Thai-language.com is one of my primary tools I use to identify new words I hear, to add to my vocabulary. Occasionally I become a bit puzzled. Recently I identified the word real estate from an audio. my sound clip matches this:

อสังหาริมทรัพย์  /อะ-สัง-หา-ริ-มะ-ซับ; อะ-สัง-หา-ริม-มะ-ซับ/

The Thai-language sound clip almost matches it, except it is missing the มะ syllable and does not seem to match the

other transliteration and phoenetics presented on the page:

http://www.thai-language.com/id/214772

aL sangR haaR riH mohtH rapH

Phonemic Thai

อะ-สัง-หา-ริ-มด-รับ

Royal Thai General System

a sangharimotrap

So I am just wondering,

Is there an error due to computer generated transliteration?

Is there no error, it may just be that I am not reading transliteration correctly?

Is there an official way to pronounce a word, but sometimes it is actually pronounced differently in the real world?

TIA for any replies.

Klons,

Thank your for spotting that error in the T-L.com dictionary. It will be corrected.

arankarimasap is correct (I'm not proficient at writing this correctly in roman script, but you get the idea. The "a" prefix serves the same function in Pali/Sanscrit that it does in English, making the word into the opposite of the root to which it is attached.

Automatic phonetic transcription of Thai is very error-prone and is actually rendered impossible by words spelt the same and pronounced differently. With long words, if you can recognise the constituent parts, you can often do better than automatic tools.

Thanks, I'm all straightened out. I found some notes on the site that basically say to go by the audio over the transliteration.

Now I was just wondering if there is any significance to words that have audio as opposed to those that don't as far as maybe being more commonly used ?

Just thought I would ask if anyone might know.