B/bp And D/dt

[PeterUK]

I appreciate that there is a difference between the sounds b/bp and d/dt, the latter in each case being more 'explosive', but my poor old ears don't pick it up when Thais speak. And I confess that when speaking myself I just pronounce bp as a b sound and dt as a d sound (which is how I hear them). In whole sentences I can get away with it, but if I say a single word with one of those sounds a Thai will sometimes not understand my meaning. Do others have the same difficulty? Or do you all pronounce (and hear) the sounds correctly? Any tips re getting it right?

[DavidHouston]

I appreciate that there is a difference between the sounds b/bp and d/dt, the latter in each case being more 'explosive', but my poor old ears don't pick it up when Thais speak. And I confess that when speaking myself I just pronounce bp as a b sound and dt as a d sound (which is how I hear them). In whole sentences I can get away with it, but if I say a single word with one of those sounds a Thai will sometimes not understand my meaning. Do others have the same difficulty? Or do you all pronounce (and hear) the sounds correctly? Any tips re getting it right?

Peter,

I have had this problem for many years. My ears have difficulty hearing the difference between "ต" and "ด"; between "ป" and "บ"; and between "อื" and "เออ". I have to learn like a deaf person to distinguish these sounds by context and work hard to learn to make these sounds correctly and memorize the words in which these various sounds are used.

The key is to work with a teacher who can speak directly into your ear until you can hear the differences when exaggerated in speech then practice speaking with the teacher each relevant word until he or she is satisfied that you are pronouncing the sounds and words correctly. Then, be careful always to say these words exactly in the manner that he or she taught you.

Good luck.

[DocJD]

Laying there with a set of head phones listening to words prononced with b and bp over and over as I fell asleep at night eventually tuned my ear into the difference. (bai, bpai, bee, bpee, ben, bpen... ) As for speaking, it helps to slow down and try to pronounce everything correctly. Eventually, with time and practice, proper pronunciation becomes second nature and you will find you don't have to try so hard--it just starts coming naturally. As long as you continue working at it, you are going ot get there. Keep going.

[AjarnP]

I appreciate that there is a difference between the sounds b/bp and d/dt, the latter in each case being more 'explosive', but my poor old ears don't pick it up when Thais speak. And I confess that when speaking myself I just pronounce bp as a b sound and dt as a d sound (which is how I hear them). In whole sentences I can get away with it, but if I say a single word with one of those sounds a Thai will sometimes not understand my meaning. Do others have the same difficulty? Or do you all pronounce (and hear) the sounds correctly? Any tips re getting it right?

Peter,

I have had this problem for many years. My ears have difficulty hearing the difference between "ต" and "ด"; between "ป" and "บ"; and between "อื" and "เออ". I have to learn like a deaf person to distinguish these sounds by context and work hard to learn to make these sounds correctly and memorize the words in which these various sounds are used.

The key is to work with a teacher who can speak directly into your ear until you can hear the differences when exaggerated in speech then practice speaking with the teacher each relevant word until he or she is satisfied that you are pronouncing the sounds and words correctly. Then, be careful always to say these words exactly in the manner that he or she taught you.

Good luck.

Peter / David,

In my industry this is a major problem when we try to say the difference between 'bend' ดัด and 'cut' ตัด. The way I was taught to master the ต is to place the tongue between the teeth and pronounce a 'D'.

I see to recall that either meadish or withnail came up with a similar notion in differentiating between ต and ด too but a search didn't bring it up.

AjarnP

[DavidHouston]

I appreciate that there is a difference between the sounds b/bp and d/dt, the latter in each case being more 'explosive', but my poor old ears don't pick it up when Thais speak. And I confess that when speaking myself I just pronounce bp as a b sound and dt as a d sound (which is how I hear them). In whole sentences I can get away with it, but if I say a single word with one of those sounds a Thai will sometimes not understand my meaning. Do others have the same difficulty? Or do you all pronounce (and hear) the sounds correctly? Any tips re getting it right?

Peter,

I have had this problem for many years. My ears have difficulty hearing the difference between "ต" and "ด"; between "ป" and "บ"; and between "อื" and "เออ". I have to learn like a deaf person to distinguish these sounds by context and work hard to learn to make these sounds correctly and memorize the words in which these various sounds are used.

The key is to work with a teacher who can speak directly into your ear until you can hear the differences when exaggerated in speech then practice speaking with the teacher each relevant word until he or she is satisfied that you are pronouncing the sounds and words correctly. Then, be careful always to say these words exactly in the manner that he or she taught you.

