luteplayer1981

Hello Chemist

I would recommend you look in the area of Onnut bts station extending over to Onnut road (soi 77). There are several condo developments in the area. One low-rise complex of buildings is called The Link which often has sublet or rental signs on posts, just across the street from the Lotus parking lot on soi 50. There is also a condo building about 20 meters from the Onnut fresh market (go in to the market parking area) which has tons of food options, food courts in the morning and day and is opposite a Big C mall with other shopping options. I have seen a couple of anubans (kindergartens) up on Onnut road away from Sukhumvit, but there are plenty of schools in the area. There are many developments in the area as you will see if you take stroll around.

Travelling from Onnut station on the skytrain (bts) to Siam (chula) takes 15-20 minutes depending on time of day and volume of passengers. From there you are within walking distance to most faculties.

As for green space, this is Bangkok so you must lower expectations. However, probably the best kept secret in the green space department is the Chula campus itself which is an oasis of peace in the center of the city with cheap food cantines for students and staff, cafes galore, free bus shuttle (4 routes) to and from the Siam bts station, several exercise facilities including a virtually new sports complex with 50 meter pool and programs for kids as well as others. This is in addition to libraries, bookstores, parks, etc. all within walking distance of the National Stadium bts stop (or Sam Yan underground) from which you can get to Onnut station in 20 minutes.

Living on campus is not such a good idea due to limited options in markets and cost of living in addition to the problem of living where you work (running into students/colleagues when not working,etc.).

Keep in mind, rental prices go up the closer they are located to the bts. You pay for convenience, however there are plenty of places in the vicinity within your budget.

Good luck!

Re post 72 and 73 and the issue of the meaning of 'residing' according to section 38

Both of these posts are repeating the misinterpretation of the section that the immigration officers are insisting on.

With respect to Maestro's post, in fact, for the past 8 years of reporting and visa renewals, I have never been registered as having an official residence either in my abode in CM or in Bkk. In fact, when I asked the immigration officer to search their database for such record, they could not locate one. In other words, their error in insisting I must report in CM only was not based on having an official residence there. Again, assuming I must submit a change of residence any time I wish to make a 90 day report to either location, neither of which is officially my residence for immigration purposes, is obviously ludicrous. If I work 5 days a week in Bkk and do not have time to go to CM on the day I need to report, then of course I must report at Chang Wattana and use my Bkk address, which I have done for 8 years and which no section in the act specifies is not allowed. If then I happen to spend a few weeks in CM which coincides with a 90 day report, then I obviously will not hop on a plane just to come down to Chang Wattana to report. I'll do it in CM and use that address which is ALSO my residence.

Now this dual location reporting, with two addresses, has been the norm and not objectionable for 8 years. As stated, I am not registered in either location and neither Bkk nor CM immigration has ever made an issue of it since I do not 'change address' every time I travel to CM for a few days, weeks or months, nor when I spend several months in Bkk. They are both my residences and this is fact, though neither is registered with immigration. This is not mentioned in the ACT and so should not be an issue. It is only since March or April of this year that immigration is making it an issue.

In response to Faz in post 72, as I was never registered with immigration in any city in Thailand, and visa renewals are processed in Chang Wattana, without comment, then according to your logic, the official at Chang Wattana should have insisted I report there only. This is what I tried to do by mail while still in Bkk. That is when she called me on the phone and said I was not allowed to do so because I have made a 90 day report in CM in the past few months, even though she was staring at my record of visa renewals and 90 day reports in Chang Wattana as she spoke to me . Remember, I am NOT registered in any location. I was simply informed in clear simple Thai, which I have been speaking fluently for 10 years, that I cannot have two residences (pen pai mai dai). And I am stating in accurate English translation exactly what I was told by the immigration officers in both locations: I cannot have two residences (tii pak asai). It was not an issue of being registered in one but reporting in the other. The fact that I am not registered on their system in either location is proof that they have no empirical case to claim I have a registered residence, which they never did since their records of my reports clearly show this pattern of alternation back and forth. This is not an exercise of 'prerogative' but fabricating a requirement that does not exist in section 38 of the ACT to which they referred me.

