BeccsLovesThailand

My Thai is fairly basic but quite a few years ago, I’d heard thai people say the words ‘I’ (chan, ฉัน) and ‘Chiang Mai’ (เชียงใหม่) with a much softer sound, almost like an ‘sh’ rather than a ‘ch’. I thought I’d give it a go and so dropped ‘Shan Mai’ into the conversation with the thais I was with and got quite fiercely told not to do that. I didn’t ask why I should’t do this and as it’s always bugged me, I thought I’d ask on this forum. Is it something only thai people can do?! 

Hi guys

I live in the uk and usually get over to Thailand for a couple of times a year, its the best I can do right now!

So I’ve been teaching myself Thai. I started with a teacher on preply a year ago but he wasnt very good so I stopped and have just recently started again with a lady who you can tell has much more teaching experience.

However, Ive come across an issue with tones.

The book we are using shows the english and the thai next to it (see attached clip). I am really confused because if you look at the words nôon, châi and mâi, they are all falling tone but on the thai script, it uses the low tone symbol ่ i.e. โน่น ใช่ ไม่ . Yet whenever they are voiced, they are always voiced falling tone. I have tried to explain my confusion to my teacher but she doesn’t understand.

To make things even worse, she is pronouncing nôon as noon with rising tone whilst I have always so far heard it pronounced on youtube as nôon.

And then to take things further, there are words such as à-rai (what?) which have a low tone according to the english spelling and how I have heard people say them but in the thai script, the word is mid tone.

What is going on? Im starting to get confused, I thought I had this down pat until I started thai lessons again!

Can anyone help me?