Why I Find Thai A Difficult Language

[supergoondu]

I have spent slightly more than a month making attempt to learn Thai. I am able to recognize all Thai Characters (Vowels and Consonants). I understand there are some rules in forming a Thai word (example how to read ร and รร and many many more). Somehow I feel that the most challenging for me was to break up the long strings of words into individual words

(example: แต่ใจเจ้ากรรมไม่รู้เลย ว่าเธอไม่ชอบเรา).

Definitely it would be easier to read if there are gaps in between the words or some block distinction ...

แต่ใจเจ้ากรรมไม่รู้เลย ว่าเธอไม่ชอบเรา

And what make reading Thai scripts difficult is the vowels can appear infront, behind, top or bottom of the consonant. And a Thai word can have open or closed Vowels...

So far those languages that I know of have clear distinction for a word, like Chinese (a character is a word and has a syllabus), English, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, French .... I am not sure if Burmese, Laos, Khmer, Arabic, Indian ... language behave like Thai (that there is no spacing between words).

Definitely I need to spend alot more time to get myself more acquainted with Thai Characters Set and those words formation rules, and hopefully I can read the Thai scripts as smooth as a Thai.

Do you have the same thought?

[Harcourt]

I'm far from expert, so don't quote me......

I also found it daunting at first that there was no spacing between words, however for English in particular spacing is very important because, as a bastard language (formed from many sources) we do not have firm or consistant spelling or pronunciation rules and a lack of spaces could very easily lead to misintepretation whilst reading. There are always exceptions to the "rules".

English has soooooo many anomalies and inconsistancies that have to be rote learnt. Modern English also has a HUGE vocabulary, but limited characters to express it (21 consonants and 5 vowels), so there's alot of potential for merged words to mean something entirely different.

Thai however, seems to have less of a problem with this. Since you can read the script, I suspect that once you have a decent vocabulary, reading will become easier.

[Harcourt]

And perhaps because Thai is tonal that gives it more compatibility to no spaces as each word may be distinguished easier.

[Gaccha]

I have spent slightly more than a month making attempt to learn Thai. I am able to recognize all Thai Characters (Vowels and Consonants). I understand there are some rules in forming a Thai word (example how to read ร and รร and many many more). Somehow I feel that the most challenging for me was to break up the long strings of words into individual words

(example: แต่ใจเจ้ากรรมไม่รู้เลย ว่าเธอไม่ชอบเรา).

Definitely it would be easier to read if there are gaps in between the words or some block distinction ...

แต่ใจเจ้ากรรมไม่รู้เลย ว่าเธอไม่ชอบเรา

And what make reading Thai scripts difficult is the vowels can appear infront, behind, top or bottom of the consonant. And a Thai word can have open or closed Vowels...

So far those languages that I know of have clear distinction for a word, like Chinese (a character is a word and has a syllabus), English, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, French .... I am not sure if Burmese, Laos, Khmer, Arabic, Indian ... language behave like Thai (that there is no spacing between words).

Definitely I need to spend alot more time to get myself more acquainted with Thai Characters Set and those words formation rules, and hopefully I can read the Thai scripts as smooth as a Thai.

Do you have the same thought?

No.

A chinese character does not necessarily make up a word in Chinese or Japanese. The following 4 characters are one word in Japanese:

臥薪嘗胆

Or else it can be a mix of characters and the syllabic alphabet:

逆ギレ

Westerners have complained about the need to break up the sentences into the 'words' but unfortunately they have failed to problematise the concept of a word.

The English language has (mostly) dealt with this. Chinese and Japanese have not. Here is an example:

休ませて頂きました.

[The English translation would be something like: "Gone out, be back soon"]

It literally is the following components:

休ま-- to rest (verb)

せて--[causative attachment to verb]

頂き--[associate verb, literally "to receive", indicating from junior to senior]

ました-- [past, formal tense marker]

i.e. allow me to take time off

So where are the 'words'. I have divided into four. An English speakers instinct might be to divide into two or perhaps one. Yet this is the whole sentence. The English sentence has 5 words. Thai does not even come close to the difficulties I have presented here.

Goodnight and good luck.

[toptuan]

No spacing between words: Ever look at German?

[brianb1944]

been learning a whole month and still not quite mastered it!! have knowledge of many other languages!! You are not asking question you are just trying to big note yourself

[Harcourt]

I have spent slightly more than a month making attempt to learn Thai. I am able to recognize all Thai Characters (Vowels and Consonants). I understand there are some rules in forming a Thai word (example how to read ร and รร and many many more). Somehow I feel that the most challenging for me was to break up the long strings of words into individual words

(example: แต่ใจเจ้ากรรมไม่รู้เลย ว่าเธอไม่ชอบเรา).

Definitely it would be easier to read if there are gaps in between the words or some block distinction ...

แต่ใจเจ้ากรรมไม่รู้เลย ว่าเธอไม่ชอบเรา

And what make reading Thai scripts difficult is the vowels can appear infront, behind, top or bottom of the consonant. And a Thai word can have open or closed Vowels...

So far those languages that I know of have clear distinction for a word, like Chinese (a character is a word and has a syllabus), English, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, French .... I am not sure if Burmese, Laos, Khmer, Arabic, Indian ... language behave like Thai (that there is no spacing between words).

Definitely I need to spend alot more time to get myself more acquainted with Thai Characters Set and those words formation rules, and hopefully I can read the Thai scripts as smooth as a Thai.

Do you have the same thought?

No.

A chinese character does not necessarily make up a word in Chinese or Japanese. The following 4 characters are one word in Japanese:

臥薪嘗胆

Or else it can be a mix of characters and the syllabic alphabet:

逆ギレ

Westerners have complained about the need to break up the sentences into the 'words' but unfortunately they have failed to problematise the concept of a word.

The English language has (mostly) dealt with this. Chinese and Japanese have not. Here is an example:

休ませて頂きました.

[The English translation would be something like: "Gone out, be back soon"]

It literally is the following components:

休ま-- to rest (verb)

せて--[causative attachment to verb]

頂き--[associate verb, literally "to receive", indicating from junior to senior]

ました-- [past, formal tense marker]

i.e. allow me to take time off

So where are the 'words'. I have divided into four. An English speakers instinct might be to divide into two or perhaps one. Yet this is the whole sentence. The English sentence has 5 words. Thai does not even come close to the difficulties I have presented here.

