Thai script with English phonetics and translation?

[happy2]

I've always found language learning easiest when there's a written English approximation of the sound alongside the local (in this case Thai) characters. I made good progress with spoken Japanese this way, ignoring the reading aspect and just focusing on vocabulary and communication.

 

Regarding Thai I have two old books that I've found very helpful in building up conversational vocabulary here to a limited extent - the small yellow Robertson's dictionary, and the very thorough "Fundamentals of Thai language"  from the 1950s. Both offer a rendering of English phonetics alongside the Thai script and I've found this to be essential, very quick and user friendly in making progress. This subforum however has always felt a bit impenetrable for me, as in most threads I open, any examples I read are given in Thai script only and take me too long to unravel. Are there any major threads here (along the lines of the 3000 essential words type threads) that give English pronunciation and translation alongside the Thai script? I can understand the limitations of English phonetics, their inability to convey tones etc, but thus far the absence of this kind of stepping stone has kept me away. 

Edited January 21, 2018 by happy2

[Oxx]

You can paste blocks of Thai text into the following page where it will be converted to IPA and displayed alongside the Thai original.

 

http://thai-notes.com/tools/thai2ipa.shtml

 

The transcription used is explained at http://thai-notes.com/reading/lesson90.shtml

 

You also might find the FSI Thai Language Course good practice material http://thai-notes.com/FSITLC/index.shtml

Edited January 22, 2018 by Oxx
Added FSITLC

[Seligne2]

http://www.thai-language.com/id/590108

 

[tgeezer]

Firstly, I am sorry to hear that you find this forum impenetrable but it is probably because it is not what you want to be studying at this stage. That is not to say that if you start a topic people will not respond but it is difficult.  

 

Because the tones are so vital in Thai do you not think that emphasis on consonants and vowels might create an imbalence which didn’t exist in Japanese? In my experience you can only get away with wrong tones if you know a fair amount of Thai, so I would recommend that you study tones effectively.  วรรณยุกต์ wan na yuk (_ _ high)

ตำ dtum (-) ด่ำ dtum(low)) ต้ำ dtum (falling) ต๋ำ dtum (high) dtum (rising) 

 

Phew! If you knew how long it took to write that, two people have replied already, you would understand how much more simple it would be to learn Thai directly. 

 

[happy2]

25 minutes ago, tgeezer said:

Firstly, I am sorry to hear that you find this forum impenetrable but it is probably because it is not what you want to be studying at this stage.

Yes, this is what I thought, guess I need to use some more basic resources before I will benefit from this forum. My question was not meant as a criticism, more really along the lines of whether there are any areas of the language forum that I might not have seen yet, which do set things out almost like a simple phrasebook, with those kinds of short cut given?

. 

36 minutes ago, tgeezer said:

In my experience you can only get away with wrong tones if you know a fair amount of Thai

This is actually the case -  I can speak a fair bit of Thai conversationally, and even paying no attention to the tones I seem to be able to communicate and be understood. My reading is at beginners level though, so I've wound up putting this on the back burner. I can probably read about half the consonants, so I'll keep at it. 

[tgeezer]

Keep at it by all means, if you can still be understood with wrong tones you are in good shape and the best means is to learn the writing system.  If I can’t picture a word I find it difficult to remember it and phonetics gives no hint of tone. When I come across farangs speaking Thai I like to listen out and often find that their tones are not correct.  On reflection though if you know what they have got wrong it isn’t comprehension but euphonics ความไพเราะ which is the issue, should that be an issue? The Thais think it should be.  

 

Edited January 22, 2018 by tgeezer

[carlyai]

I recon that's the catch 22 with a tonal system.
When you first start to speak, with a limited vocabulary, your sentences are short, and if you don't get the tones correct, people won't understand the context of the sentence, and therefore not understand you.

So when you first start to speak, all your tones will not be correct, so you have to make the sentences as long as possible to be understood, but you don't have the vocabulary.

This is an imposing forum, as it takes your Thai language to another level, due to the competent contributors.

Be like me, just blurt in, it's all good fun. Mostly contributors are not to hard on you.

I think learning to read and write at the same time is a good idea, as sometimes you can say a word, one you have been saying for years and it may have been wrong, but in context people understood this poor farang. As an example: I've wired up a lot of my house during my build, and always referred to a piece electrical cable classifier as 'sen'. A few months ago, a shopkeeper couldn't understand me, because I only said a few words, and he said the word was 'en', and wrote it down.






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[Oxx]

3 hours ago, carlyai said:

always referred to a piece electrical cable classifier as 'sen'. A few months ago, a shopkeeper couldn't understand me, because I only said a few words, and he said the word was 'en', and wrote it down.

 

If by electrical cable you mean สายไฟฟ้า, then the classifier is sên - เส้น.  It's also the classifier for lûat - ลวด.