Good luck.

Peter / David,

In my industry this is a major problem when we try to say the difference between 'bend' ดัด and 'cut' ตัด. The way I was taught to master the ต is to place the tongue between the teeth and pronounce a 'D'.

I see to recall that either meadish or withnail came up with a similar notion in differentiating between ต and ด too but a search didn't bring it up.

AjarnP

I agree with the procedure. Sometimes "bite your tongue" is good advice. You can also put the middle of your tongue hard up against your hard palate, behind your teeth. That's the way the Thais do it; they must be concerned abut losing the tips of their tongues.

[withnail]

What solved it for me was the realisation that it was the 'easier' of the two that I was having problems with. Specifically, with ด and ต I remember reading that ด = d ( a sound that exists in my language) and that ต = dt ( a sound that doesn't). Wrong! At least in my case.

A Thai friend of mine whose English is very good was helping me with my Thai, and we were reading through one of the AUA books. I was struggling to say ต and apparently doing that fine (although I couldn't work out how) yet whenever I was asked to say ด it was apparently being confused.

The girl in question in response to this kept saying "just say it like d" which annoyed me because I was. It then occurred to me that it was my d's which were in fact a problem. When I pronounce the letter d with a British accent it evidently is closer to a t (in fact my tongue is in the same place for both). I then started saying ด with my tongue further back in my mouth, behind the ridge and I was cured. To a Thai speaker the letter d is of course ดี which sounds fine, it just happens to be different from how I say it.

I figured out that the same rule applied to the บ = b idea. This is supposed to be the easy one yet I found this took more effort (in my brain it's between a b and an m). Again, once I'd adjusted that, making the different ป sound was easier.

David, did you get the message about the website? What do you think? (sorry for the shameless plug)

[Jeddah Jo]

I first really appreciated the significance of this when I used to fill up my scooter at the petrol station and would confidently say 'Tem kraab' to them and they would give me a blank look like '<deleted> are you on about?'

After a while I realised it should have been the Dt sound i.e Dtem and things went a whole lot smoother. I just could not understand how such a small difference could make a word totally uncomprehensible to a Thai.

Anyway, you know you are saying it right when you can finally get petrol in your vehicle without too many problems.

JJ.

[DavidHouston]

What solved it for me was the realisation that it was the 'easier' of the two that I was having problems with. Specifically, with ด and ต I remember reading that ด = d ( a sound that exists in my language) and that ต = dt ( a sound that doesn't). Wrong! At least in my case.

A Thai friend of mine whose English is very good was helping me with my Thai, and we were reading through one of the AUA books. I was struggling to say ต and apparently doing that fine (although I couldn't work out how) yet whenever I was asked to say ด it was apparently being confused.

The girl in question in response to this kept saying "just say it like d" which annoyed me because I was. It then occurred to me that it was my d's which were in fact a problem. When I pronounce the letter d with a British accent it evidently is closer to a t (in fact my tongue is in the same place for both). I then started saying ด with my tongue further back in my mouth, behind the ridge and I was cured. To a Thai speaker the letter d is of course ดี which sounds fine, it just happens to be different from how I say it.

I figured out that the same rule applied to the บ = b idea. This is supposed to be the easy one yet I found this took more effort (in my brain it's between a b and an m). Again, once I'd adjusted that, making the different ป sound was easier.

David, did you get the message about the website? What do you think? (sorry for the shameless plug)

Yes, I did. Sorry for not responding earlier. It is a great compendium of sources around the Internet. Id didn't see that you had Radio Parliament listed. I find that terrific for listening to good Thai pronunciation on serious subjects. Great job on the site!

[Johpa]

FWIW, the unaspirated unvoiced stops (i.e. ต, ป) do exist in English when spoken after the sibilant /s/ in a consonant cluster as in the words scat, stat, or spat. Some people can improve their articulation by focusing on such words in English.

[Richard W]

When I pronounce the letter d with a British accent it evidently is closer to a t (in fact my tongue is in the same place for both). I then started saying ด with my tongue further back in my mouth, behind the ridge and I was cured. To a Thai speaker the letter d is of course ดี which sounds fine, it just happens to be different from how I say it.

It's not a specifically British phenomenon. The celebrated phoneticist Peter Ladefoged is quoted as saying that English /d/ has all the features of being voiced except actual voicing. Another interesting remark picked up is that of a teacher of English at a Polish university saying that they spend a lot of effort teaching Poles to use less voicing in English /d/ so as to make their accent less unenglish.