Moreover, obviously it is entirely possible to reside in two places at the same time. If I spend 3 days a week in CM and the other 4 in Bkk, and repeat this pattern frequently, this is not a change of residence. It is simply travelling between the two which are permanent and unchanging domiciles -not new residences- I have lived in, resided in, and made reports from for 8 years. Since I am not registered in either location, that obviously is moot. It is absurd to insist that one make a change of address application each time they wish to report from one or the other of their two permanent residences.

I see that I have not mastered the ability to abide by fabricated rationalizations a la Thai quite as adeptly as some.

There is nothing in the ACT which states one cannot have, or reside in two residences at the same time. Period. This however, is what is being claimed by the immigration officials and the two posters. This is what I am calling a misinterpretation of the section of the Immigration Act.

To continue

According to this paragraph 2 of section 38, my reports and applications should use my Bkk address as that is where my visa renewals are issued. Besides this, I am not applying for a change of address as my point was to state clearly that I have 2 addresses: one in Bkk and one in CM. This is what the immigration officers in both locations stated explicitly is NOT ALLOWED. This has nothing to do with applying for a change of address (TM30) since neither of my two addresses has changed in the past 8 years.

The point is, the quoted section of the Act says nothing about a temporary resident having more than one residence but for some reason, immigration is now stating that this is in fact the case.

To respond to post Faz in post 67

Your claim is factually false. For the past 7 years of 90 day reporting, my address has varied on forms submitted(TM47) between CM or Bkk, wherever I happen to find myself at the time of reporting. The fact that my visa extensions are ALL processed in Chang Wattana is obviously not relevant since I was explicitly informed by two immigration officers at Chang Wattana and two in Chiang Mai immigration that I was to use ONLY MY CHIANG MAI TEMPORARY ADDRESS, not my Bkk address when making 90 day reports (TM47). The point the officers are making, and that they stated no less than 20 times, is that I may have only one address on ALL applications, whether for visa renewals or 90 day reports or other extensions, etc, and that I must use only the CM address as it was the last one made from which they, arbitrarily, decided to start noticing in June,2015.

It is true that the law they refer to, section 38 of book 4 of the immigration act, states in paragraph 2 that

In case the house , dwelling place , or hotel where the alien has stayed under provision of Para.1 is located within the Bangkok area , such notification must be reported to the competent official at the Immigration Division

I would like to point out that this unfortunate applicant was not in the wrong to think that the immigration officer was being vexatious. She certainly was. Unfortunately, she was following a recent directive being enforced across the entire country, which I discovered in June. I have been living between Chiang Mai and Bangkok for 8 years. My spouse has a home in CM while I rent in Bkk. For 8 years I have made visa applications and 90 day reports in whichever location I happened to be i.e. while in CM, I do my reports at CM immigration and while in Bkk, my 90 day reports have been sent to Chang Wattana. In so doing, I always write the local address on my forms i.e. in CM when reporting there, and local address in Bkk when reporting there. Suddenly, last June, I was called by an immigration officer from the Chang Wattana office, where I had made my most recent report, and told that I could NOT use my Bkk address on my reporting forms. When I asked why not I was told that I am NOT ALLOWED to have two locations. When informed that I actually am employed in Bkk and must report there on most occasions and that it would be inconsistent to put my CM address on forms when reporting in Bkk, I was told again that I am NOT ALLOWED to have two addresses. After explaining the situation, i.e. pointing out that in reality I have two addresses and no tabian baan, so whichever address I report should be irrelevant provided it is consistent which the last 8 years of records prove, the officer once again stated I am NOT ALLOWED to have more than one address. So much for reason.

I was then informed in CM immigration that the immigration department is strictly enforcing (their erroneous interpretation of) section 38 of book 4 of the Immigration ACT B.E. 2522 which states that

the alien concerned.

