ป 6 Thai Exam

[sabaijai]

And ESPECIALLY no bullshit like 'urie' for what you just said, or 'arawy' for delicious (aroi).

Chanchao, I agree, /urie/ for เอ๋ย is pretty farfetched. But what's wrong with /arawy/ for อร่อย ? Seems like a logical translit to me. If I saw /aroi/ I'd assume the Thai spelling was อโรย -- which is in fact the way a lot of farangs incorrectly pronounce อร่อย.

Seems to me in any good transliteration system you have to somehow account for the phonetic difference between /o/ and /aw/.

Same problem with the spelling 'soi' (lane), which has many foreigners pronouncing this word โซย instead of ซอย. Of course the 'soi' spelling has become so standard that most people are used to it, etc, though in a textbook transliteration of a Thai sentence or phrase containing ซอย a more consistent translit might be /sawy/.

Edited June 12, 2004 by sabaijai

[PvtDick]

Transliteration does more than anything else to screw up a Thai learner's pronunciation. That is why my teacher -- God bless her -- insisted that I wean myself of it as quickly as possible and use only Thai characters. The fact is that many Thai sounds cannot be approximated / differentiated using Latin letters. "Soi" is a good example...you will never pronounce it correctly if relying on transliteration. It is not like "soybean" in English, but more like "saw" where you close your mouth at the end. "Sawy" is OK, but unnatural to most farang eyes.

[sabaijai]

The Thai government does have a standard Romanisation system it recommends for official usage. It's the Royal Thai General Transcription (RTGT), devised by the Royal Institute's (Rajabandit Sathan) in 1982. Their website goes into some detail on this topic, in a .pdf file entitled Principles of Phonetic Romanisation (Lak-kehn kaan-thawt aksawn thai pen aksawn rohman baep thaai siang).

http://www.royin.go.th/

It's supposed to be used for highway dept signage, among other things, although local depts often pay no attention to the system, as Chanchao has noted.

Under the RTGT, our karaoke เอ๋ย would be transcribed /oei/. Of course the RTGT doesn't attempt to mark the tones in any fashion.

The system is far from perfect. It doesn't distinguish between ช and จ for example, transcribing both as /ch/. Long and short vowels aren't differentiated at all, and many other contrasting vowels and consonants are also thrown together under one Roman character. โอะ, โอ, เอาะ and ออ are all transcribed /o/ in this system, for example.

[sabaijai]

Transliteration does more than anything else to screw up a Thai learner's pronunciation. That is why my teacher -- God bless her -- insisted that I wean myself of it as quickly as possible and use only Thai characters. The fact is that many Thai sounds cannot be approximated / differentiated using Latin letters. "Soi" is a good example...you will never pronounce it correctly if relying on transliteration. It is not like "soybean" in English, but more like "saw" where you close your mouth at the end. "Sawy" is OK, but unnatural to most farang eyes.

That's how I learned as well, using Thai script from day one. As you say, no transcription system can devise a completely one-to-one correspondence with the Thai phonemes. The closest is the partially Roman-based International Phonetic Alphabet.

I believe AUA uses IPA in the beginning lessions, switching over to Thai script as soon as possible. That seems to work pretty well, judging from the many AUA 'grads' I know. I've never been to AUA myself, so that's not a personal plug ...

[snowleopard]

And ESPECIALLY no bullshit like 'urie' for what you just said, or 'arawy' for delicious (aroi).

Chanchao, I agree, /urie/ for เอ๋ย is pretty farfetched. But what's wrong with /arawy/ for อร่อย ? Seems like a logical translit to me. If I saw /aroi/ I'd assume the Thai spelling was อโรย -- which is in fact the way a lot of farangs incorrectly pronounce อร่อย.

Seems to me in any good transliteration system you have to somehow account for the phonetic difference between /o/ and /aw/.

Same problem with the spelling 'soi' (lane), which has many foreigners pronouncing this word โซย instead of ซอย. Of course the 'soi' spelling has become so standard that most people are used to it, etc, though in a textbook transliteration of a Thai sentence or phrase containing ซอย a more consistent translit might be /sawy/.

Seems like a logical translit to me. If I saw /aroi/ I'd assume the Thai spelling was อโรย -- which is in fact the way a lot of farangs incorrectly pronounce อร่อย.

I think you might want to spell it อะโรย instead !

The อะโรย spelling would make a helluva lot more spelling sense to me than the construction อโรย which doesn't really make sense!

Still neither sounds more delicious than the real McCoy!Namely อร่อย itself!

Cheers.

Snowleopard

[Richard W]

That's how I learned as well, using Thai script from day one. As you say, no transcription system can devise a completely one-to-one correspondence with the Thai phonemes. The closest is the partially Roman-based International Phonetic Alphabet.

What does the IPA miss? It should be able to handle any non-defective speech if you use enough diacritics.

[Richard W]

I think you might want to spell it อะโรย instead !

The อะโรย spelling would make a helluva more spelling sense to me than the construction อโรย which doesn't really make sense!

Still neither sounds more delicious than the real McCoy!Namely อร่อย itself!

I've commented on this at Irregular Tone Rule.

[friendlyfiend]

Hey PrvtDick......... howdy.

So, how do they grade it? and what is the pass rate you know? How did you go by the way? And do you get a certificate or something that has your grade on it? or it's just a pass/fail situation?

I will sit it this December I guess. I missed the application date for it last year.

My teacher at Uni said I wouldn't need to do any preparation courses because my level was easily up there.. But still, I wouldn't be too confident because I know the way Thais do things, and the exam might likely include certain subject matter with vocab i don't know..Is this true or is it just generally the basic 4 skills?

Sounds like you had ample time to complete it though.

Lastly is there a fee to sit it?

Cheers

FF

[PvtDick]

Hi.

It is just a pass/fail thing. I don't know what the standard is, or what the pass rate is. There is a small fee for applying -- a couple hundred baht, can't remember exactly.

The only thing that you might need special prep for is the letter writing section. There is a form and special vocabulary that apparently is taught to all elementary school kids in Thailand. You need to know how many inches from the margin to start the heading, where to put the return address, the proper way to address the envelope (down to the inch), and the proper greetings and sign-offs.

As mentioned above, I studied a couple weeks at Nisa Language School before the test, specifically to prep for the test. They know the test well, there.

[Trevor]

What is the advantage, if any, to foreigners having passed the Bor 6 examination?

[sjoca1]

Sure there are advantages to having the BAW 6 cert. To begin with it is the only formal accreditation a foreigner can get in Thai. In addition, it helps heaps when applying for jobs based in Thailand (though not necessarily from Thailand).

It is an advantage to have if you want to apply for PR etc. or for many things as it is an official bit of paper which carries wait in Thailand. And of course, you know whats going on around a lot better.

All QANTAS bangkok based cabin crew (foreign) now need to get the cert if they want to remain roostered in Bangkok. Thats why I did it.

[snowleopard]

It is an advantage to have if you want to apply for PR etc. or for many things as it is an official bit of paper which carries wait in Thailand.

I hope it's a typo and you mean,"carries weight" in Thailand!?

No more red tape delays and long bureaucratic waiting lines please!

Cheers.

Snowleopard.