Goodnight and good luck.

As ever, full of sage revelations.

[supergoondu]

A chinese character does not necessarily make up a word in Chinese or Japanese. The following 4 characters are one word in Japanese:

Let me clarify, a Chinese character is definitely a syllabus.

臥薪嘗胆 (wo4 xin1 chang2 dan3). And each character has it own meaning. Example 尝 (simplified form for 嘗) means to taste. And 尝试 means to try.

As for Japanese character, example hiragana ひらがな, each character is a syllabus, and for tabeshimata 食べました, 食 is a kanji and has 2 syllabus tabe. Most kanji may have the equivalent hiragana written ontop of the kanji to aid the reader in reading the kanji.

So basically, a Japanese character except for Kanji, should have a syllabus.

[supergoondu]

test -- okay to delete.

I am glad you have deleted your earlier comment, I am feeling so bad after reading your comment. I have spent considerable time in getting accustomed to the Thai Script during my recent stay in CM. I think you have some misunderstandings regarding my earlier posting in CM forum, however there is never a time I am attempting to make boastful statement.

My initial plan while in CM was to learn Thai language. And a secondary plan would be to think of way how to make a living in CM if I intend to stay 'long-term' there, and the quickest way was to start a business there. And I do not think I have make any boastful statements in any of those listings.

Anyway glad that you have remove that your earlier posting.

[PeaceBlondie]

I find that all of these factors compound the problems

1. Alphabet non-Roman

2. everythingisruntogetherandihavenoideawhereonewordsentenceparagraphorvolumeends

3. Vowels everywhere, nowhere, under, over, left, right

4. Tones

5. Teaching methods are usually farangophobic

[Gaccha]

A chinese character does not necessarily make up a word in Chinese or Japanese. The following 4 characters are one word in Japanese:

Let me clarify, a Chinese character is definitely a syllabus.

臥薪嘗胆 (wo4 xin1 chang2 dan3). And each character has it own meaning. Example 尝 (simplified form for 嘗) means to taste. And 尝试 means to try.

As for Japanese character, example hiragana ひらがな, each character is a syllabus, and for tabeshimata 食べました, 食 is a kanji and has 2 syllabus tabe. Most kanji may have the equivalent hiragana written ontop of the kanji to aid the reader in reading the kanji.

So basically, a Japanese character except for Kanji, should have a syllabus.

Yes and No.

Example: 煙草 reads 'toe-ba-coe'. From the English word tobacco, and it misleadingly means cigarette. The sounds are not constituted from the kanji parts, so it disproves your hypothesis that they are each a syllabus. But in this case, the Chinese characters do offer a meaning: 煙smoke-草leaf which is readily understandable.

The character can then, when it is using the syllabus of whcih you speak, have enormous numbers of readings. So many, it might as well be random. e.g. na/i/u/ki/nama and another 16 other readings for this character 生.

There are then lots of Kanji with no fundamental meaning. The idea of Chinese characters as exuding a meaning is common among beginners because typcially they are taught those very characters first that not only have a clear meaning but even look like what they mean: e.g. 川　river (it looks like a river).

e.g. 臥薪嘗胆 (as used above) [meanings: supine- firewood- [no meaning]- amazed/gall bladder]

So the characters can in some ways mean something (e.g. firewood) but they actually also means nothing, since they aid no interpretation of the word. Or else the meaning is only that very word of which the meaning you know not. Or else, it has multiple unconnected meaning.

So what does this word mean?

"To put your self through great suffering for the sake of vengeance. " I think if you could work that out from "supine- firewood- [no meaning]- amazed/gall bladder" then impressive are you.

[rgs2001uk]

I have spent slightly more than a month making attempt to learn Thai. I am able to recognize all Thai Characters (Vowels and Consonants). I understand there are some rules in forming a Thai word (example how to read ร and รร and many many more). Somehow I feel that the most challenging for me was to break up the long strings of words into individual words

(example: แต่ใจเจ้ากรรมไม่รู้เลย ว่าเธอไม่ชอบเรา).

Definitely it would be easier to read if there are gaps in between the words or some block distinction ...

แต่ใจเจ้ากรรมไม่รู้เลย ว่าเธอไม่ชอบเรา

And what make reading Thai scripts difficult is the vowels can appear infront, behind, top or bottom of the consonant. And a Thai word can have open or closed Vowels...

So far those languages that I know of have clear distinction for a word, like Chinese (a character is a word and has a syllabus), English, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, French .... I am not sure if Burmese, Laos, Khmer, Arabic, Indian ... language behave like Thai (that there is no spacing between words).

Definitely I need to spend alot more time to get myself more acquainted with Thai Characters Set and those words formation rules, and hopefully I can read the Thai scripts as smooth as a Thai.

Do you have the same thought?

For me the easiest way was to draw a vertical pencil line between the words and work out the tones by applying the tone rules, then put a tone marker above each word.

After a while I got to know the tone of a word just by seeing the initial and final consonant and vowel length.

This led to words standing out straight away.

To make it easier, start by reading books for children, simple sentances with few words, after a while you will be able to recognize the words at a glance, then work on to something a bit more challenging.

It may be worth your while to read on subjects that interest you this should prevent your studies from becoming tedious and boring, you will also build up your grammar and learn new words at the same time.

The above method worked for me, but we all have differing skills and needs, so our learning methods may differ, do what works for you.

ว่าเธอไม่ชอบเรา

ammended to ว่าเธอไม่ชอบเรา

[supergoondu]

been learning a whole month and still not quite mastered it!! have knowledge of many other languages!! You are not asking question you are just trying to big note yourself

So far those languages that I know of have clear distinction for a word, like Chinese (a character is a word and has a syllabus), English, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, French .... I am not sure if Burmese, Laos, Khmer, Arabic, Indian ... language behave like Thai (that there is no spacing between words).

I believe you have misinterpret my intention. My statement regarding Chinese, English, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, French is based on my general understanding that those languages break the word for easy read.

Example for Chinese, each character is a syllabus though same character may read differently. It is definitely a syllabus for a character.

And for Japanese, except for Kanji, I believe each katagana and hiragana has a syllabus. A string of katagana or hiragana shall form a word.

As for English and French, the space between the words make reading easier.

