Are My Ears Bad Or What

[falong]

why does everyone use "farang" to me this should sound like fa - rang as in rang you last night.

What my ears hear when i hear i.e "du falong" is "falong" not "farang"

[thaiflyer1]

ฝรั่ง..........Farang.....รั.........the bottom letter here is lor-luer (our letter r) and the top (my-hahn-a-gaht) gives the "a" sound rather like a vowel in english affects the letter preceding it..........so when put together you have "ra " ง ngor-ngoo is translated as ng......as in "ring" but without the "ri"....................ฝ (for-fahn) is also affected by the my-hanh-a-gaht giving the fa sound at the beginning. So it comes out as Farang! Always wondered why your nickname was Farong...........

[falong]

ฝรั่ง..........Farang.....รั.........the bottom letter here is lor-luer (our letter r) and the top (my-hahn-a-gaht) gives the "a" sound rather like a vowel in english affects the letter preceding it..........so when put together you have "ra " ง ngor-ngoo is translated as ng......as in "ring" but without the "ri"....................ฝ (for-fahn) is also affected by the my-hanh-a-gaht giving the fa sound at the beginning. So it comes out as Farang! Always wondered why your nickname was Farong...........

ya know your're right. I dont know know why I seem to think I am hearing fa-long -Long as in -long time no see

when I think about it ....it is really as you say.... fa- lahng

[rod_kalashnikov]

 

[sbk]

Central, Northern and Isaan Thais have difficulty pronouncing the R sound. If you speak with a Southerner you will hear the proper pronunciation. It is ror reua (not lor leua), the correct sound is a rolled r. Farang.

[thaiflyer1]

It is ror reua (not lor leua), the correct sound is a rolled r. Farang.

I was just seeing if you would spot that delibrate mistake.......

[britmaveric]

"r" pronounced as "l" is a simpler explanation

[thaiflyer1]

"r" pronounced as "l" is a simpler explanation

Wouldn't that be lor-ling ล though?

[simey]

There is not a lot you can do about what you hear now. There are actually more information pathways going from the brain to the ears than the other way around - what happens is that as you grow up your brain modifies the way your ears respond to the environment you are in.

Thais don't confuse R and L sound, they find it very difficult to hear any difference. It's not that they cannot pronounce the two noises, but that they cannot hear the difference between them. Same goes for westerners, a thai can hear the difference between two words that might sound exactly the same to us.

[britmaveric]

No expert- but at least how my tgf represents it.

[Richard W]

"r" pronounced as "l"  is a simpler explanation

Wouldn't that be lor-ling ล though?

I thought 'lor-leua ร' was being cleverly succinct.

[NoAjarn]

common uneducated thais use the l the better educated use the r, bit like english in london really, all right or awl rioght

[thaiflyer1]

I thought 'lor-leua ร' was being cleverly succinct.

It was..........but keep that between ourselves.

[simon43]

I can handle Thais using 'r' and 'l' (such as farang and falang), depending from which part of Thailand they come from. But my GF tends to do the same thing in English! So she might say 'light' when she means 'right' and 'right' when she means 'light'.

As you can imagine, this is rather confusing for me

[sbk]

Thais don't confuse R and L sound, they find it very difficult to hear any difference. It's not that they cannot pronounce the two noises, but that they cannot hear the difference between them. Same goes for westerners, a thai can hear the difference between two words that might sound exactly the same to us.

Simey, depend on what part of Thailand they are from, my husband is from the South and never has any difficulty distinguishing 'l' from 'r'. He never says light when he means right. He can say 'right' without any difficulty whatsoever and he definitely hears the difference.

Now, get him to say any word with a 'V' in it!

[falong]

Central, Northern and Isaan Thais have difficulty pronouncing the R sound. If you speak with a Southerner you will hear the proper pronunciation. It is ror reua (not lor leua), the correct sound is a rolled r. Farang.

Had a friend up north named Larry. We would have a great time asking a thai to say "larry" it would always come out as "rally"

ask them to say "rally" and they would say "larry"

Try it