I found that translating the sounds helps with pronunciation but not memorising the writing, like the main vowel sounds "Sala meaning vowel as follows: "A" short vowel like the English vowel sound, and then aaa long vowel sound, you will see the trend between short and long A, Aaa, E, Airr, oo, ooot , ut, urrr... etc it helps to have a Thai friend cross reference everything once you have the basics you can work from there :)