It is apparent that immigration officers, with little understanding of legalese (I'm referring to the original Thai legalese, not the translation) are misinterpreting this section of the Act to mean that wherever your tii pak asai (residence) may be is where you must report or apply for visas, etc. They then infer, incorrectly, from this that one may not have more than one tii pak asai (the law says nothing about this possibility which they are thus misinterpreting) though it is obvious that many do. I believe this is the source of the errant immigration officer's behavior with regard to the OP in this case. She was not unique, as I say, since I was informed by immigration officers in both CW and CM that I am NOT ALLOWED to have two residences, even though they acknowledge when checking their own record of my reports over the past 8 years that, I ACTUALLY DO HAVE two residences, and it was never a problem for them before (since the law says nothing about this situation).

This is obviously an absurd situation which will not be cleared up anytime soon as the officers in question are all terrified of taking responsibility for interpreting the law differently (accurately) from their superiors who have misinterpeted the section to mean something that it doesn't (read it for yourself to see the truth of this statement).

One more absurdity should be mentioned. When it was pointed out to the officer in CM that if every 'house- master' in the country were to report the presence of a termporary guest on EVERY occasional visit, they would be inundated with extra paperwork and that therefore, this is an unworkable interpretation of the law and that furthermore, if a house-master does not report a temporary visit, immigration would have no way to know about the visit, it was stated by the officer that EVERY HOUSE-MASTER MUST REPORT EVERY TEMPORARY GUEST/VISITOR (foreign) every time, no matter how brief the visit.

Be forewarned. You are NOT ALLOWED to have more than one residence.

I hope all absurdities in this regard are now clear.

Yes Ratsima

I'm afraid I can't offer a solution for this problem that would satisfy the MFA but I do encounter this problem on a weekly and sometimes daily basis and have thought about its causes. I work in a university with Thai ajaans who despite years of English language training, including experience abroad in anglophone environments, still adhere to what I call the 'naive' theory' of translation. I am required to edit their articles and English language pedagogical materials including the occasional translation from Thai to English. They all have been taught somewhere along the way that when translating from Thai to English, they must avoid 'interpreting' (tii kwam) the material. For them, this means sticking to as literal a translation as possible which they take to mean that one word in L1 will have one or more exact corresponding terms in the L2 and adhering to this one to one word by word translation will result in the most faithful rendition. Of course, this is nonsense as it does not take into account the fact that words derive part of their meaning from context. Given the problem of polysemy, this can lead one to deviate very considerably from the meaning of the original sense. In addition to this is the fact that they fail to grasp that languages express concepts, relationships and even concrete referents in often radically different ways. Often in fact, one language will have a term or expression for some phenomenon for which there is no corresponding term in the L2. As an example of mistranslations from Thai to English due to different usage patterns in both languages, take the term kii kiat. This is often translated as 'lazy' in English. However, this will not do in a sentence such as ' kii kiat pai talaat' which I often here translated as 'I'm lazy to go to the market' etc. The correct term in common English usage would be something like ' I don't feel like' or ' I don't want to go to the market' as the collocation 'lazy to + infinitive' doesn't exist in standard varieties of English (excluding Tinglish that is). The problem is, since for the Thai native speaker the collocation 'lazy to + infinitive' makes perfect sense, as it is the word for word equivalent of the Thai original, they do not recognize that it is not acceptable as a translation in English on both pragmatic and syntactic grounds . That is to say, it is grammatical, but meaningless and does not convey the meaning of the original Thai into idiomatic English which reflects current usage because the structure does not exist in English. This is the crux of the problem as the non-native speaker does not perceive the ungrammaticality of their 'tinglish' translation. They also lose track of the goal of every translation which is to convey meaning in context accurately. This cannot be achieved by simply stringing together a series of single word translation equivalents and hoping they will retain the meaning of the original text. This attitude ignores the fact that syntax and pragmatics determine meaning, not simply lexical equivalency.

