Here'S Another One For You Language Pundits. ..

[Tod Daniels]

Much to my chagrin , I am currently teaching some thais conversational english in trade for them teaching me conversational thai. They cannot read english at a high enough level and I have resorted to using a book written in thai called "เรียนง่าย...เป็นเร็ว สนทนาภาษาอังกฤษ".

It has situational conversations, vocab, etc, and the sentence written in english, thai and then thai writing which when read sounds like a close approximation of the english words.

FWIW: The thais seem to be able to read this quite well, and once they read the thai meaning, then the thai version which 'speaks' the engrish sentence they know most of the words right off the bat. Their conversational level of english isn't bad, plus they have a very good spoken/understood english vocabulary too, they just can't read english very well. They also lack confidence in their sentence constructs (something which I told them I lack too when I speak thai, lol, much to their amazement given my demeanor .).

My question is; what is the character called which looks like a little dot and (at least in this book) is under sooo many of the thai words spelling out the english word sounds? It's the character on a thai keyboard which is accessed via 'shift' and the สระอิ key. (It only took me 5 minutes of intent scrutiny of my p/c's keyboard to locate , as I've never used it, nor even knew it existed before).

Not only what is it called but what does it do, as I can't remember ever seeing it used in a thai word before.

Here's are two examples of it being used;

What kind of food do you like?

คุณชอบอาหารประเภทไหน

วอท ไตนดฺ ออฟ ฟูด ดู ยู ไลคฺ

Good morning. May I help you?

สวัสดีครับ มิอะไรให้ผมช่วยไหมครับ

กุด มอร์นิง เมย์ ไอ เฮลพฺ ยู

(Sorry they don't display all that well, but if you look they are under the words 'kind', 'like' and 'help' when written in thai phonetics.)

The only thing I can think of is that it means to aspirate the ending sound, instead of having it 'bitten back'.

Dunno really but any help would be appreciated, as even the thais I'm teaching don't know what to call that symbol nor what it does really.

Thanx in advance for any answers.

[RickBradford]

Surely it is a mark to tell Thai readers "you must pronounce this consonant" because in normal Thai reading, they would ignore those extra final consonants.

[DavidHouston]

Tod,

The mark is called a พินทุจุด and the explanation for its use can be found on page 8 of the Royal Institute Dictionary (2542 version). Just as Rick said, it is used to indicate whether a particular consonant should be sounded or not. Take the word โหม meaning "to mobilize, to storm" Its Thai phonetic spelling is โหมฺ with the dot beneath the ม to indicate that the pronunciation should be like the English "home", rather than "Moe".

On the other hand, the word โหม่ง is written in phonetic Thai as โหฺม่ง with the dot under the ห to indicate a pronunciation like "Mong".

I have to admit: the explanation of page 8 of the RID confuses the heck out of me.

[tgeezer]

Firstly thank you for telling us where to find the little devil. It is being used in the opposite fashion to its use in Thaiม where it says don't sound the letter หฺ or under the first of mixed consonents ไพฺร

In the pronunciation section of the dictionary it is refered to as, พิทุจุด and described as ใช้พินทุจุดไว้ข้างใต้ตัวอักษร

sorry crossed posts, my little dictionary doesn't explain its use in words like โหม (โหมฺ) although it does have that entry!

Edited September 11, 2010 by tgeezer

[Rikker]

[Edit: Apologies for repeating much of what David said -- he posted while I was writing.]

It's called พินทุ /phinthu/ (which means 'dot' in Sanskrit). Its meaning depends on the context.

As used in Thai it mostly commonly indicates consonant clusters, sounds that are meant to be pronounced together without hidden vowels like กล ปล or กร.