 

And as far as I can tell, there is no classifier "en" - at least in standard, Central Thai.

Edited January 23, 2018 by Oxx

[carlyai]

 
If by electrical cable you mean สายไฟฟ้า, then the classifier is sên - เส้น.  It's also the classifier for lûat - ลวด.
 
And as far as I can tell, there is no classifier "en" - at least in standard, Central Thai.

Got me now. [emoji848] And thanks for the correction. I always thought it was sen but ....dragging through my aged mind, I have a twinkle of a feeling that I may not have wanted electrical cable, but something like a length of electrical cable. That's about as deep as my brain will dig, but I was definitely corrected from sen to en (well it sounded like en).

Sorry for the confusion.

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[tgeezer]

เอ็น is ligament, a fishing line is referred to as เอ็น. I wonder if it might be used to describe a fibre optic. 

 เอน refers to something leaning เสาเอน , ไม้เอน the pole or tree is not straight. เอนหลัง lean back. 

Not helpful in this context but a good thing to google perhaps. 

[carlyai]

เอ็น is ligament, a fishing line is referred to as เอ็น. I wonder if it might be used to describe a fibre optic. 
 เอน refers to something leaning เสาเอน , ไม้เอน the pole or tree is not straight. เอนหลัง lean back. 
Not helpful in this context but a good thing to google perhaps. 

mr tgeezer, apart from being a gentleman, you're a mind reader!

I now remember what I wanted to buy. It was chord, like fishing line for laying bricks.
I remember that 'en' is ligaments as we have soup with extra 'en' at our favourite noodle place...all the vegetables you can eat and a big plate of noodles for B45.

So now I'll wait while you tell me why the classifier for lengths of cable and lengths of fishing line change?

Thank you.

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[carlyai]

เอ็น is ligament, a fishing line is referred to as เอ็น. I wonder if it might be used to describe a fibre optic. 
 เอน refers to something leaning เสาเอน , ไม้เอน the pole or tree is not straight. เอนหลัง lean back. 
Not helpful in this context but a good thing to google perhaps. 

Wouldn't that be fiBER ?

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[tgeezer]

My goodness, my spelling has gone to pot with spellchecker, there are two equal spellings fibre is what I may have written but it is what spellchecker gives me when I try fiber, so does that make my English American or English? I want English naturally but am on the point of giving up a hopeless fight, I switched off spellchecker for a while and got the most awful aberrations like “reletive” so I had to revive it. 

 

I don’t think that the classifiers are different, เอ็น is a noun meaning เส้นใย เส้นเอ็น, at the “coalface” provided everyone understands it doesn’t matter much. 

classifiers (ลักษณนาม) are only needed when quantifying and I can’t think how to quantify a length of rope wire fibre other than by unit of length. 

เอาเส็นเอ็น 5 เมตร์ 

Fixed length like tennis gut you have to explain เอาเอ็นไม้เทนนิส เส็นเดียว 

Then wait to be corrected if the sales assistant is a good one or hope that you have it correct.  Tennis rackets are strung for us so unless you wanted it for something else you simply ask ช่วยขึ้นเอ็นเทนนิส he will then ask กี้ปอนด์ how many pounds? 

[carlyai]

My goodness, my spelling has gone to pot with spellchecker, there are two equal spellings fibre is what I may have written but it is what spellchecker gives me when I try fiber, so does that make my English American or English? I want English naturally but am on the point of giving up a hopeless fight, I switched off spellchecker for a while and got the most awful aberrations like “reletive” so I had to revive it. 
 
I don’t think that the classifiers are different, เอ็น is a noun meaning เส้นใย เส้นเอ็น, at the “coalface” provided everyone understands it doesn’t matter much. 
classifiers (ลักษณนาม) are only needed when quantifying and I can’t think how to quantify a length of rope wire fibre other than by unit of length. 
เอาเส็นเอ็น 5 เมตร์ 
Fixed length like tennis gut you have to explain เอาเอ็นไม้เทนนิส เส็นเดียว 
Then wait to be corrected if the sales assistant is a good one or hope that you have it correct.  Tennis rackets are strung for us so unless you wanted it for something else you simply ask ช่วยขึ้นเอ็นเทนนิส he will then ask กี้ปอนด์ how many pounds? 

I now fully remember the context. I said I wanted 'sen jap plaa' or more like 'something like fishing line', 'mun sen jap plaa' because I like the chord better than the fishing line for brick work.

So with that and me jesturing catching fish, the answer was ' bor me'.

Then I pointed at some electric cable and said something like 'mun tinii, sen jap plaa'.

Still ' bor me'.

If I had said ' en jap plaa' do you think they would have had more of an idea what I wanted?

