I'm just wondering why the word "out" (ork) uses two or angs such as ออก wouldn't อก (breast?) be the same pronounciation? is the former a longer 'or' sound or what? the tones are the same I assume?

Always confused by this one...and pretty sure or ang is not being used to change the consonant class...

Cheers

It's different in both vowel length and the vowel sound. The vowel in ออก is long and has the ออ /ɔ/ sound, but the vowel in อก is short and has the โอ /o/ sound.

Makes sense, thanks!

I just checked my dictionary and there are dozens of words with two "or ang"....I shall have to make an effort now to distinguish between the length and sound of my 'or' as before I was just saying them all the same whether one or two...

It's annoying that most Thai language books and many guides online don't seem to mention that you can use two or ang, even though it's clearly legitimate and lengthens the vowel sound! seems there are many things in learning Thai which aren't obvious at first and only come with practice.

I'm still practicing with poly-syllabic words with several consonants e.g. consonant-consonant-consonant and the implied 'o' (and others) that go between them. Funny when you see the Thai spelling for words such as fruit (pon-la-mai) and others...borisat, borigahn and borisut are others that I couldn't work out at first. :-)

ออก is not a special case; it's just like the words ก่อน and อ่าง, consonant-vowel-consonant. The initial consonant and vowel just happen to use the same symbol.

It doesn't lengthen the default vowel โอะ, it completely replaces it with the explicit ออ.

Some romanizations use "oh" for โอ and "au" or "aw" for ออ. It's easy to miss at first that those are two different vowels.

For fun, try to guess the correct pronunciation of กรกฎาคม.

อ is a peculiar case, it can be either a vowel or consonant.

No Thai word starts with a vowel, so the Thais get round this by using อ as a silent consonant.

In the case of ออก the initial อ can be read as a silent consonant and the second อ as the vowel.

Remember that when อ acts as a consonant, the sound it represents is a glottal stop (a complete closing and opening of your glottis). In some transcription systems, this glottal stop is represented by a question mark without a full stop below. In my early years, I made the mistake of not pronouncing this glottal stop in combinations like 'saam-sip-et' (thirty-one) in Thai. If you do not have a glottal stop between 'saamsip' and 'et' many Thais will assume you are trying to say 'saam-sip paed' (38) because the glottal stop before 'et' is obligatory.

Note that vowels in written Thai cannot stand alone. They need a consonant. อ is both a consonant and a vowel. As a consonant it is called a zero consonant because it is like a placeholder for standalone vowel sounds. As a vowel it represents the long vowel of "Or".

In ออก, the first อ is used as that zero consonant while the second is the vowel. So you get "Ork", (long and low).

In อก, the one and only อ is the zero consonant and the vowel of a short "oh" is implied here without being written down. So you get a "Ohk" (short and low) . You need to differentiate between these two O-vowels, "Or" and "Oh".

Implied vowels can either be a short "oh" or a short "ah", depending on whether there is a final consonant in the syllable. For อก, there is a final consonant of ก, so the implied vowel is "oh". In อเมริกา(America), the อ functions as a zero consonant without a final consonant in the first syllable, so the implied vowel here is the short unstressed "ah".

OK I got it now! cheers.