Two Different Pronunciations For -ำ And แ-

[my benny rai]

It is easy to explain that with -ำ it may be an "um" or "am" sound like for the Thai words for "salad" and "water" respectively, but try to explain the different pronunciations for แ- quickly to a foreign coworker who asks! he had two minutes before his next class.

For example, for แม่ (Mother in Thai)่ แ- sounds like "air" if pronounced with a British accent (say from in or around London?). But for แฟน (Boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse/fiance) is a shorter "a" sound. With further thought, it seems that many of the commonly used words have the shorter "a" sound when spoken. Agree? Or is there a better way to write the "air" or "a" sounds for แ- in such words as "expensive," etc.?

Any generally rules you can state for when to say either "air" or "a" for แ- or is it simply a matter of Thais shortening their words? And for -ำ, which pronunciation do you think is more common: um or am?

What really messed up my coworker was the different English transliterations of แ-. He said the books he used all wrote the word แฟน differently. Fairn, faen, fan, etc. Being American, his pronunciation of the first word for แฟน was off.

Edited April 3, 2007 by my benny rai

[meadish_sweetball]

It is easy to explain that with -ำ it may be an "um" or "am" sound like for the Thai words for "salad" and "water" respectively, but try to explain the different pronunciations for แ- quickly to a foreign coworker who asks! he had two minutes before his next class.

You are making a distinction in Thai based on English here I feel - the vowel quality difference of ยำ and น้ำ in Thai are not as different as the difference between the pronunciation of 'um' and 'am' in English. In fact, many English-speaking farangs pronounce น้ำ as แน้ม because 'am' is in between these two phonemes in Thai.

It is important, but admittedly very difficult, not to apply the phonemic boundaries of one's own language to another.

I hear myself making a similar mistake between โล and ลอ when not focusing. I can form them correctly when concentrating, but in normal speech, I blur the line. This is because in Swedish, these two phonemes are allophones (variations of the same sound used in different words. Substituting one for the other does not make a difference in meaning).

In Thai though, not making the right distinction between า and แ, as well as โ and อ can result in a new meaning to the word, and certainly is noticed as an accent.

Luckily for Brits and Americans, many Thais are used to hearing the า = แ mistake many English speakers make, in fact so much that there was a famous commercial a few years ago where it was used for comic effect. A farang out in the countryside asks two kids about the bridge - using แสะแพน instead of สะพาน. (that is not the punchline of the clip though, even though the Thais all find it very funny - that comes when one of the kids replies in near-perfect English "The bridge? Take a left, go past the elementary school and then you'll find it on your right." [or something along those lines]).

My advice to your friend:

Disregard transcriptions and focus on listening to actual Thai speakers, and then emulate them. Don't bother trying to figure out how to write words with Roman letters, dont memorize vocabulary written in a transcription system.

Write the sounds in Thai letters, listen and repeat them after a real Thai speaker. You and him speaking different varieties on English will disagree on how to best emulate the sounds in Roman letters anyway. And once a third person comes in to the picture, they will have yet another idea...

But for แฟน (Boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse/fiance) is a shorter "a" sound.

I don't really agree that the vowel sound in แฟน is shorter - at any rate not as short as the vowel sound of 'fan' in RP English.

It does however have a more closed quality than the slightly more open vowel in แม่, and it is possible that you associate this distinction with how you pronounce "fan" and "air" in English, in which the vowel lengths do differ.

The vowel quality is a more important distinction to make, albeit not strictly necessary - applying the แ in แฟน to แม่ is acceptable - they are allophones. It would not be incorrect to prolong the vowel sound of แฟน to unusual length, but it would sound a bit off to apply the exact same vowel quality as the แ in แม่.

It is very difficult to discuss sounds in writing without us hearing each other pronounce the words in question.

I hope I am making some sense, at least.

[sbk]

I agree with meadish here, I have never been able to emulate the supposed transliterations in books, nor has my Thai husband. I prefer to listen to a native speaker (but not my husband, he's a terrible mumbler ) say the word and then transliterate it as it sounds to me. Then, I know what it sounds like to my ear, not someone elses.