What would a Thai builder have asked for?



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[tgeezer]

For fishing I think that ตกปลา is the activity.  You seem to be managing alright so I assume that you don’t need phonetics. เส้นเอนใช้ตกปลา  might be enough to get a fishing line but you seem to want a chalk line เส้นชอล์ก same as the English. 

Is  “mun tinii” Same as this? 

 

 

 

[carlyai]

For fishing I think that ตกปลา is the activity.  You seem to be managing alright so I assume that you don’t need phonetics. เส้นเอนใช้ตกปลา  might be enough to get a fishing line but you seem to want a chalk line เส้นชอล์ก same as the English. 
Is  “mun tinii” Same as this? 
 
 
 

Yes, mun tinii is like this. I think I did say tok plaa as well.

My wife often says that she can understand my Thai, but sometime other people won't.

One of these days you'll have to teach me how to quickly, from the hand phone , write the Thai script. Maybe you have already?

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[tgeezer]

I expect that you know this already but your mun is supposed to be two vowels joined together so better represented as ; ‘meu’ an’ mid rising tone.  ‘Ti nii’ is ‘place this’ so you are saying ‘like this place’!

   

Writing is best done with a pen and it is a long job, learning the basics which I consider can be separated from learning to communicate is only worth it if you can derive enjoyment from it. 

 

Thai is written joined up but syllables are separated; สบายดีไหม. ‘Sa by di ma ee’  low mid mid mid rising. 

I think that if you try to go fast at first like a Thai, there is a danger of ‘mangling’ the words wrongly, start with perfect annunciation then ‘mangle’ it.

 I believe that there are apps which will translate and you simply hit ‘play’ instead of speaking! 

I have a ‘friend’ on Line called Th-EN translator but it is useless. 

Edited January 25, 2018 by tgeezer

[carlyai]

I expect that you know this already but your mun is supposed to be two vowels joined together so better represented as ; ‘meu’ an’ mid rising tone.  ‘Ti nii’ is ‘place this’ so you are saying ‘like this place’!
   
Writing is best done with a pen and it is a long job, learning the basics which I consider can be separated from learning to communicate is only worth it if you can derive enjoyment from it. 
 
Thai is written joined up but syllables are separated; สบายดีไหม. ‘Sa by di ma ee’  low mid mid mid rising. 
I think that if you try to go fast at first like a Thai, there is a danger of ‘mangling’ the words wrongly, start with perfect annunciation then ‘mangle’ it.
 I believe that there are apps which will translate and you simply hit ‘play’ instead of speaking! 
I have a ‘friend’ on Line called Th-EN translator but it is useless. 

Thanks, I am not sure now if I said meuan nii or meuan ti nii. I do know that ti means the place.

I better stop now before I get into more trouble. [emoji21]

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[carlyai]

You can paste blocks of Thai text into the following page where it will be converted to IPA and displayed alongside the Thai original.
 
http://thai-notes.com/tools/thai2ipa.shtml
 
The transcription used is explained at http://thai-notes.com/reading/lesson90.shtml
 
You also might find the FSI Thai Language Course good practice material http://thai-notes.com/FSITLC/index.shtml

มาทำบุญกองข้าวประปีที่วัดป่าภูน้อย

maa thambun kɔɔŋkhâaw prà pii thîi wát pàa phuu nɔ́ɔy

Great thanks again.

My first try at Thai to IPA. Seems to work very well.

Now I've got to remember where I've stored the translation information so I can do it again.

Still working on 'bird is a bird' and ' wood is wood' idiom. [emoji848]





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[Joosesis]

Regarding Thai I have two old books that I've found very helpful in building up conversational vocabulary here to a limited extent - the small yellow Robertson's dictionary, and the very thorough "Fundamentals of Thai language"  from the 1950s.

Just an aside, both of those are GREAT books and an excellent place to start. I still have both of those that I received from my exchange company in 1989. They are in tatters because of over-use. As you know, they both have a bit of Thai alphabet, too, so when you are ready to make the leap, you can still use them.

The important part.... at some point, you do need to make the leap. There are just so many different pronunciations of English that It's impossible to create a unified phonetic representation of Thai. For example ห้าม might be spelled 'harm' and sound okay in a British accent, but in my American accent, I am going to over pronounce that 'r'. 'Hahm' might be better for me.

I waited 14 years before I made the leap...and just relied on phonetics. However, once I did make the leap, a whole new world opened to me. I was able to see how badly I had been mispronouncing words.

The good part.... Thai is super easy to read. It is much more phonetic than English. Tones are still a mess (and a whole other language acquisition story) .... but with a little determination, you should be reading fairly quickly.

Don't be intimidated to use this forum with your phonetic questions. The problem is we just may not be sure what you're asking because everyone represents differently.

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