ิ — sara i
«sara i» is a vowel of the Thai script, read as “short i (above)”. A quick i as in "bit"; written ABOVE the consonant. For example, in the word “กิน” — to eat. The Thai alphabet has 63 letters in total. On a carrier the character looks like this: อิ. It appears, for example, in the word “ยินดี ที่ ได้ รู้จัก” — nice to meet you.
In short
| Character | ิ |
| Name | sara i |
| Sound | short i (above) |
| What it is | a vowel |
| On the carrier | อิ |
In our course the character comes 53rd of 67: the order here is not alphabetical but from familiar to unfamiliar, its neighbours in the course are า and ี, appears in 624 words of this site.
How to type ิ
- On a phone: add the Thai keyboard in the keyboard settings (Gboard on Android; Keyboards in the iPhone settings).
- In Word on Windows: type U+0E34 and press Alt+X right after it — the code turns into the character.
- On a Mac: switch to the Unicode Hex Input source, hold Option and type 0E34.
- Type this sign after its base letter, even where it is drawn before it: letter first, then the sign, and they join.
- Unicode code point: U+0E34. With it, the character can be found in the character map of any system.
How it sounds
A quick i as in "bit"; written ABOVE the consonant
The character in a word
A lone character is hard to remember: memory holds on to meaning, and a letter has none. The word it stands in provides that anchor.
- กินкинto eat
The character in the “vowel marks around the letter” group
Shown on the carrier อ, as in a Thai classroom: by itself a vowel mark is not readable. Short and long pairs (ะ/า, ิ/ี, ึ/ื, ุ/ู) carry meaning as firmly as ship and sheep. They also decide whether the syllable is live. A short vowel with nothing after it makes the syllable dead, and that changes the tone.
Words with this character
How to remember this character
A single letter is the hardest thing to remember: memory has nothing to hold on to — a character has no meaning. A three-step loop works: see the character, try to recall the sound (for «sara i» it is “short i (above)”, as in the word “กิน”), see the right answer.
And come back to it the next day, not in an hour: a check a day or two later beats a check the same day. Nobody holds the whole alphabet — 63 letters — at once.
- It is better to test yourself the next day than at the end of the same session. That is why a word comes back to you tomorrow.checked many timesAdesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · g = 0.82 when tested a day or two later, against 0.56 on the same day.
- Studying a little every day gets more into your head than spending the same total time in one sitting.checked many timesDonovan & Radosevich, 1999, Journal of Applied Psychology 84(5) · 63 studies compared, difference d = 0.46 — a sizeable figure for a learning effect.
Frequently asked
How does the Thai character ิ read?
As “short i (above)” — it is a vowel of the Thai script. A quick i as in "bit"; written ABOVE the consonant. For example, in the word “กิน” — to eat.
What is the sign ิ called?
Sara i. A character's name and its sound are different things in the Thai script: it is called “sara i” and reads as “short i (above)”. Learn the second one: the name only helps when the alphabet is recited aloud.