The case of your legal document is not quite so complicated however, as the meaning is quite obvious and can be conveyed in a straightforward sentence. The task is to inform the Thai speaker that their word for word translation does not retain the same meaning as the original since Thai syntax and word usage patterns are not the same as English syntax and usage patterns.

Sorry for the long reply. This post hit a nerve which I have to deal with frequently. The linguistic naivete of the educated Thai translator/editor is a source of constant frustration and astonishment for me .

Rising tone basically starts low, then rises to high. However, it actually starts a little bit higher than low, then dips to low before rising.

You might find http://thai-language.com/ref/tones useful. It has samples of each tone. Try listening and copying until you get the hang of it.

Re: realization of the high tone and the explanation on the thai-language.com website

While there is an interesting note on the thai-language site about a variant pronunciation of the falling tone when it is on a syllable with a short vowel length and non-sonorant ending (i.e. dead syllable) there is nothing on the 'allotone' of the high tone. In fact, the so-called high tone does also seem to have a variant realization which depends on its environment for which reason I refer to it as an 'allotone'( its use does not change the meaning of the word from that of the other form of the high tone). When a syllable ends in a sonorant consonant or vowel , excluding the glottal stop which is equivalent in Thai to a non-sonorant consonant for tonal determination purposes, the sonorant part of the syllable, or rhyme, then is long, so allowing more time for a long contoured tone. Thus, the high tone on an open syllable or a closed syllable with sonorant consonant ending e.g. n, m, ng, w,y, is realized as high and rising, i.e, it starts above the F0 of the mid-tone and perceptibly rises to a very high peak formant value. On the contrary, with a high tone on a syllable that has a short vowel and non-sonorant consonant ending (including glottal stop finals), there is insufficient time for an extended rising contour so the 'rise' of the high tone is minimal in comparison to that of the high tone on an open syllable or one ending in a sonorant consonant. The thai-language website fails to mention this allotone of the high tone.

This high-rising variety of the high tone in fact could be considered the 'underlying form' of the high tone on the basis of its higher frequency of occurrence while it could be argued the short minimal rising high tone is the allotone. Whatever the case, the high-rising tone can be observed in comparison with a falling-rising tone on an identical syllable on the word for horse ' maa- h'; and dog ' maa -falling-rising', where the length of the contours are similar and unlike that of a dead syllable.

See the Peter Ladefoged 'A Course in Phonetics' site for realization of the Thai tones with formant values, for an example of the high (rising) tone on an open syllable here http://www.phonetics.ucla.edu/course/chapter10/thai/thai.html

Re: Post #6 Rick Bradford

Your German academic is very close to as accurate as one can be about the most effective methods to learn vocabulary in an L2, especially early on in the process. There are in fact plenty of studies (cf. Webb 2009, Prince 1996, Nation 1990, 2001,Schmitt 2000,etc.)which corroborate the point that learning the basic vocabulary of any non-first language is most transparently effected through L1-L2 lists, decontextualized and with minimal semantic grouping, i.e. no synonyms, hyponyms, antonyms or other associated words. It appears that too much information overwhelms the cognitive capacities of learners and so simple translation equivalents in the L1 are the easiest and the quickest way to learn.

That doesn't mean that L1 translation is all one needs to learn to be able to use the vocabulary in real idiomatic, fully contextualized and discourse appropriate real time language. So when one learns a translation equivalent it is useful to add some form of phonetic realisation that the learner can interpret for accurate pronunciation and later , when the learner can produce the words consistently, then perhaps they can be put into a syntactic frame and other idiomatic expressions or meanings using the item could be added. These other aspects of the vocabulary information could be learned in concurrent, parallel learning phases so as to maximize productive capability in the shortest time for the learner but this assumes a motivated and skilled learner.

The usefulness of listening is also true in an immersion context. The listener/learner must of course be focused and inquiring so as to notice how native speakers use the language. Ideally, the learner will keep a notebook of these observations for later reference.