[my benny rai]

I agree, Meadish S, but he is stuck on learning from books. He takes what he reads as THE WAY IT IS. He often tells me, "Ya, but the book says that..." And I have to tell him that self-study is wonderful but it can't replace teacher-guided instruction from a Thai native speaker. I enjoy teaching him what I have learned over the years, but it has been so long that I just "know" how things are or should be pronounced. For example, I just say "water" with the "am" sound and "salad" with the "um" sound without having to think of it because I have been saying those words for almost 15 years now. But for a new learner of Thai, -ำ may be a bit confusing.

And yes, I have tried to tell him that books give hints in English that may not apply because of different English accents. For example, he thought อ was "or" (American pronunciation). So he was saying things like "Gor Guy" for ก.

Regardless, he tells me he is a visual learner and relies heavily on transliterations. He also claims he is tone deaf, musically and in terms of studying Thai. (If you are reading this ****, sorry for telling everyone about you but your questions have helped me look at Thai in a new way again so I feel compelled to share them with others who may find out chats interesting.)

For the sake of other readers of this thread, Meadish S, I am glad you pointed out that that แ- is not as short as the English "a" sound in the English word "fan." แ- is, after all, still considered a long vowel in Thai even though it is often shortened in the more commonly spoken words. I simply meant that แ- in "แฟน" is slightly shorter than the แ- voiced in แม่.

Any other comments? I don't know about anyone else, but I like finding exceptions to general rules

[kriswillems]

I just want to add that pronounciation of

น้ำ

is an exception in Thai. It's pronounced a with longer vowel than other words that end on ำ (for instance ย้ำ). Although pronounce differently all ำ sounds are officially long vowels.

Tones marks can also change the length of a vowel. For instance in

เล่น

This is pronouced as

เล็่น

Does somebody have on overview of the relation between the tone marks and the vowel lengths? Or is there an overview of exceptions?

Edited April 3, 2007 by kriswillems

[Richard W]

Does somebody have on overview of the relation between the tone marks and the vowel lengths? Or is there an overview of exceptions?

For เ the rule is that the tone marks make it short. The reason for this is that is the general historical rule that the in native words it is short while in Indic words it is long, and Indic words neither use nor need tone marks. All these rules have exceptions.

For /ae/ and /aw/ the picture is generally chaotic, and dictionaries are unreliable. There's some evidence that mai tho (or is it a falling tone?) tends to shorten these vowels. Anciently these vowels are long, but, to quote Fang-Kuei Li from a discussion of [F]phruk [H]nii 'tomorrow', 'One may suspect that a secondary shortening of a long vowel might have happened here in Siamese, where there are many examples of secondary lengthenings and shortenings'.

[kriswillems]

That's very interesting Richard. I am studying Thai from books, that means I learn to read and write first and talk later.

When trying to listen and talk I very often noticed that words are not exactly pronounced as I would expect. Most of the times that is because I got it wrong but sometimes I have no explanation.

What do you mean by /aw/? Do you mean เอา? Could you give an example?

If somebody has examples of an unexpected pronounciation of a words, please share the words with us

[meadish_sweetball]

/aw/

I suspect Richard means อ as in ต้อย etc... (rationale for romanization from 'law').

เอา could not get any shorter.

[expat_4_life]

Does somebody have on overview of the relation between the tone marks and the vowel lengths? Or is there an overview of exceptions?

For เ the rule is that the tone marks make it short. The reason for this is that is the general historical rule that the in native words it is short while in Indic words it is long, and Indic words neither use nor need tone marks. All these rules have exceptions.

To say that tone marks can change the length of a vowel can be a bit misleading, this is simply a spelling exception. I was taught that the written rule for this exception is that อ็ (Short "A" vowel mark) is always discarded when a tone mark is necessary, they are never written together. There are plenty of examples of words using เ where the tone mark does not affect the tone, notably words without final consonants.

