Is Your Wife/girl Friend Capable To Pronounce English Sounds Properly/easily?

[Tchooptip]

Yes this title is a question!

Sometimes I wonder: is my (dear) wife only, incapable of pronouncing an English sound she have heard once or twice?

She speaks not to bad (for a Thai people), or at least she has for sure a good vocabulary, many time I am impressed, wah you know this word! Yes

She learns regularly, mainly by listening to different speaking softwares, the problem seems to be her ear. It seems very hard for her to repeat "some" English sounds properly at first hearing ? On the other hand fortunately some are perfect ???

examples: It is fi (ve) o'clock I tell her no darling not fi, fi ve.

I like this becomes I ly this, no darling li...ke OK OK ... and she repeats I lise...no not lise, like...

For sweet: she does not put sugar in her coffee, because I don't ly swiss not good for poumpouill

Yesterday I had to give a call to Thai airways in Suratthani to postpone my departure, you speak english said I Yes of course was the answer...the conversation was acceptable to the point my asking can you confirmed by email? yes Sir... ... It seems she was incapable to repeat after me my email, geo: djee ee o ar , the girl was incapable to understand the spelling, five minutes later... I did not lost my temper so she asked me do you have a Thai people I could speak to not far, yes of course!

She finished the conversation with my wife. And yes I received my email properly :-)

My wife's daughter she went to school longer than my wife, she is 23 works for a aesthetic surgeon, surf the internet in English...so she can read, but... she is almost incapable to "speak" a single sentence...mai kodjai !

What is your experience?

PS: it does not get on my nerves at all, it is part of my wife's charms, for she have many

[Bangkokhatter]

I find many times its because they do not pronounce the ending of the words and speak English using Thai rules, it doesn't work. Much the same as when I try and learn Thai and apply English rules, bloody frustrating !

[Jayroo]

My gf is improving a lot, as I'm constantly correcting her (not in public) so she improves and reduces that thai accent sound, by having to pronounce the "s" in plurals etc, as it actually does annoy me.
For the reason being that Thais think they can pronounce English how ever they want and still it's fine, but when we try and pronounce a Thai word and it's just a teenee fraction off, they laugh or say mai kao jai etc... I know the languages aren't based on the same laws, like Thai is based more on phonetics etc, but it's the principle, and sometimes I don't understand what she's talking about.

[Jayroo]

I find many times its because they do not pronounce the ending of the words and speak English using Thai rules, it doesn't work. Much the same as when I try and learn Thai and apply English rules, bloody frustrating !

What do you mean by applying English rules for Thai, why would you do that?

[Soutpeel]

Answer... No...

[phuturatica]

Thai people cannot pronounce the -V- sound. It's not within their Thai vocabulary, therefore they have never learnt how to say it. They can do it with practice but it takes time.

But yeah... That's my 2 cents. I am female and I don't date a Thai woman.

[Morakot]

Yes, she sounds like a lovely Caledonian lass.

[breadbin]

My wife can pronounce the letter v.

I think you've made a generalisation

Naughty!

[candypants]

I know plenty of thai folk who speak excellent english. It is a matter of how and why they learned, and whether or not they actually care if they get it right.

[Jayroo]

Thai people cannot pronounce the -V- sound. It's not within their Thai vocabulary, therefore they have never learnt how to say it. They can do it with practice but it takes time.

But yeah... That's my 2 cents. I am female and I don't date a Thai woman.

Would you date a thai man? I don't think this just applies to women.

[a99az]

Talk about the kettle calling the pot black I think you should work on your own English a bit before you start criticizing others.

[Hedghog]

Took the words out of my mouth.

[Riverman63]

All these perfect Thai speakers expect so much from their beloved it seems ;-)

[cooked]

Umbrella is a good one. Told to get the camera I came back with the umbrella.

[overherebc]

I am always amused, but never show it, when I am offered roast kitchen that has been made in the chicken. I do agree with the poster who was saying about the small difference in tone causing problems, it seems so obvious to us that a small change should make no difference, but then again in Canada a Bison is something you put water in to wash your face.