Unfortunately, the truth is for learners of a second language who are older than about 7 -9, the post-critical period, language learning mechanisms simply are not of the same type as those used by native L1 learners in natural settings. Again, there is plenty of research( DeKeyser 2000, Johnson and NewPort 1989 ) that verifies this 'Fundamental Difference' (Bley-Vroman) in the language learning capabilities and the methods that post-critical period learners must make use of.

So, the bottom line is, learn as much of the vocabulary through translation equivalents to maximise speed of vocabulary acquisition in the L2.

For a Thai non-native speaker of English to work at the university level, he/she will need a Phd to obtain a full-time position, or at least a Master's degree, preferably in TEFL or a related area to teach as a non-contract part-timer. They should probably also have some relevant experience teaching English (obviously). I know these are the minimum qualifications for Thais to teach at Chulalongkorn university in Bangkok. Other univesities may be more flexible about these requirements, but that would be determined by each institution. At the least, a Master's in (English language, English as an international language)education or TEFL(applied linguistics) or Linguistics, etc. would be a reasonable expectation for a Thai national to teach (non-contract) in most universities. Some institutions may also require a TESL certificate depending on the Thai applicant's area of study.

Excellent post, luteplayer.

All your points are sound. Perhaps a bit over the heads of beginners though.

Svenske, Lute's points are indeed mostly about sound, but not about language. The fact that an oscilloscope shows that the human voice rarely makes a perfect level tone is akin to the statement that nobody is able to draw a perfect circle freehand. Some people can clearly draw a better circle than others, but I have no problem recognizing anyone's attempts at drawing a circle and recognizing it as a circle and not confusing it with a square or a triangle. Of course language is far more complex than simple geometric figures and Thailand, until recently with the advent of national media and national education, was occupied by many dialects with influences from neighboring languages, not to mention the existence of historically relocated minority groups such as the "Yong" speakers south of Chiang Mai. So variation is still quite common and in the rural areas where these dialectical differences are still quite common, Thais love to sit around and talk about the differences in speech between one tambon and another.

And I am a bit confused over Lute's statement that Thai is a "shallower" orthography than English. Last time I looked, the Roman alphabet had a total of 26 symbols to represent some 44 English phonemes. Now if it was me looking for a metaphor to describe this situation, I might say that English is the "shallower" orthography.

Without referring to esoteric and inapt analogies I would say that the observations of my original post were in fact linguistically very conservative. Phonetics is all about measuring describing and explaining the acoustic properties of language, both natural and synthesized. Many instruments are used to do so. For details on the descriptions

 of the labels used for the Thai tones and the method of measurement you may refer to the Course on Phonetics website.

Dialectal variety is a fact of the broad region known as Thailand. In fact, there are over 70 languages spoken in this relatively small country. Nonetheless, the initial observations regarding the realisation of Thai lexical tones in the standard dialect made no reference to these variants, other than the Buriram example. To clarify, the referenced pitches were for a native Thai adult male speaker of 

standard Thai. It is not an exceptional example. It is the norm for the  'standard' variety of Thai. If however you have other research that indicates that the what we refer to as s

tandard Thai,  has another pattern of lexical tones, I would love to see it.

As to my use of the term orthographically shallow in referring to the Thai writing system, I refer you to Henry Rogers "Writing Systems: A linguistic Approach", 2005, Blackwell. Rogers defines and uses the terms shallow and deep to refer to orthographic systems which represent the morphemes of a language with varying degrees of transparency. Deep systems, such as English, Burmese, Tibetan, are those in which allomorphic variation is not well represented in orthography e.g. the vowel in the English word 'child' /tʃajld/ is written the same when the word is pluralized 'children' even though the vowel of the root has changed /tʃɪldrɛn/. Likewise in the words 'south' /sawθ/ and 'southern' /sʌðərn/ the changed vowel and consonant phonemes are represented with the same -ou- and -th- digraphs. This is what we refer to, in linguistic terminology, as an orthographi

cally deep writing system because there is no graphic representation of allomorph

ic variation. You must know the language to know how to pronounce these spellings

.

