Mispronounced Tones

[Jersey_UK]

haway jersey_uk ney need fa that lad thats not a very "civilised" thing to say, is it?

My apologies, I was just using well worn stereotypes to reinforce by misplaced sense of superiority.

I bet you do have whippet though

Edited July 2, 2007 by Jersey_UK

[johnnynmonic]

I work at a radio station that plays English language oldies. A guy called in yesterday and requested a song by "Ninjang." I asked if it was Thai artist, if it was it would have to wait for the next hour. He insisted it was an American artist, well known. "Ninjang". After some talking, I was able to work out that he wanted a song by Neil Young.

This is akin I think to what is going on with the mispronounced tones being hard to understand. Not only are we speaking a foreign language, but speaking with an accent that is often atrocious. In addition, even if even if we are slightly off, and Thais themselves are often slightly off in - we are slightly off in an unexpected direction.

I think this idea has already been posted, but just adding my two cents.

[jitagon]

I have a very informative book 'WONdering into Thai Culture' which explains that the Thais have no imagination when it comes to language, and has little to do with mispronunciation. Although the fact that you are farang speaking their language does throw some of them off. In my view this lack of imagination may explain why they copy everything. 'Thai mai mii idea' THEY say.

[toasted]

Jitagon - your post has certainly caught my eye. Can you explain this idea of "no imagination when it comes to language"? I don't imagine this is really the case, but there may be something in the hypothesis that will help me find the answer to my original question (if it has one!).

[meadish_sweetball]

I have a very informative book 'WONdering into Thai Culture' which explains that the Thais have no imagination when it comes to language, and has little to do with mispronunciation. Although the fact that you are farang speaking their language does throw some of them off. In my view this lack of imagination may explain why they copy everything. 'Thai mai mii idea' THEY say.

I really don't agree.

It is important to understand that just because something sounds the same to YOU, it IS not necessarily the same. Thai has another set of rules that must be learned to succeed in communication.

If we do not learn to hear and pronounce these rules, we should not blame the Thais for being unimaginative. Johnnymnmonic's post is an excellent example of a reverse situation.

The Thai caller is convinced he is pronouncing 'Neil Young' correctly, because according to the pronunciation rules for Thai, he IS - but the caller has not bothered to learn, or does not yet understand, that to communicate successfully in English, he needs to throw the Thai rules away and learn a new set of rules.

[Rikker]

I have a very informative book 'WONdering into Thai Culture' which explains that the Thais have no imagination when it comes to language, and has little to do with mispronunciation. Although the fact that you are farang speaking their language does throw some of them off. In my view this lack of imagination may explain why they copy everything. 'Thai mai mii idea' THEY say.

I'm with Meadish on this one. It seems extremely tenuous to say that if a Thai can't understand your accent it "has little to do with mispronunciation." How could it not?

I haven't read the book, so maybe I'm not getting the author's point. But your brief description makes it sound like an ethnocentric and arrogant interpretation of Thai culture and thought. X is not like Y, therefore X is inferior to Y. I've never heard a Thai say "Thai mai mii idea." Who says this? I've kinda sorta heard this sentiment on a few occasions when a Thai friend wonders aloud why no major modern inventions were created by Thais, but then I've also heard Thais (amusingly) claim that they invented things that are clearly imports (e.g. the radio)! Everything I know about Thai pride and Thai society indicates to me that Thais are nowhere close to being willing to admit that they're creatively and imaginatively inferior to the West or to anyone. For example, when discussing the origin of Thai with some folks, I've had them stubbornly argue that Thai does NOT borrow words from Khmer--surely it's the Khmers borrowing from the Thais, they say!

Seems like I've heard this same argument before about other languages. I mean, don't the French think every language is inferior to theirs?

Edited July 5, 2007 by Rikker

[LookSaMoon]

This is something which has bugged me for a long time. Why, when I mispronounce a tone, is it so hard for a native speaker to guess/figure out what I'm saying? Taking context out of the equation, for example, if I say to a taxi driver "Pai _______", yet get the tone wrong, he has absolutely no idea where I want to go. In English, if a word is mispronounced, we can generally have a good shot at what it means, but this doesn't seem to be the case in Thai. I speak Thai quite well but have never been able to get my head round this. Can anyone help?

Do you start your conversation with Sawasdee?

I think Sawasdee is quite easiest word for forigner to speak

and when you start conversation with this word, Thai will have the idea

you can speak some Thai and will try to listen your Thai.

This is just my suggestion in Thai's view and I am agree with some opinion that

when we see forigner we assume to hear English from them.

[Rionoir]

Think about how hard it is to understand English when Thais either add tones to english, or when they pronounce english without accenting any/the proper syllabals (or both)... it's very difficult to understand then... yet to the thai they probably don't know why we can't figure it out. Or when they interchange R and L and form completely new words... yet to them we should know what they are saying.

It goes both ways. When you have heard a word said one way for 20 or 30 years, any variation of it becomes very difficult to understand.

[realthaideal]

"..... I agree that it would be misunderstood, and that this would be the case with a mispronunciation of tone in Thai. However, on hearing 'jat' without context, most native English speakers would recognise...... and would reply along the lines of "Do you mean hat, cat, jet, jar.....?". But getting back to the thrust of my initial post, such a mistake with a tone in Thai seems to only elicit a look of bewilderment. Any thoughts?"