And for Korean, a Korean character may have multiple syllabus example gyeong (경, "capital"), however one can deduce the phonetics from the character.

And for Vietnamese, just like English and French, Số tham chiếu của ngân hàng, they use space to break up, for easier reading of text.

And I can tell you about Bahasa Malaysia and Bahasa Indonesia. What I mention in my earlier posting is a general knowledge where people like me born and raised in this part of the world should know. Definitely I know little on the grammatical rules, sentence structure and vocabularies regarding above-mentioned languages other than English and Chinese.

I never claimed to be a master of all above-mentioned languages. And my posting did not provide the slightest clues.

[SoftWater]

These problems are real, but tend to be overexaggerated.

I don't know if the OP was trying to 'big note' himself or not, but one month is easily enough time for anyone to learn the Thai alphabet and the basic rules of word-formation. That is not the challenge - that is just opening the door to the challenge (because once you get past that, you start getting into the realm of grammar construction, connotation, register, word choice, idiomatic usage and all the other complexities that we take for granted in reading our first language. Learning the letters and their sounds, how to read tones etc etc is rule-governed. Much that comes after is not).

I like to think of the lack of spaces as part of the beauty and exoticness of the language, one of the things that make it worth learning from a purely aesthetic perspective, but in any case, spacing is not really as big a deal as you think. The reason you find it problematic now is mostly due to the fact that you are still reading words by constructing them letter by letter. This is natural (I still do it with unfamiliar words), but disappears naturally as your read more. The great news about this is you don't have to do anything extra, or learn some special trick, to solve the spacing problem: you brain will solve it for you so long as you keep reading regularly ("a little, often" beats "a lot, occasionally" here as in most things). You don't read every letter when you read English, and you won't read every letter when you read Thai once your brain has seen enough words enough times to recognise them as wholes.

Keep reading, and you will start to see words instead of letters, and after a while you'll never even notice (quite literally) that the spaces aren't there!

Softwater

[supergoondu]

Yes and No.

Example: 煙草 reads 'toe-ba-coe'. From the English word tobacco, and it misleadingly means cigarette. The sounds are not constituted from the kanji parts, so it disproves your hypothesis that they are each a syllabus. But in this case, the Chinese characters do offer a meaning: 煙smoke-草leaf which is readily understandable.

The character can then, when it is using the syllabus of whcih you speak, have enormous numbers of readings. So many, it might as well be random. e.g. na/i/u/ki/nama and another 16 other readings for this character 生.

There are then lots of Kanji with no fundamental meaning. The idea of Chinese characters as exuding a meaning is common among beginners because typcially they are taught those very characters first that not only have a clear meaning but even look like what they mean: e.g. 川　river (it looks like a river).

e.g. 臥薪嘗胆 (as used above) [meanings: supine- firewood- [no meaning]- amazed/gall bladder]

So the characters can in some ways mean something (e.g. firewood) but they actually also means nothing, since they aid no interpretation of the word. Or else the meaning is only that very word of which the meaning you know not. Or else, it has multiple unconnected meaning.

So what does this word mean?

"To put your self through great suffering for the sake of vengeance. " I think if you could work that out from "supine- firewood- [no meaning]- amazed/gall bladder" then impressive are you.

For 卧薪尝胆, if you break out the words it means (sleep or lie down - firewood - taste - gall bladder). So what it means is to sleep on firewood and to taste gall bladder (bitterness).

There is a story regarding this 卧薪尝胆 :

典　故：公元前496年，吴王阖闾派兵攻打越国，但被越国击败，阖闾也伤重身亡，阖闾让伍子胥选后继之人，伍子胥独爱夫差，便选其为王。此后，勾践闻吴国要建一水军，不顾范蠡等人的反对，出兵要灭此水军，结果被夫差奇兵包围，大败，大将军也战死沙场，夫差要捉拿勾践，范蠡出策，假装投降，留得青山在不愁没柴烧。夫差也不听老臣伍子胥的劝告，留下了勾践等人，三年，饱受侮辱，终被放回越国，勾践暗中训练精兵，每日晚上睡觉不用褥，只铺些柴草（古时叫薪），又在屋里挂了一只苦胆，他不时会尝尝苦胆的味道，为的就是不忘过去的耻辱。

勾践为鼓励民众就和王后与人民一起参与劳动，在越人同心协力之下把越国强大起来。

一次夫差带领全国大部分兵力，去赴会，要求勾践也带兵助威，勾践见时机已到，假装赴会，领3000精兵，拿下吴国主城，杀了吴国太子，又擒了夫差，夫差悔当初未听伍子胥言，留下了勾践，死前，他只求，不要伤害吴国百姓。

(This happened during Before Christ 496) There is this 勾践，whose kingdom (越国) was overthrown by 吴国。For 3 years, he suffered tremendous humiliation and was finally allowed to be returned back to his earlier (越国)。He trained his army secretly, and in order not to forget his past humiliation, for each nights, he will sleep on firewood (薪) and sucked on the gall (胆).

And finally, he lead a 3000 elite army and seized an opportunity in overthrowing 吴国。

"To put your self through great suffering for the sake of vengeance." - So you now know why (卧薪尝胆) means that? I can further elaborate if you still in doubt.

http://baike.baidu.com/view/35626.htm

For your tobaco, I shall explain it later.

[Gaccha]

And for Japanese, except for Kanji, I believe each katagana and hiragana has a syllabus. A string of katagana or hiragana shall form a word.

No (in effect) and no, I'm afraid.

The hiragana and katakana can be altered by the letters around them, as well as their stress changing depending on the particular word.

For example: 敗因 (haiin) 'i'　is rendered 'i' in English phonetics (pronounced 'ee') but can become what an English speaker would recognise as a final "n" sound or else it can be a nasal "h" sound. Ask a japanese beginner to pronouance hai'in and they will say "hain", but then listen to a native speaker and it sounds like this "hanern" because a native English speaker can not register the nasal 'g' sound that is a consequence of the positioning of the 'i' in the word.

Then more fundamentally, a string of katakana and hiragana often do not constitute one word. They can be several words (as a Westerner would understand it) or could be the tail end of a verb or adjective.

e.g.

1日二度の食事と労働が牢獄内の犯罪者の生活のすべてだった。

Two meals a day and labor constituted all of the criminal's life in the jail.

