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Things to know about Lao

Lao, also known as Laotian, is spoken in Laos, where it is the official language. There are also Lao speakers in parts of Thailand.

Typing Lao Characters

Lao is written in a syllabic alphabet, meaning that each character represents a consonant sound followed by an inherent vowel sound, which can be changed by adding diacritic marks. In addition, there are tone marks that can appear with other characters. Lao text is written from left to right, like English.

To type Lao characters:

  1. Position your cursor somewhere where you can type, and verify that the virtual keyboard layout is set to Lao.
  2. Locate the character you want on the virtual keyboard, then click on it or press the corresponding key on your physical keyboard. Additional characters are available by holding down the Shift key. To type the tonal marks that can appear with characters, type the character first, then type the mark. See Typing special scripts for details.

Learning Lao Tones

As you work with your Lao content, pay special attention to the tones used by the native speakers when they pronounce each word. Different tones can change a word's meaning. In many of the activities, you can listen to words as many times as you need to recognize their tones.

Using Transliterated Lao content

You may have some transliterated Lao content in addition to content which uses the actual Lao characters. Transliterated content can help you master vocabulary and pronunciation before tackling a new writing system.

You do not have to type actual Lao characters in transliterated Lao content. You can type the transliterations anywhere typed answers are required.

The transliterated Lao content may use a variety of special characters to indicate tone. See Typing accents or special characters for instructions on typing these characters.

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