Thai and for example ,Finnish, are considered to be orthographically 'shallow' writing systems because they are closer to a one-to-one phoneme/grapheme system i.e. there are more examples of allomorphs written differently. 

As you can imagine, a Thai transliteration of the above

examples from English would use different vowel graphemes to represent the allomorphic variation in the words.

So, there was no 'metaphor' in my use of the term "orthographically shallow" to refer to the Thai writing system.

Excellent post, luteplayer.

All your points are sound. Perhaps a bit over the heads of beginners though.

For somebody who is starting out with Thai it is probably the least confusing to start with learning the theoretical tone rules of the writing system - even though this is not exactly how people pronounce words in reality, it is a relatively consistent standard to lean on for starters. To a person who can hear and appreciate the differences between the written standard and the spoken language, the actual phonetic realizations and exceptions will gradually develop anyway.

the dialect of the Buriram region (south) influenced by Khmer, realises the word laew 'already' as a high falling tone while standard thai orthography writes it is a high

tone and pronounces it as a rising tone.

I think the cursive part is a bit confusing.

The actual, pronounced pitch rises as in all long syllable 'high tone' words, yes, but the pitch contour is still not the same as the tone that is usually called 'rising' in Thai, which - pitch-wise - dips before it starts to rise. The 'high tone' in spoken แล้ว /láew/ does not have that initial pitch dip.

Regarding some assumptions in the observed responses to my original post, first, the aside about the realisation of orthographic high tones in Buriram dialect, which are actually realised as falling tones in natural speech, whether they start from a higher Fo, or relative pitch, or not (they do), they are still obviously falling tones in this dialect. For the locals who use the standard Thai dialect (standard central Thai or Siamese as it used to be called) this same orthographically high tone is realised as a rising tone though

 it does initially descend in pitch slightly. This may be cause enough to consider renaming it a falling/rising tone as exists in standard mandarin (the 3rd tone as in the word ma 'horse'). At least this would be less confusing to novice non-native learners of the Thai language who are told that there is a high tone, while in fact , as every critic

al listener and learner can attest, the so-called high tone is a rising tone, though it starts from a higher initial Fo (fr

equency) than the rising tone. So, as pointed out in the original post and shown in the reference , Thai 

actually has 2 rising tones, not a rising tone and a high tone. The fact that one

 starts higher than the other,then rises, is immaterial to the description of the acoustic reality. It m

ay even appear to casual observers of the language that the rising tone only rise

s, but as pointed out, it falls, then rises. To avoid confusion , let's refer to the orthographic rising tone as a falling/rising tone.

This is the source of much confusion to many non-native learners of Thai who also learn the conventions of the writing system. Wh

en told that a word like /naam/ 'water' is a hiɡh tone,one can be perplexed as to the desiɡnation, ɡiven the obvious contour of the tone. The reason it appears strange to us i

s that we have not learned the phonology of the language unconsciously as enfants

 as native Thais have. We are consciously learning rules to make sense of what we

 hear in order to use the sounds and rules for their organisation as instruments of communication. 

I for one, do not feel it is at all clear or helpful to a novice speaker of Thai to insist on misrepresentative names for discrete and otherwise discernable tonal characteristics of Thai syllables. Why it should be thought efficient or easier to mislabel the actual tones without clarification as to what is part of a Thai's mental representation (phonological reality) and what is phonetic reality is not clear. But this is the accepted way of teaching and learning the language that foreigners experience. Why not simply let learners know that a high tone in orthographic terms is realised as a high rising tone (at least in isolation as opposed to some tonal shifts which occur in compounds which transition? Seems it would save a lot of wasted time and unnecessary obfuscation. This is the observation I was forced to accept after observing many tens of thousands of conversations of native thai speakers. No Thai speaker ever explained the reality to me as, for the most part

, they are not conscious of it. But we are.