[meadish_sweetball]

I find that my Swedish /d/ works without adjustment for ด .

In comparison, when I pronounce an English /d/ I tense up the tongue more, apply less of the tongue towards the alveolar ridge, and curl the tip more.

If you experiment with trying to relax and 'uncurl' the tip of your tongue I think you'll get closer to a Thai ด.

[Johpa]

I find that my Swedish /d/ works without adjustment for ด .

Uff da, ya betcha dat ven I goes down to da Valhalla Tavern and listens to da olda Svenske and Norske yell ata each others in heavily accented English dat theirs /d/ does sound alota like a Thai ด . : )

[PeterUK]

The girl in question in response to this kept saying "just say it like d" which annoyed me because I was. It then occurred to me that it was my d's which were in fact a problem. When I pronounce the letter d with a British accent it evidently is closer to a t (in fact my tongue is in the same place for both). I then started saying ด with my tongue further back in my mouth, behind the ridge and I was cured. To a Thai speaker the letter d is of course ดี which sounds fine, it just happens to be different from how I say it.

I've had the same experience. Thais have told me that my 'd' pronunciation sounds like 'dt' to them. Aggravating. In my case no manoeuvring of the tongue seems to make any difference.

[meadish_sweetball]

I think relaxing the tongue to create a softer release of air is the most important aspect.

Overdo it and see if it helps...

[5tash]

I seem to have d/dt sussed. It's b/bp I seem to be having problems with. Being a native English speaker I seem to be able to pronounce "bp" ok, it's "b" that I can't pronounce properly. Any advice on the b/bp sounds ?

[wmthai]

Not having the original sound in our native languges we tend to reduce the to something similar. I was really surprised that you guys reduse dt->d and bp->b. For my ear it is much clsoer dt->t and bp->p.

I think it is just visual misconduction we see see 'd' in 'dt' and trying to articulate it even there no such. The same story with 'g' ('gai' - chicken). What a hel_l? There is no 'g' in Thai. Its 'kai' or if you like 'gkai' but not 'gai'! But even if you say 'gai' instead of 'gkai' there is no damage, but if you say 'dat' instead of 'dtat' you got the wrong word.

My advise is to forget 'dt' and 'bp' and use 't' and 'p'. We have "softer" form 'th' and 'ph' then lets have "normal" then. At least it will stop misleading you. Let me offer the following table of related sounds:

soft____normal_____hard

______________________

_th_____t (dt)_______d__

_ph_____p (bp)______b__

_kh_____k (g)______none

I think the main problem that what is "normal" for most of Roman languages is "soft" for Anglo. Then may be it will be helphul if you pronounce ต's and ป's like 't' and 'p' in Spanish, German, etc.

Edited August 3, 2008 by wmthai

[mangkorn]

What do you mean by "gkai"?

What is that supposed to be?

I don't think there is any such thing as "gk" in Romance languages, and certainly not English, so what is the point of recommending something like that to speakers of Western languages, who are confused enough already?

The difference between the Thai word for chicken and the English word "guy" is rather imperceptible.

So yes, in that sense, there is a "g" sound in Thai.

Also, your advice to pronounce the Spanish "t" will create the wrong sound altogether. What you want is the Spanish "d", as in the first "d" in Madrid - which is pronounced with the tongue against the teeth, or by biting one's tongue.

But that is not how the Spanish "t" is pronounced.

[wmthai]

Why do you ask me what is [gk]? Why don't ask topic starter what is [dt]?

Let's put it this way. Official romanisation (not anglonisation!) system of Thai languge has [ท]=[th], [ต]=[t] and [ด]=[d]. There is no [dt]! This [dt] was made up by English speakers for themselves and as result they confused themselves. Why they made it up? Because normal English [t] is aspirated and in fact closer to [th].

This is my answer: if you guys able pronounse [t] without aspiration (like in most other European languages) then you will get exact and right [ต].

[kriswillems]

I am a native Dutch speaker.

Many native English speakers pronounce

ป as พ

ต as ท

i.e. they can't pronounce the unaspirated p and t

My problem was the opposite.

I pronounced

ท as ต

พ as ป

Further on I think the ต in Thai is extremely unaspirated (much more un-aspirated that in other European languages)

The Dutch, German, French or Spanish 't' (when it's used as an initial consonant, followed by a vowel) is somewhere between ต and ท, but closer to ต.

I never had any problem to hear the difference between ป and บ or ต and ด. I am surprised that native English speakers would have a problem with that.