How to Type Thai: Add a Thai Keyboard on Phone and Computer

Every phone and computer already has a Thai keyboard; you only need to switch it on. On an iPhone or iPad, go to Settings > General > Keyboard > Keyboards > Add New Keyboard > Thai. On Android, add Thai in your keyboard app (Gboard: Languages > Add keyboard). On a Mac or a Windows PC, add Thai as an input source or a language. All of them use the standard Kedmanee layout, and every Thai syllable is typed in a fixed order: leading vowel, consonant, vowel above or below, tone mark, then the vowel that follows.

The rest of this guide shows each setup step by step, where to find the vowels and tone marks, and the small habits that make Thai typing fast: ๆ, numerals and the famous 555.

How to add a Thai keyboard on iPhone and iPad

1. Open Settings > General > Keyboard > Keyboards.
2. Tap Add New Keyboard… and choose Thai in the list.
3. In any app, tap the globe key at the bottom left of the keyboard to switch languages. Touch and hold it to pick a keyboard from the list.

Thai has 44 consonants, more than fifteen vowel signs and four tone marks, far more than fit on three rows of phone keys. The iPhone keyboard therefore puts the most common characters on the main layer and the rest on a second layer that you open with the shift key (⇧). If you cannot find a letter, it is almost always on the shifted layer.

On an iPad with a hardware keyboard, the same Thai keyboard is used, and the keys follow the Kedmanee positions shown below.

How to add a Thai keyboard on Android (Gboard)

Gboard, the default keyboard on most Android phones, handles Thai well.

1. Open the Gboard settings: tap the gear icon on the keyboard, or go to Settings > System > Languages & input > On-screen keyboard > Gboard (the exact path varies a little by phone maker).
2. Tap Languages > Add keyboard and search for Thai.
3. Pick a layout. Keep the standard one if you want to learn real typing; choose handwriting if you would rather draw the letters with your finger.
4. Tap Done, then switch languages with the globe key or by touching and holding the space bar.

Samsung phones also have their own keyboard; there, Thai is added in the keyboard settings under Languages and types.

How to add a Thai keyboard on a Mac

1. Open System Settings > Keyboard.
2. Under Text Input, click Edit… next to Input Sources.
3. Click +, choose Thai, then select Thai (the Kedmanee layout) or Thai – Pattachote, and click Add.
4. Switch with Control-Space, the input menu in the menu bar or, depending on your settings, the globe (fn) key.

Tip: the input menu has a Show Keyboard Viewer option. It displays a live map of the Thai keys on screen, and it changes when you press shift, which is the fastest way to learn where things are.

How to add a Thai keyboard on Windows

1. Open Settings > Time & language > Language & region.
2. Click Add a language, search for Thai and install it.
3. To change the layout, open the … menu next to Thai, then Language options > Add a keyboard. You will see Thai Kedmanee, Thai Pattachote and their “non-ShiftLock” variants.
4. Switch with Windows key + Space.

In Thailand, many computers are set up so that the grave accent key (`, above Tab) switches between Thai and English. Windows offers this choice in its input language hot key settings once Thai is installed; it is worth enabling if you switch often.

Kedmanee and Pattachote: the two Thai layouts

Kedmanee (เกษมณี) is the standard. It comes from Thai typewriters of the first half of the twentieth century, it is printed on almost every keyboard sold in Thailand, and it is the layout every Thai person learns at school and in the office. Pattachote (ปัตตะโชติ) was designed later to place the most frequent letters under the strongest fingers, and it is still available on Mac and Windows, but almost nobody uses it.

Learn Kedmanee. Every keyboard you meet in Thailand, every typing tutor and every online keyboard chart assumes it.

Where are the Thai vowels and tone marks?

On a physical keyboard with a US layout, Kedmanee puts the most common Thai letters on the home row:

A S D F G H J K L ; ’ → ฟ ห ก ด เ ้ ่ า ส ว ง

Your index fingers rest on ด and ่, and the two most common tone marks sit side by side in the middle of the keyboard. The table below gives the position of every vowel sign and tone mark you will use daily.

