Why do I have to learn about a chicken for Thai consonants?

[johnray]

I have to learn the consonants but I don't understand why they are full words.

 

Like ก is chicken?

 

So if I said a word with g I would say kaw gai?

 

Now I am confused what is kaw?

 

Does Thai not have the same basic phonics as English?  Open mouth for A, closed lips for B?

Edited December 7, 2017 by johnray

[Joosesis]

In Thai language learning, they separate vowels and consonants so you won't see them together like in the English alphabet.

Gaw is the sound of ก
Gaw Gai is the sound with an example word ไก่ meaning chicken.

For ก that might seem kind of redundant, but there are several consonants that have similar sounds. P, for example, is represented with 3 different consonants ภ พ ผ . To specify which one you are using, you would use both the sound -- Paw and also the sample word. - sumpow
ภ. สำเภา
(Sorry I don't have a lot of experience writing with phonetics. I hope my phonetics don't confuse you.)

I have found that both ways of spelling put loud are used, but especially on the double consonants, Thai people will emphasize with the example word.

It seems like a lot at first, but the benefit is that when you are done with the alphabet, you'll already know 44 words!



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[tgeezer]

Jooosesis has explained it. If you look at my post of a week ago ก เอ๋ย ก ไก่ you will see that I suggest that in the process of learning the 'Thai alphabet' a huge vocabulary can be learned, many more than a measly 44 words. A few people have looked at it but no comments, is it too difficult or is vocabulary a matter of learning words rather than language?

 

 

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[Katia]

Also keep in mind that a lot of kids are taught English with things like "A is for apple.  B is for bus," etc.  It's also similar to that.

[tgeezer]

I have to learn the consonants but I don't understand why they are full words.
 
Like ก is chicken?
 
So if I said a word with g I would say kaw gai?
 
Now I am confused what is kaw?
 
Does Thai not have the same basic phonics as English?  Open mouth for A, closed lips for B?

Just in case you haven’t twigged it yet.
Thai is the same as English in that a consonant is nothing much without a vowel, eg. B is said Bee, C >See, D>Dee, F>eF
Thai is more simple in that the vowel อ= ‘or’ is the vowel used with every consonant so ก > กอ = (G > Gor)
I believe that since I went to school English has adopted the same system Beu, Ceu, Deu, Feu ...
In the same way as we can say: ceu for cat, deu for dog, Feu for fog .... Thai says Gor Gai, Kor Kai.... imagine ‘for’ which Thai doesn’t need to utter, actually maybe English doesn’t either.

So if you are learning Thai when you see a Thai consonant represented phonetically in English say it the Thai way, T is not Tee but Tor.

Apologies if you didn’t need this, I learned it a long time ago so am guessing what your problem may be.





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[simon43]

I believe that since I went to school English has adopted the same system Beu, Ceu, Deu, Feu

Well not quite.

English has 26 letters, A - Z, and these are usually spoken as Ay, Bee, See etc

But those 26 letters represent 44 phonetic sounds, which is where you get the pronunciations Beu, Ceu Deu etc.

I won't list all these sounds ('cos this forum is all about Thai, not English!). But this web-page:

http://www.dyslexia-reading-well.com/44-phonemes-in-english.html

gives a very good description of these 44 sounds, including example words

[tgeezer]

You may well be right, but as you point out this is not about English.
It is interesting if English uses 26 letters to produce 44 sounds because Thai used 44 letters to produce 25 sounds, it would be nice if it could be made 26 wouldn’t it. I added them up in my head so it may well be 26


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[tgeezer]

One major difference between En. and Th. of course that Th. has nine vowels and they are recorded separately.

A discussion could be had on whether consonants can make any sound at all. I tried to explain without A Apple for that reason, English can have a vowel as an initial letter but is it true to say that Thai cannot?

 

 

 

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Edit: Maybe I should say ‘initial consonant’.

พยัญชนะ is the word if we are to separate the two languages.

[Radar501]

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?   It's a problem that has baffled scientists and philosophers for centuries.   But the Thais knew the answer all along.

Edited December 9, 2017 by Radar501

[tgeezer]

A very good point and I missed it!


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[Katia]

On 12/9/2017 at 7:54 AM, tgeezer said:

You may well be right, but as you point out this is not about English.
It is interesting if English uses 26 letters to produce 44 sounds because Thai used 44 letters to produce 25 sounds, it would be nice if it could be made 26 wouldn’t it. I added them up in my head so it may well be 26


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It would be nice if English had more vowels like Thai, so there's no ambiguity in how they're pronounced...

 

Really no point in playing the "which language is better" game, is there?  I could scour every language of the world and find ways in which it is "better" or "worse" than others.  They are what they are.

[carlyai]

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?   It's a problem that has baffled scientists and philosophers for centuries.   But the Thais knew the answer all along.

This is such an interesting and special forum. It's soooo enjoyable, but as an armchair, Leo swilling poster, a bit daunting at time.
I applaud the strength of the posters.

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