I've only seen this exception with tone marks อ่ and อ้ and believe it only occurs in closed consonant syllables which end with a final low class consonant in the group of consonants that does not affect tone ง น ม ย ว ร ล

Edited April 4, 2007 by expat_4_life

[meadish_sweetball]

I'd like to point out that the two words เล่น and เล็่น are not pronounced the same, in fact a quick check of your dictionary will reveal that they are in fact 2 different words. The first word เล่น (to play) is pronounced with a rising tone and a short vowel, while the second spelling เล็่น (louse, lice) is pronounced with a normal tone and a short vowel. There are other examples of similiar words, เล่ม and เล็่ม.

You're right เล่น and เ็ล็น are different words, but there were a few other things in your post I'd like to correct.

เล่น has a falling tone. To take a rising tone it would have to be spelt เหล็น.

เ็ล็น takes the mid tone (sorry for nitpicking here, but all tones are equally normal) and has no tone marker in its spelling.

I believe Kris's point was that เล่น and เ็ล็น have equal vowel lengths, even though he used the word "pronunciation" which covers more than just the vowel length.

[kriswillems]

เ็ล็น takes the mid tone (sorry for nitpicking here, but all tones are equally normal) and has no tone marker in its spelling.

I didn't write เ็ล็น, I wrote เล็่น (with a small mai eek on top). If this word would excist it would be falling tone, just as เล่น.

It's almost not visible on a monitor, that's probly why you assumed I wrote เ็ล็น (which is indeed a midtone word).

I know เล็่น (with mai eek) is not a correct word, I just wanted to express that the vowel is pronounced short.

[expat_4_life]

I didn't write เ็ล็น, I wrote เล็่น (with a small mai eek on top). If this word would excist it would be falling tone, just as เล่น.

It's almost not visible on a monitor, that's probly why you assumed I wrote เ็ล็น (which is indeed a midtone word).

I know เล็่น (with mai eek) is not a correct word, I just wanted to express that the vowel is pronounced short.

You're absoutely correct, couldn't see it. I had changed my post when I realized it was actually there but meadish got to it too quickly.

Still have problems to see it even though I know it is there.

Edited April 5, 2007 by expat_4_life

[Richard W]

There are plenty of examples of words using เ where the tone mark does not affect the tone, notably words without final consonants.

True. The vowel in stressed open syllables is always long, unless you insist on ignoring the final consonant in the so-called open syllables with short vowels.

And, as dead syllables with tonemarks are not normally developed inherited words, the rule does no apply, e.g. เค้ก [H]kheek 'cake'.

Richard.

[Richard W]

/aw/

I suspect Richard means อ as in ต้อย etc... (rationale for romanization from 'law').

Yes. I finally gave in to objections to 'or', even though that is a very common transcription - specially in the names of forms. Incidentally, the way the Swede in our office pronounces å, that would have been a suitable transliteration - and consistent with the transcription 'Aoi' - []ååi in various tones.

เอา could not get any shorter.

It seems /ao/ does get shortened, though then it becomes aw. It's not just in spellings such as เกาะ [LS]kaw - it also seems to occur as an allegro variation. For example, in the track ช็อต on Tata Young's Sexy Beat, เข้ามาช็อต/ชาร์จ is pronounced something like [sM]khaw [sM]ma [HS]chawt / [H]chaat.

[sabaijai]

I just want to add that pronounciation of

น้ำ

is an exception in Thai. It's pronounced a with longer vowel than other words that end on ำ (for instance ย้ำ). Although pronounce differently all ำ sounds are officially long vowels.

That's correct. In fact the vowel sounds in ยำ and น้ำ are pronounced quite differently, the first being a short -am, the second a long -aam.

Contrast นำ (to lead) and น้ำ (water/juice) -- the former is pronounced as written ([M]nam), the second more like น้าม ([H]naam). This difference/exception is explicity taught in most comprehensive Thai language teaching progammes.