Lao Helper - ລາວ
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Learning Lao / ຄວາມຮຽນລາວ

Visiting Laos next year I wanted to be a little bit prepared and learn as much of the lanugage as possible. While probably not entirely necessary since we'll mostly have a local guide and English and body language are usually enough in most countries, I always think it's nice to be able to communicate with the locals in their own language, and who knows, it might yield some better prices while bargaining at the market (ຕະຫຼາດ).

While there is some (but not all too much) information out there in a variety of media, I've decided to put together the bits and pieces that are important to me while learning Lao in this web app.

Script

Following the book "Lao Basics" (which has the advantage of coming with a huge amount of mp3 files spoken by a native speaker), I've started by learning the different symbols of Lao script and how to pronounce them.

Lao consists of 26 consonants (or 27 including one, that is no longer in use) and 6 (or 7) digraphs. Additionally there are 21 vowel symbols that can be combined around the consonants to create almost 50 different vowels.

The consonants and vowels tables include the Lao symbols, their romanization, examples and my best attempt to describe their sound. There are several videos on YouTube with native speakers going through all consonants and vowels, so make sure to check them out for proper pronounciation.

Tones

Lao is a tonal language, meaning that in addition to the pronounciation, also the (change in) pitch influences meaning, so that e.g. a 'maa' spoken at a high pitch can be a completely different word than a 'maa' spoken at a low or rising pitch.

Knowing how to write the words allows you to determine which tone has to be used, at least in theory. Which tone is actually used for a specfic consonant/vowel-combination depends on what region of Laos you are visiting and even for the more common dialects there are different opinions.

The most common dialect taught in different media is the dialect of the capital of Laos, Vientiane. I went with the easiest interpretation of that dialect using 5 different tones, as shown in the tone chart.

The romanization tool uses the tone chart to show the pronounciation including tones for any Lao text entered or pasted.

Grammar

With no conjugation or declination of any kind grammar in Lao is rather simple. The most important aspect that can often change the meaning of sentences is the word order.

A separate section about this coming soon...

Vocabulary

Definitely the most important part of speaking any language is knowning enough words to say what you want to say.

I've started assembling my own set of Anki flash cards for this, which I'm learning with every day now. I might add some important phrases & words to this page eventually.

References