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Thai to English letters: the karaoke Thai romanizer

By lukkrueng.com editorsLast checked

Private: your text stays in this browser and is never sent anywhere. The first time you use it, the page loads a 159 KB dictionary from this site.

Romanization style

Romanization

Paste or type some Thai.

Examples from the Reply Thai app

ThaiFamily-friendlyRTGS
ยายสบายดีไหมyaai sa-baai dii maiyai sabai di mai
กินข้าวหรือยังgin khaao rue yangkin khao rue yang
ฟังออก แต่พูดไม่ค่อยเก่งfang ork tae phuut mai khoi gengfang ok tae phut mai khoi keng
ไม่อยากลืมภาษาไทยmai yaak luem phaa-saa thaimai yak luem phasa thai
ขอบคุณที่ดูแลหลานนะkhorp khun thii duu lae laan nakhop khun thi du lae lan na
ฝันดีนะลูกfan dii na luukfan di na luk

How this works

  1. Split into words. Thai has no spaces between words, so your browser’s own word splitter (Intl.Segmenter) breaks the text up. Where it can’t, the dictionary does.
  2. Look each word up. The dictionary has 17,402 words and phrases with their pronunciation, from English Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0), plus the Reply Thai app’s own spellings.
  3. Fall back to the spelling rules. A word that isn’t in the dictionary is read letter by letter with the rules of Thai script, and marked approximate with a dotted line.
  4. Write it out in the style you chose. Both styles come from the same pronunciation by fixed rules, so a word is always spelled the same way.

What it can’t do

  • Show tones (RTGS has none; the Thai script carries them). See the tone chart.
  • Know every name, nickname, brand or bit of new slang: those come out approximate.
  • Hear your family’s accent: it writes standard Central Thai, not Isan, Northern or Southern pronunciation.
  • Translate. It tells you how a word sounds, not what it means.

Want to read it yourself? Start with the Thai alphabet for heritage learners, or read why Thai romanization varies so much. To type Thai on your phone or computer, see the Thai keyboard guide.

Dictionary pronunciations: English Wiktionary contributors, via kaikki.org, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0; our dictionary file is shared under the same licence. Readings are drafts until our Thai reviewers have checked them.

Thai on this page comes from our app, Reply Thai, and our guides, and stays a draft until a native speaker has reviewed it. How we review Thai.

Questions people ask

What is “karaoke Thai”?

It is what Thai speakers call Thai written in the Latin alphabet, like the lyrics under a karaoke video, so you can sing (or say) along without reading Thai script. Linguists call it romanization or transliteration.

Why is the same Thai word spelled khrueng, kreung or krueng?

Because there is no single way people write Thai in Latin letters. The official system (RTGS) writes ครึ่ง as khrueng; everyday spellings drop the h or reorder the vowel (kreung, krueng). They are all the same Thai word. Our article on Thai romanization explains why.

Which style should I use: family-friendly or RTGS?

Family-friendly if you want to say the word: it doubles long vowels (yaai, grandma, vs yai, big) and spells จ as j and ก as g, the way the Reply Thai app does. RTGS if you need the official spelling, as used on Thai road signs and in many official names.

Does it show the tones?

No. RTGS has no tone marks, and the family-friendly style leaves them out too: the Thai script carries the tone. Use the tone chart in our Read Thai guide to work them out.

How accurate is it?

Words found in the dictionary use a pronunciation written by people (from Wiktionary), and the family-friendly style gives the same spelling as every phrase in the Reply Thai app. Words not in the dictionary, like many names and new slang, are read by spelling rules and marked approximate: treat those as a first guess.

Is what I paste sent anywhere?

No. The romanizing runs in your browser and your text never leaves your device. When you first use the tool it downloads one dictionary file from this site. Like every page here, it may count the visit with cookieless Cloudflare analytics, which never sees what you type.

Sources

All links read on .

  1. English Wiktionary, Thai entries (pronunciations), via the kaikki.org extract, CC BY-SA 4.0
  2. Wikipedia: Royal Thai General System of Transcription (the Royal Institute’s rules)
  3. Nitaya Kanchanawan, “Romanization, Transliteration, and Transcription for the Globalization of the Thai Language”, Journal of the Royal Institute of Thailand 31(3), 2006
  4. MDN: Intl.Segmenter (word splitting in the browser)
  5. PyThaiNLP corpus licences (evaluated; see our licence notes)

Spotted a mistake? Tell us and we’ll fix it.