This is the hiragana divided into arguable word concepts:

1日二度の食事と労働が牢獄内の犯罪者の生活のすべてだった。

The one good thing about Japanese is that the Revised Hepburn System totally dominates the transcription to English so you don't have the chronic problems that you find in Thai. And, in theory, the Roman alphabet is actually Japanese (is is called the 4th set, after katakana, hiragana, furigana). So the surname 'tanaka' written using the roman alphabet is also Japanese alphabet.

[Gaccha]

Yes and No.

Example: 煙草 reads 'toe-ba-coe'. From the English word tobacco, and it misleadingly means cigarette. The sounds are not constituted from the kanji parts, so it disproves your hypothesis that they are each a syllabus. But in this case, the Chinese characters do offer a meaning: 煙smoke-草leaf which is readily understandable.

The character can then, when it is using the syllabus of whcih you speak, have enormous numbers of readings. So many, it might as well be random. e.g. na/i/u/ki/nama and another 16 other readings for this character 生.

There are then lots of Kanji with no fundamental meaning. The idea of Chinese characters as exuding a meaning is common among beginners because typcially they are taught those very characters first that not only have a clear meaning but even look like what they mean: e.g. 川　river (it looks like a river).

e.g. 臥薪嘗胆 (as used above) [meanings: supine- firewood- [no meaning]- amazed/gall bladder]

So the characters can in some ways mean something (e.g. firewood) but they actually also means nothing, since they aid no interpretation of the word. Or else the meaning is only that very word of which the meaning you know not. Or else, it has multiple unconnected meaning.

So what does this word mean?

"To put your self through great suffering for the sake of vengeance. " I think if you could work that out from "supine- firewood- [no meaning]- amazed/gall bladder" then impressive are you.

For 卧薪尝胆, if you break out the words it means (sleep or lie down - firewood - taste - gall bladder). So what it means is to sleep on firewood and to taste gall bladder (bitterness).

There is a story regarding this 卧薪尝胆 :

典　故：公元前496年，吴王阖闾派兵攻打越国，但被越国击败，阖闾也伤重身亡，阖闾让伍子胥选后继之人，伍子胥独爱夫差，便选其为王。此后，勾践闻吴国要建一水军，不顾范蠡等人的反对，出兵要灭此水军，结果被夫差奇兵包围，大败，大将军也战死沙场，夫差要捉拿勾践，范蠡出策，假装投降，留得青山在不愁没柴烧。夫差也不听老臣伍子胥的劝告，留下了勾践等人，三年，饱受侮辱，终被放回越国，勾践暗中训练精兵，每日晚上睡觉不用褥，只铺些柴草（古时叫薪），又在屋里挂了一只苦胆，他不时会尝尝苦胆的味道，为的就是不忘过去的耻辱。

勾践为鼓励民众就和王后与人民一起参与劳动，在越人同心协力之下把越国强大起来。

一次夫差带领全国大部分兵力，去赴会，要求勾践也带兵助威，勾践见时机已到，假装赴会，领3000精兵，拿下吴国主城，杀了吴国太子，又擒了夫差，夫差悔当初未听伍子胥言，留下了勾践，死前，他只求，不要伤害吴国百姓。

(This happened during Before Christ 496) There is this 勾践，whose kingdom (越国) was overthrown by 吴国。For 3 years, he suffered tremendous humiliation and was finally allowed to be returned back to his earlier (越国)。He trained his army secretly, and in order not to forget his past humiliation, for each nights, he will sleep on firewood (薪) and sucked on the gall (胆).

And finally, he lead a 3000 elite army and seized an opportunity in overthrowing 吴国。

"To put your self through great suffering for the sake of vengeance." - So you now know why (卧薪尝胆) means that? I can further elaborate if you still in doubt.

http://baike.baidu.com/view/35626.htm

For your tobaco, I shall explain it later.

I did know the origins. It is a famous story. It shows how the 'meaning' of the characters can become detached from the word so become functionless to all but the most educated users. Rather like Latin hidden into English words.

[supergoondu]

These problems are real, but tend to be overexaggerated.

I don't know if the OP was trying to 'big note' himself or not, but one month is easily enough time for anyone to learn the Thai alphabet and the basic rules of word-formation. That is not the challenge - that is just opening the door to the challenge (because once you get past that, you start getting into the realm of grammar construction, connotation, register, word choice, idiomatic usage and all the other complexities that we take for granted in reading our first language. Learning the letters and their sounds, how to read tones etc etc is rule-governed. Much that comes after is not).

I like to think of the lack of spaces as part of the beauty and exoticness of the language, one of the things that make it worth learning from a purely aesthetic perspective, but in any case, spacing is not really as big a deal as you think. The reason you find it problematic now is mostly due to the fact that you are still reading words by constructing them letter by letter. This is natural (I still do it with unfamiliar words), but disappears naturally as your read more. The great news about this is you don't have to do anything extra, or learn some special trick, to solve the spacing problem: you brain will solve it for you so long as you keep reading regularly ("a little, often" beats "a lot, occasionally" here as in most things). You don't read every letter when you read English, and you won't read every letter when you read Thai once your brain has seen enough words enough times to recognise them as wholes.

Keep reading, and you will start to see words instead of letters, and after a while you'll never even notice (quite literally) that the spaces aren't there!

Softwater

Yes, you are right, I am still at preliminary stage in getting familiar to Thai Characters and the rules in word formation. I still have tremendous difficulties in reading, understanding and making sense to their local newspaper HEADLINES. And when watching Thai MTV, I will never be able to follow the verses. I had tried to look on my shampoo and shower cream bottles and trying to make sense to those words (not sentences). And you shall also know that there is another Thailand Font Set (where you can see a S or a reflected C), till now I still trying hard to remember those Font. For years you know S, and now you need to treat S to be R, I have to admit I cannot react fast enough. I have to stare a word for awhile and have to verify it pronunication via a Thai-English dictionary. I have to say I have put in considerable effort in reading Thai characters.

I have subscribed to learn-thai-podcast, and their podcasts have definitely accelerated my Thai learning.

I choose to learn Thai rather than Vietnamese, because I was fascinated by it having its own character sets. And my first posting is never a deterrance for me to further indulge in Thai language. And hopefully my interest will last long.

