Rolling r's in Thai?

[Briggsy]

9 minutes ago, DannyCarlton said:

I pronounce it "baa" and so does every Thai I know.

How do you differentiate when you pronounce auntie, paa (falling tone) from insane, baa (falling tone)?

 

If you are using the same consonant, when it should be a different consonant, you'll be calling auntie insane! Might get you in trouble.

[Chou Anou]

Rolling r's in Thai is usually a case of conscious 'proper' speech/hypercorrection (as in the case of the OP's teacher), though there are several dialects of Thai in which rolling r's is prominent and natural...two that come to mind are Surin (Khmer native speakers carrying over the hard r's from their language into how they speak Thai) and many southern Thai dialects.

[Chou Anou]

17 hours ago, DannyCarlton said:

I pronounce it "baa" and so does every Thai I know.

No they don't. Don't project your inability to properly hear and pronounce initial unaspirated, unvoiced labial stops onto others.

[toofarnorth]

On 8/16/2019 at 7:02 PM, MartinL said:

A little story that's always amused me.

 

Years ago, I bought my wife a bracelet. When I went overseas without her, she sent me an SMS saying "I wore your profit when I went out today". "What the hell's she talking about?" I asked myself. I called and asked her. "The profit you bought me ... ". A lightbulb came on!
 

I looked-up the Thai word for 'profit' - it's กำไร (gam Rai). The word for bracelet is กำไล (gam Lai). However, both are pronounced exactly the same in this neck of the woods - gam Lai.

 

It seems she'd asked a friend for the translation of gam Lai and her friend had chosen the wrong English word which my wife then used.

 

Gam Rai - Gam Lai. As confusing to me as glai (falling tone) = near and glai (medium tone) = far.

 

 

On my first visit here in 2004 I was told about glai and glai . Still not fluent , Mai pen rai.

[DannyCarlton]

5 hours ago, Chou Anou said:

No they don't. Don't project your inability to properly hear and pronounce initial unaspirated, unvoiced labial stops onto others.

I hear fine thanks and have plenty of experience with labias or whatever.

[DannyCarlton]

5 hours ago, Chou Anou said:

Rolling r's in Thai is usually a case of conscious 'proper' speech/hypercorrection (as in the case of the OP's teacher), though there are several dialects of Thai in which rolling r's is prominent and natural...two that come to mind are Surin (Khmer native speakers carrying over the hard r's from their language into how they speak Thai) and many southern Thai dialects.

Whilst we're at it, natives of Surin don't speak Khmer, they speak a dalect called Khmen wich is used in a couple of provinces of Cambodia, close to Surin. Quite different from Khmer. I was speaking to someone from Surin only last night and we discussed this very subject. I gave her a couple of phrases in Khmer, only one of which she understood.

[uhuh]

People of Surin do speak Khmer. But it is a dialect which is quite different from what you hear on Cambodian TV. (BTW Surin Khmer is maybe the only language in the world that uses every possible vowel as a phoneme).

 

"Khmen" is just the Thai pronunciation of "Khmer".

 

The speech of southern Buriram (Ban Kruat) is much closer to the way Cambodians speak.

 

 

[alan grice]

Cobblers, , if they ain’t got no nose they speak Thai Lao , you lot Bloody Teachers or sumfin.?.


Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect

[malathione]

On 8/20/2019 at 1:09 PM, DannyCarlton said:

Whilst we're at it, natives of Surin don't speak Khmer, they speak a dalect called Khmen wich is used in a couple of provinces of Cambodia, close to Surin. Quite different from Khmer. I was speaking to someone from Surin only last night and we discussed this very subject. I gave her a couple of phrases in Khmer, only one of which she understood.

Thais call it Khmen simply because in Thai, the R at the end of the word converts to N, in this case. It is a dialect of Khmer that is spoken in Surin as the other poster pointed out.

[Damrongsak]

On 8/16/2019 at 7:30 AM, SteveK said:

... But then when you think about the word for boat - ruua, it does have a half rolling kind of sound. Hard to explain. ...

It strikes me as somewhat akin to an Indian person speaking the English word "very". It sort of sounds like veddy, but also like a slightly rolled R.  It like the tongue slides/bounces off the roof of the mouth once or twice.  Subtle.  It's a bit different in the middle of a word but somewhat akin.   

 

Try saying "I lit a rit" several times quickly with a phony Indian accent.  I will be standing here beside myself with joy if this be helping.

 

Seems to me the R is sometimes rolled pretty good in the syrupy love songs. "Chan rrrrrrak tuh."

[sunnyboy2018]

Rolling your R is posher. Kop Khun <deleted>, Cop Khun Cap.