Tone Trouble!

[DaraRai]

I'm having trouble with tones, especially hitting the high tone. Another issue I have is when I have multiple falling tones one after another (such as in "dai peurn tee mai chai..." -- 5 falling tones in a row, you see what I mean?). If I pause and infuse effort into it, I can manage but then my sentence sounds stilted and doesn't flow smoothly.

Anyone have tips on how to speak at a fluent/smooth pace while still maintaining tone? I tend to either flatten out the tones or make them rising.

Edited February 22, 2013 by DaraRai

[JetsetBkk]

Can you post what you are trying to say in Thai? i.e. not transcribed into English.

[HeavyDrinker]

Choose a few words of each tone which you are familiar with.

Have a Thai say them slowly and clearly, record it, then repeat them parrot fashion over and over and over and over and over and over until the 'template' of the tones is nailed in the old onion.

Don't worry too much about 'pace' or 'fluency' at this stage. Speak slowly, but confidently, and you'll progress a lot faster than you will if you're pushing yourself to heights you can't reach as yet.

[kriswillems]

Best thing to do is to listen a lot to how Thai people pronounce consecutive falling tones. In non-formal speaking language the first of two consecutive falling tones is sometimes more flat - less falling, to make pronunciation easier.

Also it's not strange that you separate the words and pronounce every falling tone clearly. It's sounds unnatural to us (farang) because in English and other European languages the words flow together in natural speaking. Thai language has this effect much less. You will notice this when some Thai people speak English, they really chop up the sentence in individual words: words don't flow, they sound unnatural, almost like a robot. Think about the sentence "where do you go?" and leave a short time gap between the words, and you'll know how Thai people pronounce words in a sentence (and compare it with natural English language). In Thai this is how it's done (which makes it easier to pronounce 2 consecutive falling tones).

Edited February 22, 2013 by kriswillems

[kokesaat]

If you have the benefit of a mp3 recording of the troublesome phrase, you could loop it in a program like audacity...listen and say......again and again and again. Audacity gives you the added feature of slowing down the rate of play...without much affecting the natural sound.

If you don't have the benefit of a mp3 recording, you could make one yourself......using a smartphone or a cheap voice recorder. Ask a Thai (or several!) to read a short phrase that you record. Again, Audacity works best for me when playing back clips.

Good luck!

[DaraRai]

Thank you everyone for your advice! I'm going to try recording the phrase and listening and repeating. Kriswillems, your explanation is extremely helpful! Thank you!

[expat_4_life]

I see you felt you were having trouble hitting the high tones too. One of the most important things in getting your tones right, is to get comfortable with your natural voice pitch, all tones are based off that as a mid-tone. It's not necessary to attempt to mimic the "tone/pitch" of any native speaker - you rather must find your own voice. I rather sympathize with your struggles as I did too. For myself I found it very useful to select words that include many tones, say them slowly, exaggerating the difference in the tones until I could say them in my normal speaking pitch and get natural pace. That helped me to develp a natural way of speaking alot. Good Luck.

[coma]

Are you reading in Thai script ? IMO This is a must for correct sound/ tone pronunciation. If so my advice is to slow your speech down to help ensure correct sound/tone. In time, with experience and self confidence you will get it. That is all it is. Time, time, time. Practice, practice, practice. Which equals dedication. One needs alot of these things to get fluent in most foriegn languages.