My first posting was only to highlight what a beginner might face when first reading a Thai Script. And I never say that it is a problem. It is a problem for me to read the character and not the other way.

If you read a English sentence, example (I like Thai), your eyes simply glance from left to right, for you know the first character is a Consonant.

However if you read a Thai sentence, because the Vowel may be at the front of the Consonant, so if you read from left to right, somehow you may need to backtrack (in order to form the word) ... Example

แต่ใจเจ้ากรรมไม่รู้เลย , and somehow you may feel that if that Consonant is the starting of a new word or the end of a word ...

Anyway it was never an intent for me to be boastful.

And hope more forummers may provide me with tricks in reading Thai scripts.

[supergoondu]

I did know the origins. It is a famous story. It shows how the 'meaning' of the characters can become detached from the word so become functionless to all but the most educated users. Rather like Latin hidden into English words.

I would say that's the beauty of the language, just 4 characters and they can mean so much.

There are alot of such examples: (愚公移山， 孔融让梨，左右逢源, 八仙过海 。。。) which if you break them into individual word, you might get clueless.

And there is another group, we call them 歇后语：

猪八戒照镜子——里外不是人

哑巴吃黄莲──有苦自己知（或“有苦说不出”）

When we make a sentence with 歇后语, we only say out the first half(哑巴吃黄莲), and one shall expect to know what the second hald mean(有苦自己知).

Example: In this forum, I am just like a 哑巴吃黄莲.

[supergoondu]

And for Japanese, except for Kanji, I believe each katagana and hiragana has a syllabus. A string of katagana or hiragana shall form a word.

No (in effect) and no, I'm afraid.

The hiragana and katakana can be altered by the letters around them, as well as their stress changing depending on the particular word.

For example: 敗因 (haiin) 'i'　is rendered 'i' in English phonetics (pronounced 'ee') but can become what an English speaker would recognise as a final "n" sound or else it can be a nasal "h" sound. Ask a japanese beginner to pronouance hai'in and they will say "hain", but then listen to a native speaker and it sounds like this "hanern" because a native English speaker can not register the nasal 'g' sound that is a consequence of the positioning of the 'i' in the word.

Then more fundamentally, a string of katakana and hiragana often do not constitute one word. They can be several words (as a Westerner would understand it) or could be the tail end of a verb or adjective.

e.g.

1日二度の食事と労働が牢獄内の犯罪者の生活のすべてだった。

Two meals a day and labor constituted all of the criminal's life in the jail.

This is the hiragana divided into arguable word concepts:

1日二度の食事と労働が牢獄内の犯罪者の生活のすべてだった。

The one good thing about Japanese is that the Revised Hepburn System totally dominates the transcription to English so you don't have the chronic problems that you find in Thai. And, in theory, the Roman alphabet is actually Japanese (is is called the 4th set, after katakana, hiragana, furigana). So the surname 'tanaka' written using the roman alphabet is also Japanese alphabet.

1日二度の食事と労働が牢獄内の犯罪者の生活のすべてだった。

I don't know much about Japanese language, but when attempting to read:

のすべてだった,

I shall read 'no su be teh ta ci ta', somehow I know that 'の' shall stand by itself, and 'だった' is the extension (some tenses) of 'すべ' ... Or rather each character already has the built-in consonant and vowel, thus u can read rather easily.

แต่ใจเจ้ากรรมไม่รู้เลย ว่าเธอไม่ชอบเรา

Somehow in Thai, there is no spacing between the word, and there is a possibility that a consonant can be at the front or at the back of a word, so for beginner, it can be very difficult to break up the sentence into separate words in a glance. And the vowel can wrap at the front, back or top or bottom of the consonant. So somehow I find it difficult to 'glance' the sentence and sing to the tune to my favorite Thai music.

I am just voice up my problem when learning Thai, and wondering others may face the same problem, and how they finally overcome it. To drill those Thai characters and word formation rules are really a must, but wondering if one has a fancy method in overcome it. That's the intent for my post.

[Gaccha]

1日二度の食事と労働が牢獄内の犯罪者の生活のすべてだった。

I don't know much about Japanese language, but when attempting to read:

のすべてだった,

I shall read 'no su be teh ta ci ta', somehow I know that 'の' shall stand by itself, and 'だった' is the extension (some tenses) of 'すべ' ... Or rather each character already has the built-in consonant and vowel, thus u can read rather easily.

แต่ใจเจ้ากรรมไม่รู้เลย ว่าเธอไม่ชอบเรา

Somehow in Thai, there is no spacing between the word, and there is a possibility that a consonant can be at the front or at the back of a word, so for beginner, it can be very difficult to break up the sentence into separate words in a glance. And the vowel can wrap at the front, back or top or bottom of the consonant. So somehow I find it difficult to 'glance' the sentence and sing to the tune to my favorite Thai music.

I am just voice up my problem when learning Thai, and wondering others may face the same problem, and how they finally overcome it. To drill those Thai characters and word formation rules are really a must, but wondering if one has a fancy method in overcome it. That's the intent for my post.

I think your good-hearted attempt here to contrast Japanese and Thai tends to highlight the weakness of your initial assertion. I'll show you why:

You said:

"のすべてだった,

I shall read 'no su be teh ta ci ta', somehow I know that 'の' shall stand by itself, and 'だった' is the extension (some tenses) of 'すべ' ... Or rather each character already has the built-in consonant and vowel, thus u can read rather easily."

Your second issue is wrong and your third issue is wrong: だった' is not the extension. And not all the letters have a built in consonant and vowel. Many are vowel sound only (e.g. 'あ'). Some are then not pronounced the way they are written depending on circumstances (e.g. 'へ').

You then rather reinforce my point by providing a perfect example of a word that can be spotted immediately in Thai.

แต่ใจเจ้ากรรมไม่รู้เลย

Those first bits 'แ' are an absolute dead giveaway of the start of a new word. Japanese has no such easy tactic. You can also wildy guess other starts to words:

แต่ใจเจ้ากรรมไม่รู้เลย

And endings:

แต่ใจเจ้ากรรมไม่รู้เลย

If you heard the whinging of Japanese learners then you would understand this is not just a Thai issue.

But linguistics is fun.

