Kuen And Khun

[actiondell4]

Is the pronouncing the same for KUEN,meaning "up" as for Kuhn.?

[jdinasia]

no

[meadish_sweetball]

Since JD already gave the short version (too busy to have the time for a capital N and full stop, JD? ), I will do the opposite and give you an overly detailed answer instead. Hope it is helpful in some way.

The two words ขึ้น and คุณ differ phonetically in two important ways:

1. They have different vowel qualities.

ขึ้น, meaning 'go up' has an unrounded back vowel, a sound which does not exist in any English dialect I am aware of - in fact not in any Indo-European language I can think of without googling to check.

The vowel sound in คุณ (honorific placed in front of a person's first name/polite register pronoun meaning 'you') is also a back vowel, only that this is a back vowel that has a close or almost complete equivalent in English. The reason why you can not hear the difference between these vowels clearly is likely because your brain's current software does not think it is important for you to distinguish rounded and unrounded sounds - this difference does not carry any importance in English or any other language you might know, so the software does not expect or listen for it.

Luckily, just like computers, the 'software' in humans can be upgraded - by becoming aware of what the difference is, and by concentrating hard to pay attention to this difference when you are listening to and speaking Thai.

A detailed phonetic description is the first step for you to getting the vowel sound right.

The first point to remember is that you need to smile .

You can not say this word with pouting lips - they need to be spread wide - you can practice by taking a pencil and spreading them apart as far as you can.

This is what 'unrounded' means. A rounded vowel sound is one where the lips are rounded, i.e. pouting to a greater or lesser extent.

The second point is finding the right position in the mouth for your tongue. You will get close by noticing where your tongue is when you say 'chook' in Australian English. When you say this word, also touch your lips and note that they are rounded. Now, try to say 'chook' with a pencil spreading your lips as far apart as possible. Do you notice that the vowel sound is different?

2. They have different tones.

The tone (pitch curve) used when saying the word is not the same in these two words. ขึ้น takes the falling tone whereas คุณ takes the mid tone.

The mid tone is uttered at the middle of your personal voice register, and is unchanging in pitch. If you try to speak with a 'lifeless, robotic' voice; pretend to be a robot and say (just as an example:) 'This--is--not--what--I--had--in--mind--when--I--asked--this--question'; chances are that you will produce mostly what is called 'mid tones' in Thai. (Don't try to emulate C3PO in Star Wars though, as he has a posh British accent with lots of highs and lows. You rather want to strive for 'lifeless, synthesized, unperturbed')

So that's your mid tone. Now on to the falling tone. In reality, the falling tone is a pitch curve that has a somewhat 'plaintive' sound to it. It is not a pitch curve that goes straight down to low like the sound of somebody falling off a cliff as one first might think.

Instead the pitch curve starts by rising to relatively high in your voice register, before the big drop. You need to listen to the Thai tones in contrast to each other many, many times before you start to recognize which one is which.

[mangkorn]

As long as we're at it, might also add คืน (kheun, mid tone - said with a smile): the most common meaning is "night," but it also means "to repay, to return something."

[Richard W]

ขึ้น, meaning 'go up' has an unrounded back vowel, a sound which does not exist in any English dialect I am aware of - in fact not in any Indo-European language I can think of without googling to check.

Which is odd, as the instructions for pronouncing are the same as those for (Northern) Welsh <u> and Russian <ы>. Cappadocian Greek is the best I could come up with.

[meadish_sweetball]

I guess one should never say never. Found this on Wikipedia:

For example, while some characteristics such as the close central rounded vowel [ʉ] or close back unrounded vowel [ɯ] for are widespread in Californian speech, the same high degree of fronting for [oʊ] is common only within certain social groups.

http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedysta:P...warty_brudnopis