There are a multitude of ways of romanizing Thai and the debate about which system is best is endless.

The system that works for you personally will not necessarily work for others though.

If we disregard that the world has hundreds of languages that use the Roman alphabet to represent their speech sounds, and that each letter or combination of letters will represent vastly different sounds depending on the individual language, we still run into the problem that English is pronounced by native speakers in such a multitude of ways that make it impossible even to conceive of a romanization system that is immediately intuitive and recognizable to all of them.

1. 'aw' can represent two sounds, based on two common systems of romanisation.

In the first system, it is like tgeezer and Kroo Ae suggests - similar to 'how', 'plough', 'Dow (in Dow Jones)' but a bit more closed, provided your dialect isn't very different from Standard American. If you pronounce it with too open a sound you will enter the region of what Thais perceive as another vowel.

In the second system, it is used to represent a vowel, similar to the vowel in the word 'law' pronounced in standard American. This is because Thai differentiates between two vowel sounds that often overlap in English, and if you use 'o' to represent both, you miss that distinction.

If you are Southern English you might want to use 'or' for that vowel sound instead, but then you mess things up for Americans, Scots and Irish who would want to pronounce that final 'r'.

2. 'dt' and 'pb' represent sounds that are unaspirated. To some they will sound like 'd' or 'b' but in reality they are harder, and unvoiced (voiced sounds make your larynx reverberate, unvoiced ones don't. To check what I mean put your hand on your Adam's apple and say 'rise' and 'rice' slowly. The first one has a voiced s ('with a buzz'), the second one has an unvoiced s. Along the same lines, the sounds represented by 'dt' and 'pb' are like d and b - but without being voiced. You can also say they are like 't' and 'p' but without any air slipping out afterwards.

3. The systems that use 'k' to represent the Thai sound in ก do so because a 'g' generally is voiced, and thus not exactly the same as the Thai ก sound which is unvoiced. Also, it aims to show consistently how Thai separates sounds from each other rather than to make the system immediately comprehensible to native English speakers. The logic is that the inconsistencies in the English spelling system will make the transcription system less neat and consistent. In these systems, 'k' is used for ก and 'kh' for ค and ข which are aspirated sounds (with a puff of air after them).

Since the distinction between aspirated and unaspirated sounds is crucial to meaning in Thai it is a good idea to show it clearly, using the 'h' to show that the sound is aspirated. The same type of system will also use 'ph' for พ and ผ (which is pronounced like the first two letters in Phuket i.e. 'poo-get' and not like an 'f' as in 'phone'). In the same way, this type of system has 'th' for ท ถ and ธ which are aspirated sounds as in 'thai' (not 'think')... hopefully you can see how this transcription system is designed to show clearly and consistently the important differences in Thai, rather than provide an easy pronunciation guide for somebody who hasn't learned the transcription system.

Other systems like the one in Kroo Ae's school, use 'g' for ก, and 'k' for ค and ข which most English speakers find more intuitive, but on the minus side, it doesn't uphold the neatness of showing aspiration with a 'h' after the consonant.

4. Like many words in religious and formal Thai, these words are of Indic origin (Sanskrit, Pali) and for some reason the owners of the name like to include the letters in the name that are not pronounced in Thai, but would be pronounced if speaking an Indic language. Perhaps they think a long name looks more prestigious for some reason, I don't know.

Dear Meadish_sweetball

Your explaination are very clear, when i read it, I feel that it makes people who don't understand become more comprehensible.

Thank you for your help.

Nice Days,

Kroo Ae

Hello Everyone!!

Yesterday one of my student, he's so curious about about the different in Thai words,why they use different word??

From his questions make me feel that it's interesting to put and tell people in the forum to know too

In Thai language, each region, there's own dialect, we call things different for example

1.Delicious (อร่อย) a-roi

In North region, They use =( ลำ) lam

In South region, They use = (หรอย) roy

In North East region They use = (แซ่บ) saeb

2. Tell a lie (โกหก) = go-hok

In North region, They use =(ขี้จุ๊) kee-ju

In South region, They use = (ขี้ฮก) kee-hok

In North East region, They use =(ขี้ตั๋ว) kee-dtua

3.Speak/Talk (พูด) pood

In North region, They use = (อู้) uoo

In South region, They use = (แหลง) laeng

In North East region, They use = (เว้า) wao

Hope it will be useful for you when you travel in other parts of Thailand,

Nice Days and have a great day,

Kroo Ae

My Thai Language School

Edited November 18, 200817 yr by MTLae