In a Thai-Thai dictionary like the Royal Institute Dictionary it's used in the pronunciation guides to clarify ambiguous spellings, for example แสม might have a pronunciation guide [สะ-แหฺม], which means the ห is silent, and thus the word is pronounced /sa-mae/ not /saem/. Or for กลาโหม it might say [กะ-ลา-โหมฺ], with the dot under the ม to indicate that it's pronounced /kalaahoom/ (and not /kalaamoo/). Or เพลา [เพ-ลา] /pheelaa/ vs. เปล่า [เปฺล่า] /plao/.

For a Thai-English dictionary, RickBradford's phrasing is a pretty good way of describing what it's supposed to mean. To put it more technically it also indicates consonant clusters, helping the astute student know just how they should be pronouncing English's often unpredictable spellings and illogically silent consonants.

Originally it was used (and still is) for writing Pali and Sanskrit using Thai script. In Pali and Sanskrit by default every consonant has an implied short /a/ vowel, so the พินทุ indicates that the consonant it's beneath should be a final consonant of the syllable, canceling its implicit /a/ vowel. To borrow Thai Wikipedia's examples, ธมฺมา is read [ทัม-มา] and อญฺชลี is read [อัญ-ชะ-ลี].

It's also used to transcribe other languages into Thai script, like Khmer, Arabic, etc.

[bhoydy]

Now i know what it's for but is there any particular rule to explain whether or not the marked letter is sounded.

[Tod Daniels]

Thanx to all for the good info posted!! I'd never figured it out. ..

As a more than slightly off topic aside;

While I’m sure if I took the time to do a forum search I could get the answers, I’ll ask here anyway;

What thai-english, english-thai dictionary has the thai pronunciation after a thai word like this (สวัสดิ์; สะ-หฺวัด, สวัสดี; สะ-หฺวัด-ดี) which is found on Glenn Slayden's site if you activate the RID tab in the settings?

I have a coupla different dictionaries Se-Ed's, etc, yet none of them have a pronunciation guide like that for the thai words. I looked at Asia Books but none of theirs have it either.

While I'm getting pretty proficient in looking up thai words in a thai dictionary, I still would prefer to know how a specific word is pronounced in thai rather than just the english meaning. I'd also like one which had both english-thai and thai-english if possible.

Also if you recommend a dictionary, where would I be likely to purchase it? Kinokuniya, Chula, online, etc? (Oh yeah, I’m in Bangkok near Suk/Asok BTS)

Thanx again.

[DavidHouston]

Tod wrote:

"What thai-english, english-thai dictionary has the thai pronunciation after a thai word like this (สวัสดิ์; สะ-หฺวัด, สวัสดี; สะ-หฺวัด-ดี) which is found on Glenn Slayden's site if you activate the RID tab in the settings?"

Glenn's dictionary allows you to see pronunciation in phonetic Thai for all dictionary items if you choose the "Phonemic Thai" button, at the "Romanization System" section of the "Site Settings" page.

Thanx to all for the good info posted!! I'd never figured it out. ..

As a more than slightly off topic aside;

While I'm sure if I took the time to do a forum search I could get the answers, I'll ask here anyway;

What thai-english, english-thai dictionary has the thai pronunciation after a thai word like this (สวัสดิ์; สะ-หฺวัด, สวัสดี; สะ-หฺวัด-ดี) which is found on Glenn Slayden's site if you activate the RID tab in the settings?

I have a coupla different dictionaries Se-Ed's, etc, yet none of them have a pronunciation guide like that for the thai words. I looked at Asia Books but none of theirs have it either.

While I'm getting pretty proficient in looking up thai words in a thai dictionary, I still would prefer to know how a specific word is pronounced in thai rather than just the english meaning. I'd also like one which had both english-thai and thai-english if possible.

Also if you recommend a dictionary, where would I be likely to purchase it? Kinokuniya, Chula, online, etc? (Oh yeah, I'm in Bangkok near Suk/Asok BTS)

Thanx again.