[supergoondu]

1日二度の食事と労働が牢獄内の犯罪者の生活のすべてだった。

I don't know much about Japanese language, but when attempting to read:

のすべてだった,

I shall read 'no su be teh ta ci ta', somehow I know that 'の' shall stand by itself, and 'だった' is the extension (some tenses) of 'すべ' ... Or rather each character already has the built-in consonant and vowel, thus u can read rather easily.

แต่ใจเจ้ากรรมไม่รู้เลย ว่าเธอไม่ชอบเรา

Somehow in Thai, there is no spacing between the word, and there is a possibility that a consonant can be at the front or at the back of a word, so for beginner, it can be very difficult to break up the sentence into separate words in a glance. And the vowel can wrap at the front, back or top or bottom of the consonant. So somehow I find it difficult to 'glance' the sentence and sing to the tune to my favorite Thai music.

I am just voice up my problem when learning Thai, and wondering others may face the same problem, and how they finally overcome it. To drill those Thai characters and word formation rules are really a must, but wondering if one has a fancy method in overcome it. That's the intent for my post.

I think your good-hearted attempt here to contrast Japanese and Thai tends to highlight the weakness of your initial assertion. I'll show you why:

You said:

"のすべてだった,

I shall read 'no su be teh ta ci ta', somehow I know that 'の' shall stand by itself, and 'だった' is the extension (some tenses) of 'すべ' ... Or rather each character already has the built-in consonant and vowel, thus u can read rather easily."

Your second issue is wrong and your third issue is wrong: だった' is not the extension. And not all the letters have a built in consonant and vowel. Many are vowel sound only (e.g. 'あ'). Some are then not pronounced the way they are written depending on circumstances (e.g. 'へ').

You then rather reinforce my point by providing a perfect example of a word that can be spotted immediately in Thai.

แต่ใจเจ้ากรรมไม่รู้เลย

Those first bits 'แ' are an absolute dead giveaway of the start of a new word. Japanese has no such easy tactic. You can also wildy guess other starts to words:

แต่ใจเจ้ากรรมไม่รู้เลย

And endings:

แต่ใจเจ้ากรรมไม่รู้เลย

If you heard the whinging of Japanese learners then you would understand this is not just a Thai issue.

But linguistics is fun.

Isn't 'へ' always pronounced as 'he' (thought I was taught to read it as 'eh' rather than 'he'), it is one of the hiragana character.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiragana

Many are vowel sound only (e.g. 'あ'), I am confused by this statement. Isn't each hiragana has can be read 'with a consonant and a vowel'? Or are you referring to compounded vowel like 'desu', where it should be pronounced as 'des' rather than 'de-su'. Yup I had make this mistake, but it can be corrected quickly and easily.

Somehow I still find it a challenge to identify the first consonant in a Thai sentence.

Edited September 27, 2009 by supergoondu

[Gaccha]

1日二度の食事と労働が牢獄内の犯罪者の生活のすべてだった。

I don't know much about Japanese language, but when attempting to read:

のすべてだった,

I shall read 'no su be teh ta ci ta', somehow I know that 'の' shall stand by itself, and 'だった' is the extension (some tenses) of 'すべ' ... Or rather each character already has the built-in consonant and vowel, thus u can read rather easily.

แต่ใจเจ้ากรรมไม่รู้เลย ว่าเธอไม่ชอบเรา

Somehow in Thai, there is no spacing between the word, and there is a possibility that a consonant can be at the front or at the back of a word, so for beginner, it can be very difficult to break up the sentence into separate words in a glance. And the vowel can wrap at the front, back or top or bottom of the consonant. So somehow I find it difficult to 'glance' the sentence and sing to the tune to my favorite Thai music.

I am just voice up my problem when learning Thai, and wondering others may face the same problem, and how they finally overcome it. To drill those Thai characters and word formation rules are really a must, but wondering if one has a fancy method in overcome it. That's the intent for my post.

I think your good-hearted attempt here to contrast Japanese and Thai tends to highlight the weakness of your initial assertion. I'll show you why:

You said:

"のすべてだった,

I shall read 'no su be teh ta ci ta', somehow I know that 'の' shall stand by itself, and 'だった' is the extension (some tenses) of 'すべ' ... Or rather each character already has the built-in consonant and vowel, thus u can read rather easily."

Your second issue is wrong and your third issue is wrong: だった' is not the extension. And not all the letters have a built in consonant and vowel. Many are vowel sound only (e.g. 'あ'). Some are then not pronounced the way they are written depending on circumstances (e.g. 'へ').

You then rather reinforce my point by providing a perfect example of a word that can be spotted immediately in Thai.

แต่ใจเจ้ากรรมไม่รู้เลย

Those first bits 'แ' are an absolute dead giveaway of the start of a new word. Japanese has no such easy tactic. You can also wildy guess other starts to words:

แต่ใจเจ้ากรรมไม่รู้เลย

And endings:

แต่ใจเจ้ากรรมไม่รู้เลย

If you heard the whinging of Japanese learners then you would understand this is not just a Thai issue.

But linguistics is fun.

Isn't 'へ' always pronounced as 'he' (thought I was taught to read it as 'eh' rather than 'he'), it is one of the hiragana character.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiragana

Many are vowel sound only (e.g. 'あ'), I am confused by this statement. Isn't each hiragana has can be read 'with a consonant and a vowel'? Or are you referring to compounded vowel like 'desu', where it should be pronounced as 'des' rather than 'de-su'. Yup I had make this mistake, but it can be corrected quickly and easily.

Somehow I still find it a challenge to identify the first consonant in a Thai sentence.

The wikipedia reference that you provide proves each point I made. You should read it. Such quality lines from it:

あ a [a]

"With a few exceptions for sentence particles は, を, and へ (pronounced as wa, o, and e), and a few other arbitrary rules, Japanese is spelled as it sounds. " Yep. So へ can be pronounced as 'e' or as 'he'.

It then has two pages of spelling rules that tell you they are not as simple as they seem.

I feel you are tying yourself in knots. I think you need to understand I am a very advanced learner of Japanese (I passed the highest level proficiency exam 7 years ago) so there is not much point in lecturing me on it. I am just trying to help you.

[supergoondu]

1日二度の食事と労働が牢獄内の犯罪者の生活のすべてだった。

I don't know much about Japanese language, but when attempting to read:

のすべてだった,

I shall read 'no su be teh ta ci ta', somehow I know that 'の' shall stand by itself, and 'だった' is the extension (some tenses) of 'すべ' ... Or rather each character already has the built-in consonant and vowel, thus u can read rather easily.