Two letters on the keyboard, ฃ and ฅ (backslash and Shift + backslash), are obsolete: they are still in the alphabet but no modern word uses them. If the names in the table are new to you, the vowels section of our Thai alphabet guide and the part on tone marks explain what each sign does, with audio.

In what order do you type a Thai syllable?

Thai writes vowels before, after, above and below the consonant. Computers store a syllable as a single sequence, and you must type it in that sequence:

1. A leading vowel (เ แ โ ใ ไ), if there is one. It is written before the consonant, so you type it first.
2. The initial consonant, or both consonants of a cluster (คร, กล…).
3. A vowel above or below the consonant (ิ ี ึ ื ุ ู ั ็).
4. The tone mark (่ ้ ๊ ๋) or the silencing mark ์.
5. A following vowel (า, ะ, ำ…) and then the final consonant.

Notice two traps. In น้ำ, the tone mark comes before ำ, because ำ is a vowel that follows the consonant. And in ใกล้, the tone mark goes on the second consonant of the cluster, ล, so you type it after ล.

Why does the order matter if the word looks right? Because a word typed in the wrong order can look identical on screen but be a different string of characters. Search engines, spell-checkers and dictionaries will not recognise it, and some fonts will show the marks stacked strangely or with a dotted circle. Also, do not build ำ from two pieces: it has its own key (E).

One more difference with English: Thai does not put spaces between words. You type a whole phrase as one block and use a space only where a comma or a full stop would go in English. Your phone and computer know where words end and wrap lines correctly.

Typing ๆ, Thai numerals and 555

ๆ (máai-yá-mók) repeats the word before it: ช้า ๆ cháa-cháa (“slowly”), มาก ๆ mâak-mâak (“really, a lot”). It is on the Q key. The official rule is a space before and after it (ช้า ๆ หน่อย), but in messages people often attach it to the word (มากๆ).

Thai numerals (๑ ๒ ๓…) are on the shifted number row, but not in order: ๑ is Shift + 2, ๐ is Shift + Q, and the baht sign ฿ is Shift + 7. In practice you will rarely type them, because Thai people write prices, times and phone numbers with ordinary digits. The catch is that in Thai mode the number row of a computer types letters (ๅ / - ภ ถ…), so to type 1, 2, 3 you switch to English or use the numeric keypad. On a phone, the 123 key gives ordinary digits as usual. To read Thai numerals, see the numerals section of the alphabet guide and our article on Thai numbers.

555 is how Thai people laugh in writing. Five is ห้า hâa, so 555 reads “ha ha ha”. You will see 55 for a small laugh and 55555+ for something really funny. Other chat habits include casual spellings of the polite particles, such as คับ for ครับ, explained in our guide to Thai polite particles.

Tips to type Thai faster

• Use handwriting to look up a word. Gboard’s handwriting layout lets you copy a word from a menu or a sign by drawing it, even before you know the keyboard. Then paste it into a dictionary.
• Try voice typing. Both the iPhone dictation (the microphone key) and Gboard voice typing work in Thai. If the phone writes the word you meant, your pronunciation was at least close; if not, check the tone.
• Keep the keyboard map in view. Stickers for physical keys are cheap in Thailand, the Mac Keyboard Viewer shows the layout live, and Windows has an on-screen keyboard (search for “On-Screen Keyboard” in the Start menu).
• Type the words you learn. Typing a new word forces you to spell it letter by letter, which is excellent reading practice. If you are learning the letters at the same time, the alphabet section of Kru May lists the 44 consonants with their names, the 32 vowels and the numerals, all with audio.
• Write real messages. In the story The message, Mali texts Hugo in Thai and he cannot read it. Sending your first short texts, even just ขอบคุณครับ kɔ̀ɔp-kun kráp or ขอบคุณค่ะ kɔ̀ɔp-kun kâ, is the best way to stop being in Hugo’s place.