I'm fairly new to reading Thai and have learned from Thai for beginners mostly.

Thai is great in that 90+% of the time, the word is written exactly as spelled, but for words like these, I cannot find any rule that tells me that I shouldn't pronounce พฤหัส as pru-hat or พฤษภา as paru-sa-paa or maybe prut-paa? Maybe ษ is supposed to get expanded whenever feasible?

Am I missing something or do I just need to know all these words?

These words you have to know, so you look them up in the dictionary, the Royal Institute Dictionary is available on-line, where you will find them in Thai. พฤหัสบดี น. (พรึหัดสะบอดี พะรึหัดสะบอดี) choose the one you like best. Taking my own advice I see that I am flummoxed on พฤษภาคม ดู พฤษภ (พรึดสบ พรึสบ) noone has ever criticised พรึดสะภาคม which I have always said.

The rule is called สระลบรูป (deleting of vowels).

Or at least thats what my พระอาจารย์ always called it . . .

Its a fuzzy rule though, where its almost a case-by-case basis of whether you pronounce the vowel or not.

It's actually called สระลดรูป -- ลด "reduce" not ลบ "erase, delete".

The secret to these words is that all the ones with tricky reading are loans from foreign languages. Mostly Sanskrit and Pali, with a hefty helping of Khmer and smatterings of others.

It will feel like a lot of memorization, but patterns will start to jump out at you. And you'll see particular root words over and over. Once you become familiar you can start making educated guesses when it comes to pronunciation. And be right most of the time. I'd like to give a more lengthy reply but it would have to be *very* lengthy, and there are some places where this stuff is already discussed fairly well, such as the reference section at thai-language.com. (See the parts about irregular pronunciation, etc.)

It's actually called สระลดรูป -- ลด "reduce" not ลบ "erase, delete".

The secret to these words is that all the ones with tricky reading are loans from foreign languages. Mostly Sanskrit and Pali, with a hefty helping of Khmer and smatterings of others.

It will feel like a lot of memorization, but patterns will start to jump out at you. And you'll see particular root words over and over. Once you become familiar you can start making educated guesses when it comes to pronunciation. And be right most of the time. I'd like to give a more lengthy reply but it would have to be *very* lengthy, and there are some places where this stuff is already discussed fairly well, such as the reference section at thai-language.com. (See the parts about irregular pronunciation, etc.)

I don't want the lengthy reply so don't worry. I think looking them up is good enough but what about พฤษภคม The RID points to พฤษภ for the pronunciation พรึสบคม as I said before I have never heard anyone say that.

พฤ should read พฺรึ (pru?) or พฺรึด That is a rule. You will have to remember it.

พฤหัสบดี should read พฺรึ-หัด-สะ-บอ-ดี but พะ-รึ-หัด-สะ-บอ-ดี is also acceptable and listed in dictionary due to its popularity.

พฤษภาคม should read พฺรึด-สะ-พา-คม and not พะ-รึ-สะ-พา-คม simply because nobody do that.

ษ in พฤษภาคม get the vowel ะ because the root words are from Pali/Sanskrit. This is different from สระลดรูป

พฤษภาคม = พฤษภ [พฺรึ-สบ or พฺรึด-สบ] + อาคม

Another rule that might be useful to you and involve ฤ is that when it follows ค ด น ม ห, the vowel ะ will be added to ค ด น ม ห.

คฤโฆษ คะ-รึ-โคด คฤหบดี คะ-รึ-หะ-บอ-ดี

คฤหัสถ์ คะ-รึ-หัด คฤหาสน์ คะ-รึ-หาด

ดฤถี ดะ-รึ-ถี นฤคหิต นะ-รึ-คะ-หิด

นฤดม นะ-รึ-ดม นฤเทพ นะ-รึ-เทบ

นฤบดี นะ-รึ-บอ-ดี นฤบาล นะ-รึ-บาน

นฤมล นะ-รึ-มน มฤค มะ-รึก

มฤตยู มะ-รึด-ตะ-ยู หฤทัย หะ-รึ-ทัย

หฤหรรษ์ หะ-รึ-หัน หฤโหด หะ-รึ-โหด

Edited January 28, 201016 yr by anchan42

tgeezer, I was addressing farangnahrak and the OP in my last post, actually.

Regarding พฤษภาคม, though, you're not noticing the สระอา. พฤษภ "Taurus" is pronounced [พฺรึสบ] or [พฺรึดสบ], but once you compound it with อาคม, by sandhi rules the syllable boundaries change. What was the final consonant ภ becomes the initial consonant of a new syllable, พฤษ-ภา-คม [พฺรึดสะพาคม].

tgeezer, I was addressing farangnahrak and the OP in my last post, actually.

Regarding พฤษภาคม, though, you're not noticing the สระอา. พฤษภ "Taurus" is pronounced [พฺรึสบ] or [พฺรึดสบ], but once you compound it with อาคม, by sandhi rules the syllable boundaries change. What was the final consonant ภ becomes the initial consonant of a new syllable, พฤษ-ภา-คม [พฺรึดสะพาคม].

That is not all; I didn't notice, refer to พฤษภ means the whole definition of พฤษภ where พฤษภาคม is explained entirely! Sorry.

พฤ should read พฺรึ (pru?) or พฺรึด That is a rule. You will have to remember it.

พฤหัสบดี should read พฺรึ-หัด-สะ-บอ-ดี but พะ-รึ-หัด-สะ-บอ-ดี is also acceptable and listed in dictionary due to its popularity.

พฤษภาคม should read พฺรึด-สะ-พา-คม and not พะ-รึ-สะ-พา-คม simply because nobody do that.

ษ in พฤษภาคม get the vowel ะ because the root words are from Pali/Sanskrit. This is different from สระลดรูป

พฤษภาคม = พฤษภ [พฺรึ-สบ or พฺรึด-สบ] + อาคม

Another rule that might be useful to you and involve ฤ is that when it follows ค ด น ม ห, the vowel ะ will be added to ค ด น ม ห.

Thanks for the info. anchan42 it is nice to know the possibilities available for mistakes. I was looking up สรรพ สรรพ- today and am just about convinced that looking up the individual words is the answer for me. Even what appears to be คำสมาส is not always,eg. ผลไม้

Another common one that'll through people off is คุณภาพ

It looks like two different easy words, but isn't . . . Moral of the story: assume a compound word when looking up definitions.