ไทย · Beginner 1(a)
Learn to type in Thai
Home row anchors
Settle both hands on the home row: A S D F for the left, J K L ; for the right.
Physical key labels appear above. ไทย layout labels appear below. These three rows produce 23 of the 38 characters the practice words here use; the rest are reached with a modifier or a dead key.
Learning to type in Thai
Thai is written in its own script, whose marks combine with base letters into single written units — so one keystroke is not one character on screen.
The speed test and the games draw on one bank of 51 common Thai words — 38 distinct characters in all, averaging 3 written units per word. The beginner course works outward from the home row in nine stages, and a drill is finished only when it has been typed cleanly three times — the default, adjustable in Settings. That repetition is the point: speed is a by-product of not making mistakes, and chasing it directly produces fast typists who then have to go back and fix everything.
One written unit in Thai is often two or three keystrokes, and the 51 practice words here average 3 written units each — so a word of ordinary length is a good deal more work than its length suggests. That is the figure to hold on to when your Thai speed looks low beside your English: the score counts what appears on screen, and your hands pay for what it took to put it there.
Frequency beats duration in Thai by a wider margin than in most languages, because what you are building is a composing order and composing orders decay quickly between sessions. Ten minutes daily will take you further than an hour on Sunday.
One number is worth carrying into the first session. About 57% of the letters in these Thai words come from just ten characters. Get those ten genuinely automatic — not merely findable — and the rest of the layout stops being the thing standing between you and a readable sentence.
- Writing system
- Thai
- Keyboard layout
- Kedmanee
- Direction
- left to right
- Mapped characters
- 28
- Practice words
- 51
- Distinct characters
- 38
- Average word
- 3 units
Characters that come up most in these Thai words
- ่20
- น19
- ก14
- ี12
- ง11
- ล10
- า10
- เ10
- ้9
- ห9
- ั9
- ม8
Counted across the 51 practice words — the ones worth recognising first.
มือที่สงบค้นหาแถวหลักของแป้นพิมพ์ได้อย่างง่ายดายNo spaces between words, and four levels of keys
Thai does not put spaces between words. Spaces mark the ends of clauses and sentences instead, which means working out where one word ends and the next begins is something the reader does — and something software has to be taught to do, making Thai word-breaking a well-known hard problem.
The script has 44 consonants, 15 vowel symbols that combine into around 28 forms, and four tone marks. Vowels can be written before, after, above or below the consonant they follow in speech, so the visual order and the typing order are not the same.
That volume of characters means the Thai keyboard uses all four levels — unshifted and shifted, across both the letter block and the number row — and the number row carries Thai characters rather than digits in the unshifted position. Kedmanee is the standard layout; Pattachote is a more efficient alternative from the 1960s that, as usual, lost.
Questions about typing in Thai
How often should I practise Thai?
Briefly and often. What you are building is recall, and recall decays between sessions, so ten minutes on most days will take you considerably further than an hour once a week. Stop while it is still going well — practising past the point of fatigue rehearses sloppy motion.
Where should I start with Thai?
At the beginning of the beginner course, even if you already touch type in another language. The nine stages start on the home row and add keys outward, and the early ones are short. If Thai is a script you have never typed, the first stage is doing more work than it looks like — it is building the map, not the speed.
How long does learning to touch type in Thai take?
Longer than a week and shorter than you fear — and it depends far more on how often you practise than on how long each session runs. Short daily sessions beat long weekly ones by a wide margin, because what you are building is recall and recall decays between sessions. The streak counter exists for that reason.
Do I need a Thai keyboard?
No. Printed Thai keycaps are sold and they are not worth it for a touch typist: you are trying to learn a map, and a visible map delays that. Select the Kedmanee layout in your system settings and use the on-screen guide below instead, which you can turn off once it stops helping.
Which Thai keyboard layout do these lessons use?
Kedmanee, with 28 characters mapped across the standard key positions. The 51 practice words between them use 38 distinct characters. The keyboard guide below the typing area shows the physical key and the character it produces together, so you are never reading a layout diagram in one window while typing in another.
What will I actually be typing in Thai?
Sequences of the keys each stage has introduced — single letters first, then pairs, then short chunks — in Thai as the Kedmanee layout produces it, rather than transliterated into Latin letters. The point of the course is the position of a key rather than the vocabulary. The 51 common Thai words in the practice bank are what the speed test samples and what the games pull from, once the positions stop needing thought.
Is Thai hard to type?
Harder than a one-key-one-letter language, and for a specific reason rather than a vague one: marks combine, so a written unit takes several presses in a fixed order. The bank here averages 3 units per word with a fairly compact inventory of 38 characters across the practice bank. The keystroke count is higher than the visible length suggests, which is what makes early progress feel slower than it is.
Do I need an account, and is it free?
No account, no payment, no trial. Progress is stored in this browser, which is enough until you want it on a second device or on a leaderboard — that is the only thing an account buys, and it is optional.
Also in Thai: the speed test and typing games.
Other languages whose letters combine as you type: Urdu, Arabic, Assamese, Bengali, Burmese, Gujarati. Or browse all 86 by writing system.
Further reading
- Typing Thai: four levels, and no spaces between wordsThai writes without spaces and needs more characters than one keyboard level holds. What that means for a typist, and what a keyboard chart can show.
- Typing in a second scriptIf you already touch type, your hands transfer completely and your recall does not. What that gap feels like, why it closes, and how to shorten it.
- What touch typing isTouch typing means typing without looking, using all ten fingers from a fixed home position. What it is, why it works, and what it is not.