The purpose of referring to the Buriram dialect was only to mention that there are many dialectal varieties of Thai, dozens in fact, and that they too are rule based systems with alternative realisations for the same orthographic representations of standard thai. They are not exceptions. They exemplify different rule based systems often influenced by areal effects and sometimes even different underlying linguistic origins.

Just to clarify and add a little confusion to an already controversial subject, it seems when people discuss the nature of the lexical tones in standard Thai, whether educated Thai native speakers, Thai language teachers, or foreigners trying to learn and/or understand Thai phonology, there is much confusion as to what we are talking about. The Thai orthographic system, Thai phonological representation of lexical tones, and their phonetic realisation are 3 separate things.

To start, let's accept that in standard Thai at least, there are no level tones, but only contou

r tones i.e. tones which either rise, fall, or fall/rise or rise/fall from an initial fundamental pitch. This should not come as a surprise to an

yone who has really focused on the tonal fluctuations of standard Thai speakers.

It can also be verified by consulting Peter Ladefoged's Course of Phonetics website, chapter 10.7 where he has recorded a native speaker using all 5 standard lexical tones with an otherwise unchanging syllable. As can be seen and heard from measurements of the Fundamental frequencies (F0), all tones are contoured. Moreover, these contours do not correspond to those of the orthography. The reality is that though it is an orthographically shallow writing system when compared to say English or even Italian or Spanish, nonetheless, the graphemes of Thai and their system of organization evolved over a period of time and with a purpose that does not reflect an accurate representation of the phonetic realities of the modern standard spoken language. They were developed without the aid of sophisticated acousitical measurement or linguistic technique, so this is not surprising. What is surprising is that many learners are encouraged to believe that the orthography of Thai does represent its phonetic reality, rather than a phonological one. At any rate, I suggest any skeptics consult the Course on Phonetics website before continuing.

The 5 lexical tones of standard Thai with actual pitch measurements in Hertz are:

low tone= low falling; Fo from 100>89 Hz; na 'name'

mid tone= mid falling; Fo from 100>93 Hz; na ' field'

high tone= high rising; Fo from 105>140 Hz; na ' aunt'

rising tone= low falling/rising; Fo from 100>85>120 Hz; na 'thick'

falling tone= high falling; Fo from 140>70 Hz; na 'face'

As can be seen and heard, all the tones fluctuate from an initial fundamental frequency, ending at another higher or lower frequency by the end of the syllable nucleus. Of course women's starting Fo will be higher than men's and a child's Fo will be higher than an adult's. Nonetheless, the relative shape of the contour is the same, i.e. the pattern of frequency shift is reproduced whatever the starting fundamental frequency.

Not to add to the confusion, but there are many regional varieties of Thai , some of which realise the lexical tones differently from standard Thai. To mention only one instance, the dialect of the Buriram region (south) influenced by Khmer, realises the word laew 'already' as a high falling tone while standard thai orthography writes it is a high 

tone and pronounces it as a rising tone.

So, all in all, don't believe too much of what you read about Thai tones.

I hope this sheds some light on an otherwise controversial subject.

Quick question for all of the posters that have been asked to provide happy couple photos: Do you have Thai children?

As I understand it, photos have always been a requirement for childless couples (albeit not often enforced), but waived for those who've had children.

Hey guys

I have a question about this non-

O married to thai one year visa. I'm a canadian guy ,46, in chiang mai , just legally registered with my thai wife at the local Ampher here. I entered the country on a tourist visa, now expired. I want to apply for the one year(multiple entry?) visa based on status as married to a thai. It is a first time application. Do you know or know anyone who knows what docs I we will need to be successful? I have a bank account, and a house in my wife's name.And where should we do it? Penang? Another consulate? The immigration dept. in Bkk?

All details appreciated

Jim