This is still missing the point that others are trying to make here. If I can say it with more refinement, the word when mispronounced in Thai or English can lead to a non-word or non-sequitor that will confuse the listener. In your head there is context and it should be totally obvious, but it isn't to the other person.

I have two examples. One where the tgf came home, I was on the internet and she starts a conversation," Oh, you finish you why ?" I don't understand. it distracts and confuses me. "Yeah, you finish you why?" What? Why do I finish the internet? I look like a Finn, and why at this particular moment ? Why do I finish something? I'm completely lost. She repeats like 3-4 more times only making me more confused and finally give up. Next day as she goes to clean the table in the other room, she says she's going to recycle my bottle from the wine I finished the other night. "Oh!! I finished my wine." Without knowing what she was referring to or her line of thought b4 forming her sentence, I had no clue. it's not about just running thru the alphabet and plugging in every consonant I can think of. That involves assuming I can reverse engineer the error and know where the disconnect is. I didn't. It was out of the blue.

Another time a guy tells me he lived for 4 weeks in California. About 1 hour from LA, in 'Gebben' or 'Gaybennen.' I can't think of what it is. He tries to explain the area more, but it's been 20 years. And we're speaking all in Thai. Even allowing for accents and tones he might add, I have no clue. I hear "Gables" I think of 'Lebanon' just by the rhythm he uses. But this gets me nowhere. We eventually give up after 20 guesses. He insisting that I must know, repeating the word, waiting for me to finally figure it out. Even with the context, I can't reverse engineer this one. THis is marred by time and a poor grasp of English as well.

The next day I'm thinking about East LA and some other places where there are Asian centers, and I think of San Gabriel. I get the tgf to call him and I talk to him. That was it! Holy mf*(&r! I can't believe I got it. He was focused on what he remembered, mispronounced it, and shortened it. THis is the same as when we either fail to make a dipthong correctly for them or that + fail to hit the tone. We collapse or spread out sounds and tones that just sound from way out in another galaxy. Despite how smart you are, or trying to guess, sometimes the layers of error are too many or too odd.

Again, this is because we assume they can reverse engineer there error. Some may be more typical than others, but you really have no idea of another's line of thought half the time, and thus the breakdown in ability to just deduce what it must certainly be.

I know I have a ton of others, but only these two come to mind right now. It's quite often that a Thai will say something and throw you completely off. We are just as capable at being confused as they are when the language doesn't add up.

[DavidHouston]

This is something which has bugged me for a long time. Why, when I mispronounce a tone, is it so hard for a native speaker to guess/figure out what I'm saying? Taking context out of the equation, for example, if I say to a taxi driver "Pai _______", yet get the tone wrong, he has absolutely no idea where I want to go. In English, if a word is mispronounced, we can generally have a good shot at what it means, but this doesn't seem to be the case in Thai. I speak Thai quite well but have never been able to get my head round this. Can anyone help?

Do you start your conversation with Sawasdee?

I think Sawasdee is quite easiest word for forigner to speak

and when you start conversation with this word, Thai will have the idea

you can speak some Thai and will try to listen your Thai.

This is just my suggestion in Thai's view and I am agree with some opinion that

when we see forigner we assume to hear English from them.

คุณลูกสะมุนครับ,

เมื่อคุณได้ยินคนฝรั่งพูดภาษาไทย และฝรั่งคนนั้นพูดไม่ชัดหรือพูดแบบไม่มีวรรณยุกต์ คุณมีความคิดว่ายังไงครับ? คุนรู้สึกเบื่อหน่ายเพราะเสียงหรือสำเนียงเขาไม่ถูกต้องและเข้าใจยาก หรือสงสารเขาและอยากช่วยเหลือเขาให้พูดอย่างถูกต้อง?

Edited August 7, 2007 by DavidHouston

[LookSaMoon]

This is something which has bugged me for a long time. Why, when I mispronounce a tone, is it so hard for a native speaker to guess/figure out what I'm saying? Taking context out of the equation, for example, if I say to a taxi driver "Pai _______", yet get the tone wrong, he has absolutely no idea where I want to go. In English, if a word is mispronounced, we can generally have a good shot at what it means, but this doesn't seem to be the case in Thai. I speak Thai quite well but have never been able to get my head round this. Can anyone help?

Do you start your conversation with Sawasdee?

I think Sawasdee is quite easiest word for forigner to speak

and when you start conversation with this word, Thai will have the idea

you can speak some Thai and will try to listen your Thai.

This is just my suggestion in Thai's view and I am agree with some opinion that

when we see forigner we assume to hear English from them.

คุณลูกสะมุนครับ,

เมื่อคุณได้ยินคนฝรั่งพูดภาษาไทย และฝรั่งคนนั้นพูดไม่ชัดหรือพูดแบบไม่มีวรรณยุกต์ คุณมีความคิดว่ายังไงครับ? คุนรู้สึกเบื่อหน่ายเพราะเสียงหรือสำเนียงเขาไม่ถูกต้องและเข้าใจยาก หรือสงสารเขาและอยากช่วยเหลือเขาให้พูดอย่างถูกต้อง?

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