แต่ใจเจ้ากรรมไม่รู้เลย ว่าเธอไม่ชอบเรา

Somehow in Thai, there is no spacing between the word, and there is a possibility that a consonant can be at the front or at the back of a word, so for beginner, it can be very difficult to break up the sentence into separate words in a glance. And the vowel can wrap at the front, back or top or bottom of the consonant. So somehow I find it difficult to 'glance' the sentence and sing to the tune to my favorite Thai music.

I am just voice up my problem when learning Thai, and wondering others may face the same problem, and how they finally overcome it. To drill those Thai characters and word formation rules are really a must, but wondering if one has a fancy method in overcome it. That's the intent for my post.

I think your good-hearted attempt here to contrast Japanese and Thai tends to highlight the weakness of your initial assertion. I'll show you why:

You said:

"のすべてだった,

I shall read 'no su be teh ta ci ta', somehow I know that 'の' shall stand by itself, and 'だった' is the extension (some tenses) of 'すべ' ... Or rather each character already has the built-in consonant and vowel, thus u can read rather easily."

Your second issue is wrong and your third issue is wrong: だった' is not the extension. And not all the letters have a built in consonant and vowel. Many are vowel sound only (e.g. 'あ'). Some are then not pronounced the way they are written depending on circumstances (e.g. 'へ').

You then rather reinforce my point by providing a perfect example of a word that can be spotted immediately in Thai.

แต่ใจเจ้ากรรมไม่รู้เลย

Those first bits 'แ' are an absolute dead giveaway of the start of a new word. Japanese has no such easy tactic. You can also wildy guess other starts to words:

แต่ใจเจ้ากรรมไม่รู้เลย

And endings:

แต่ใจเจ้ากรรมไม่รู้เลย

If you heard the whinging of Japanese learners then you would understand this is not just a Thai issue.

But linguistics is fun.

Isn't 'へ' always pronounced as 'he' (thought I was taught to read it as 'eh' rather than 'he'), it is one of the hiragana character.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiragana

Many are vowel sound only (e.g. 'あ'), I am confused by this statement. Isn't each hiragana has can be read 'with a consonant and a vowel'? Or are you referring to compounded vowel like 'desu', where it should be pronounced as 'des' rather than 'de-su'. Yup I had make this mistake, but it can be corrected quickly and easily.

Somehow I still find it a challenge to identify the first consonant in a Thai sentence.

The wikipedia reference that you provide proves each point I made. You should read it. Such quality lines from it:

あ a [a]

"With a few exceptions for sentence particles は, を, and へ (pronounced as wa, o, and e), and a few other arbitrary rules, Japanese is spelled as it sounds. " Yep. So へ can be pronounced as 'e' or as 'he'.

It then has two pages of spelling rules that tell you they are not as simple as they seem.

I feel you are tying yourself in knots. I think you need to understand I am a very advanced learner of Japanese (I passed the highest level proficiency exam 7 years ago) so there is not much point in lecturing me on it. I am just trying to help you.

Oops, I am indeed sorry, I need to be more careful in my future postings. (However I still do not think that my earlier postings were offensive.)

I am indeed '班门弄斧'. Luckily I have yet to reply to your japanese tobacco query.

BTW，may I know what's your mother tongue? You shall have my ultimate salutation if you are a non-Asian, and you are able to read and write Kanji or rather Chinese Characters.

For a Farang, I believe Chinese language may be 10 times more tedious than Thai language.

Edited September 27, 2009 by supergoondu

[supergoondu]

For me the easiest way was to draw a vertical pencil line between the words and work out the tones by applying the tone rules, then put a tone marker above each word.

After a while I got to know the tone of a word just by seeing the initial and final consonant and vowel length.

This led to words standing out straight away.

To make it easier, start by reading books for children, simple sentances with few words, after a while you will be able to recognize the words at a glance, then work on to something a bit more challenging.

It may be worth your while to read on subjects that interest you this should prevent your studies from becoming tedious and boring, you will also build up your grammar and learn new words at the same time.

The above method worked for me, but we all have differing skills and needs, so our learning methods may differ, do what works for you.

ว่าเธอไม่ชอบเรา

ammended to ว่าเธอไม่ชอบเรา

Thanks for replying. So at least we have done the same thing, our first attempt was to identify each block of word in a string of words. For me I use highlighter to highlight alternate word.

Yes, there is a method which is fairly effective for me. Their TV channels play Taiwanese serial dubbed in Thai, fortunately they do not removed the Chinese substitles. And by watching those serials, they helped to re-enforce my vocabulary. Unfortunately they screen those serials at late hours.

I too observed that many (may I say all, probably not, because of the DMC channal) of their Thai TV programs have no English substitles. Some English-speaking movies have Thai substitles, unfortunately I am still at stage trying to identify each block of word.

[supergoondu]

I'm far from expert, so don't quote me......

I also found it daunting at first that there was no spacing between words, however for English in particular spacing is very important because, as a bastard language (formed from many sources) we do not have firm or consistant spelling or pronunciation rules and a lack of spaces could very easily lead to misintepretation whilst reading. There are always exceptions to the "rules".

English has soooooo many anomalies and inconsistancies that have to be rote learnt. Modern English also has a HUGE vocabulary, but limited characters to express it (21 consonants and 5 vowels), so there's alot of potential for merged words to mean something entirely different.

Thai however, seems to have less of a problem with this. Since you can read the script, I suspect that once you have a decent vocabulary, reading will become easier.

Thanks for your reply.

I can not comment on your statement

'English has soooooo many anomalies and inconsistancies that have to be rote learnt.'

for my understanding on Thai language still very skin-deep. Somehow my gut feel is that Thai language has more rules and 'exceptions'. Anyway that's so much I can talk about regarding that statement.

[supergoondu]

I find that all of these factors compound the problems

1. Alphabet non-Roman

2. everythingisruntogetherandihavenoideawhereonewordsentenceparagraphorvolumeends

3. Vowels everywhere, nowhere, under, over, left, right

4. Tones

5. Teaching methods are usually farangophobic

Totally agreed for point 1, 2 and 3.

