class, which are the majority (26) of consonants. Saved a lot of time.

[Seb C]

I used the poster that's available in most thai book shops - where the consonants are in order (as per the alphabet song) and colour coded (yellow, orange and green). This really helped me remember the class of each. Then I made my own flashcards using cut up paper and would go through them over and over saying the letter and the associated word (gor gai etc) and arranging them into three piles as I went (one pile for each class). Then I would practice writing them out every day. I guess this is the old school approach of just forcing them into your brain but it worked for me.

[Biff T]

I still don't know them

[សុង វណ្ណា]

There are many ways. You just have to find the one thet works for you. You can divide them up and learn them separately. Example: You can learn the high classes first, they only have eleven high class consonants. It is importnat you retain the tone classes of the consonants, but als alphabetical order of the consonants.

[សុង វណ្ណា]

I just went back and redid my notes I had taken in 2012. Now I'm starting to retain the tone classes of consonants much better than before. ข is high tone while ค is low tone class. I'm taking the forty-four consonants five at a time per day.

[Francois D]

I wonder if this is really useful. After all most of the Thai people have no idea about tone rules and consonant classes, they just know how to pronounce each word. Isn't it enough then to learn the correct pronunciation?

[TY T]

how to learn tone rules better in order to know how to write? 3 class of consonants has nothing to do with tones.

[Brian L]

The 3 classes of consonants has everything to do with tones. If you didn't know the classes, you wouldn't know the tones when reading Thai