[Rikker]

What thai-english, english-thai dictionary has the thai pronunciation after a thai word like this (สวัสดิ์; สะ-หฺวัด, สวัสดี; สะ-หฺวัด-ดี) which is found on Glenn Slayden's site if you activate the RID tab in the settings?

I have a coupla different dictionaries Se-Ed's, etc, yet none of them have a pronunciation guide like that for the thai words. I looked at Asia Books but none of theirs have it either.

While I'm getting pretty proficient in looking up thai words in a thai dictionary, I still would prefer to know how a specific word is pronounced in thai rather than just the english meaning. I'd also like one which had both english-thai and thai-english if possible.

Also if you recommend a dictionary, where would I be likely to purchase it? Kinokuniya, Chula, online, etc? (Oh yeah, I’m in Bangkok near Suk/Asok BTS)

The Thai-script pronunciation guides is one of the reasons So Sethaputra's Thai-English dictionary has always been one of my favorites. In particular, the Pocket version was my favorite carry-around dictionary for years (now thanks to the web I don't carry around a physical dictionary much anymore). It can be searched online here, though the pronunciation guide doesn't seem to display properly in Chrome (must test in other browsers).

So Sethaputra's Thai-English is harder to find than his English-Thai dictionary, so whenever I see the Pocket version (a deal at 75 baht) I snap it up, because I've given away several over the years. The pocket version has all the entries of the Desk and Library versions, only minus the example sentences. The latest cover I've seen looks like this. (This is actually the desk edition cover, but the pocket one is the same only smaller.)

If you can't find that you could buy the combined Thai-English, English-Thai edition, which is 175 baht and looks like this.

[SoftWater]

I'm pretty sure I see this in most bookshops that have Thai language books, Se-ed and Chula for sure.

If you haven't discovered it yet, Chula books latest store (at least a year or more old, actually, but you're not likely to discover it by accident) is the whole of the 5th floor at the Chamchuri Square shopping centre, which is adjoined to the Sam Yan underground station. Very easy to get to if the subway is near you.

Well worth a visit if you're a bibliophile. Apart from the large Chula bkshp, there also a Se-ed, an Asia bookstore and several independents. Narnmee also have their own store there if you like those thai edu-comic books for learning. Other things there are art supplies shops, various dance, music, and art tutorial schools for kiddies, lots of different kinds of Japanese restaurants, coffee shops and (oddly) a very good Tesco's in the basement!

(Incidentally, I just remembered, there is now an outpost of the Immigration office in Chamchuri and you can do your 90-day reporting there; no need to tredge up to Chaeng Wattana!)

Edited September 11, 2010 by SoftWater

[Gaccha]

(Incidentally, I just remembered, there is now an outpost of the Immigration office in Chamchuri and you can do your 90-day reporting there; no need to tredge up to Chaeng Wattana!)

No, they changed their policy a few months ago. After moving to their new conveniently located offices they were flooded with 90-day report requests so they banned it for all but BOT affliated workers. Big shame for me and the 99% of other users.

By they way, Chula has four bookstores. And, of course, all the libraries allow you to photocopy the whole book at special copy centres found inside the libraries.

[Tod Daniels]

No, they changed their policy a few months ago.

Sadly; Chamchuri Square is now ONLY for foreigners who are with a registered BOI company, and they will NOT take 90 day reporting slips, from anyone else!! Even if you reported there before .

Then again, I could be wrong (but I don't think so, as I tried to report there before, although at that time I had 5 passports, plus mine, in tow! )

But thanx for the heads up on the bookstores and dictionaries. I'll scope them out

U guyz (and gurlz) are a great resource!!

Tod

[SoftWater]

Sorry to all that we're not only off the OP but not even in the right forum ...

my fault entirely. But thanks for the updates re: 90 days and Chamchuri.

BTW, y'all can get Rikker's dictionary on the 5th floor folks....

(Actually it could be the 4th floor - but in any case its the TOP floor inside the shopping mall!!)

Edited September 11, 2010 by SoftWater