For 4, yes it is tedious, fortunately I understand the importance of tones, for like the Chinese language, different tones meant different things. 'I understands there are rules in Thai language in when to read it it at high, medium, low, falling or rising tones, somehow I didn't pay particular attention in how rising tone or falling tone should be like..., I shall pay attention to it probably when I am pretty comfortable with the Thais consonants and vowels.'

Try this (a very popular tongue twister):

绕口令：四是四，十是十

四是四，十是十；(si4 shi4 si4, shi2 shi4 shi2)

十四是十四，四十是四十；(shi2 si4 shi4 shi2 si4 , si4 shi2 si4 si4 shi2)

别把四十说喜席，别把十四说席喜。(bie2 ba2 si4 shi2 shuo1 xi3 xi2, bie2 ba2 shi2 si4 shuo1 xi2 xi3)

要想说好四和十，全靠舌头和牙齿。(yao4 xiang3 shuo1 hao1 si4 he2 shi2, quan2 kao1 she2 tou2 he2 ya2 chi3 )

要想说对四，舌头碰牙齿；(yao4 xiang3 shuo1 dui4 si4, she2 tou2 peng4 ya2 chi3)

要想说对十，舌头别伸直。(yao4 xiang3 shuo1 dui4 shi2, she2 tou2 bie2 shen1 zhi2)

认真学，常练习，十四、四十、四十四。(ren4 zhen1 xue2, chang2 lian4 si2, shi2 si4 , si4 shi2, si4 shi2 si4)

literary:

4 is 4, 10 is 10

14 is 14, 40 is 40

don't say 40 as 'xi3 xi2' (xi3 xi2 has no literary meaning)

don't say 14 as 'xi2 xi3' (xi2 xi3 has no literary meaning)

to be able to pronunce well 4 and 10, it all depends your tongue and teeth

to be able to pronunce correctly 4, use your tongue to touch your teeth

to be able to pronunce correctly 10, your tongue must not be straightened. (curvl your tongue)

learn faithfully, learn consistently, 14, 40, 44

I believe quite a handful of Chinese (especially the Southerners) have difficulty in identifying correctly shi, si, ci, chi, ceng, cen, ...

As for point 5, I am not able to comment.

Edited September 27, 2009 by supergoondu

[Johpa]

First, I agree with the OP that the Thai writing system where the words run together, does greatly increase the level of learning difficulty for reading Thai. There is actually a academic word for such writing systems, a word long forgotten by this person. I think the most appropriate word would be "pain in the arse to learn" writing system.

That being said, a competent reader of any language has usually internalized, something our brains are really good at, each word into a single graphical unit. The word is parsed as a whole and is not being sounded out letter by letter, unless one encounters a relatively unique new word, not a common occurrence. So the brain is processing most words in English no differently than it processes a word represented by a single Chinese character. The word as a whole, whether composed of letters or brush strokes, eventually becomes an ideogram for the semantic meaning. So eventually, with practice, far more practice for most of us that a mere month, the Thai written words start to stand out despite the lack of separation from adjoining words.

[rgs2001uk]

For me the easiest way was to draw a vertical pencil line between the words and work out the tones by applying the tone rules, then put a tone marker above each word.

After a while I got to know the tone of a word just by seeing the initial and final consonant and vowel length.

This led to words standing out straight away.

To make it easier, start by reading books for children, simple sentances with few words, after a while you will be able to recognize the words at a glance, then work on to something a bit more challenging.

It may be worth your while to read on subjects that interest you this should prevent your studies from becoming tedious and boring, you will also build up your grammar and learn new words at the same time.

The above method worked for me, but we all have differing skills and needs, so our learning methods may differ, do what works for you.

ว่าเธอไม่ชอบเรา

ammended to ว่าเธอไม่ชอบเรา

Thanks for replying. So at least we have done the same thing, our first attempt was to identify each block of word in a string of words. For me I use highlighter to highlight alternate word.

Yes, there is a method which is fairly effective for me. Their TV channels play Taiwanese serial dubbed in Thai, fortunately they do not removed the Chinese substitles. And by watching those serials, they helped to re-enforce my vocabulary. Unfortunately they screen those serials at late hours.

I too observed that many (may I say all, probably not, because of the DMC channal) of their Thai TV programs have no English substitles. Some English-speaking movies have Thai substitles, unfortunately I am still at stage trying to identify each block of word.

As perverse as it may sound, I have stopped watching movies with subtitles.

The reason being they are translated word for word with no understanding of the nuances of the language.

An example would be,

I saw khun x yesterady

Q. How was he doing?

A. He was looking good.

Translated to Thai subtitles, Kao doo dee, a literal translation, that is of course correct, but is incorect in the fact it doesnt convey the meaning of the sentance.

The above is an example using English, I dare say the same can be repeated using, Japanese, Chinese or any other language you care to mention.

The problem isnt only peculiar to students of the Thai language, my wife (Thai) will watch movies in Thai with English subtitles, then not understand why I dont understand what she is trying to say to me in English.

Until the subtitles are translated by native speakers of the language in question, and not Thais who speak whatever language you care to mention, the problem will exist, thus hindering students of the Thai language, or Thais who are trying to master another language, these subtitles help no one, in fact may be more of a hinderance than an aid.

Good luck in your studies.

[Richard W]

So far those languages that I know of have clear distinction for a word, like Chinese (a character is a word and has a syllabus), English, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, French .... I am not sure if Burmese, Laos, Khmer, Arabic, Indian ... language behave like Thai (that there is no spacing between words).

I believe you have misinterpret my intention. My statement regarding Chinese, English, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, French is based on my general understanding that those languages break the word for easy read.

Mainland SE Asian languages don't mark word breaks, while Arabic and modern Indian languages do. (Sanskrit and Pali don't normally mark word boundaries when written in Indic scripts.) Vietnames does mark syllable boundaries, and these usually coincide with word boundaries.

Syllable boundaries are generally clear in Burmese and modern Lao. This is because of clear marking of consonants without following vowels in Burmese and because modern Lao lacks implicit vowels and silent consonants and has very few consonant clusters.

Until you start to separate words in Thai by recognising words, you can go a long way by using preposed vowels, sara a and thanthakhat (not on ro) to locate syllable boundaries. Remember that syllables with mai ai, mai ao and sara a do not have unsilenced final consonants. Implicitly silenced ro is a problem, as in สามารถ [M]sa[F]maat.