Word Wrapping

[plus7]

Hi,

I can read basic Thai already. However I still do not understand how do they separate words without spaces ?

I know there are ending vowels, but I'm not sure if this is distintly means the end of a word.

If you see a long word how do you understand that this is one word and not two ?

[rgs2001uk]

Recognition and memory.

Final consonants also help.

[rgs2001uk]

deleted double post

Edited August 18, 2012 by rgs2001uk

[bytebuster]

Words consist of syllables. There's no formal distinction telling how the syllables should be merged to form a word.

E.g. if there's a sequence of syllables syl1, syl2, syl3, there's no means to say if:

• they are three separate words
  
• or word1 consists of syl1, and word2 consists of syl2 and syl3,
  
• or vice versa,
  
• or maybe it's a single word consisting of three syllables.
  

Every syllable is uniquely formed by a vowel template. So first off, one should study those templates.

Again, there's no distinct formalism telling absolutely everything, but once could get advantage by looking at left-bound vowels (ไ-, โ-, เ-, etc) or right-bound vowels (-ะ) to determine certain syllable ends. The rest is rather intuition and basic familiarity with the language.

Most books for students have spaces between words, so it's easier for students. After your level grows, you will be able to read with no spaces.

Also, there are several Web sites providing syllabification and, consequently, transcription for Thai texts.

[AyG]

As well as the above tips, scan sentences for ก็ which never occurs within a word. Also look for common short words - particularly ที่, ทำ, เป็น and ได้ which usually occur as single syllable words.

[krisb]

Itsreallynotthathard.hopethishelps?justpracticealot.

[bytebuster]

Itsreallynotthathard.hopethishelps?justpracticealot.

I think it's different as per English and Thai.

Romance languages have higher amount of linguistic redundancy and therefore they are less vulnerable to errors.

Thai is more "symbol-effective" in cost of possible errors while reading ("ขนมครก") or even anambiguity ("ตากลม").

[Asianrider]

It might seen difficult at frst, but after lots of practice you recognise word groups, final consonants etc.