Edited April 3, 2013 by overherebc

[Riverman63]

My gf mixes up the sound of omelette and ambulance. Could get tricky in an emergency!

[Nautilus05]

Of course, but same as 99.5% chance you (as in anyone reading this) can't pronounce Thai properly. Both languages have various sounds that doesn't exist in the other.

For example, ask a Thai to say "relax", and there's a good chance you'll get "relack" out of them. Or "chef" will turn into "chet", etc.

Same goes for us and various Thai words though. We can't pronounce them properly at all.

[eeeya]

Umbrella is a good one. Told to get the camera I came back with the umbrella.

Umbrella and brown, frog (flog)

My all time favourite was "circus paradise" in Queensland Australia.

[Morakot]

My gf mixes up the sound of omelette and ambulance. Could get tricky in an emergency!

Happened to me once. I called for an ambulance and ended up in a new-age furniture store named "St John's Ambiance" !

Edited April 3, 2013 by Morakot

[Vinny1967]

My other half's english aint too bad,but when she talks english,she talks with a sort of german accent

Her family on the other hand is a different story.I do have some difficulties communicating with them because of them only pronouncing half the word.When I try to teach them how to say a word properly,it just ends up getting my back up and I just give in.They just don't seem to have the linguistic skills to talk english properly.

[AnotherOneAmerican]

My gf is improving a lot, as I'm constantly correcting her (not in public) so she improves and reduces that thai accent sound, by having to pronounce the "s" in plurals etc, as it actually does annoy me.

For the reason being that Thais think they can pronounce English how ever they want and still it's fine, but when we try and pronounce a Thai word and it's just a teenee fraction off, they laugh or say mai kao jai etc... I know the languages aren't based on the same laws, like Thai is based more on phonetics etc, but it's the principle, and sometimes I don't understand what she's talking about.

Educated Thais don't have this problem, they understand slightly mispronounced central Thai words.

I have always thought the problem occurs with the 'rural regionals' who don't have central Thai as their first language.

[USNret]

All I can say is, her English is far, far better than my Thai. But she has asked me to correct her when she makes mistakes in grammar or pronunciation, so I do (sometimes). She'll get mad at me when she realizes I failed to correct her (in private), so I try to do so.

She's getting pretty good at putting 's' at the end of words, but the 'v' is still tough (visitor = wisitor). The toughest of all is Z/Zed. We practice 'Zoo', 'buzz', etc. but she hasn't quite got it. Her trick is just to say the word quickly & not dwell on the difficult sound; the casual listener will hardly notice.

[USNret]

One time, I tried "going local" and turning the trailing "L" into an "N". Some schoolgirls were ordering "appen" from a fruit vendor, so he sliced up some apples & gave it to them in a bag. When it came my turn, I ordered "appen" the guy looked at me like I was crazy.

When I asked my wife why (she wasn't present at the time), she said it's cuz they know that "appen" is wrong but they say it anyway. But when a farang says it, they don't understand why I'm saying it wrong. Talk about a double standard!! It really cracked me up.

[Neeranam]

Her English pronunciation is good. When we first met we only spoke Thai as she didn't know any English. I got an English mate who spoke with a Southern English posh accent to teach her.

She still can't say , "shrimp crisps" after 12 years. however it took my 5 years to say 'sleepy' in Thai, "nguang nawn"

I still can't say, "Ranong , Rayong, Yala" quickly in succession.

Edited April 3, 2013 by Neeranam

[Naam]

Thai people cannot pronounce the -V- sound. It's not within their Thai vocabulary, therefore they have never learnt how to say it. They can do it with practice but it takes time.

But yeah... That's my 2 cents. I am female and I don't date a Thai woman.

state valid reasons why you don't date a Thai woman... or else!

[transam]

Talk about the kettle calling the pot black I think you should work on your own English a bit before you start criticizing others.

Yeh, it's shit.

[Morakot]

Talk about the kettle calling the pot black I think you should work on your own English a bit before you start criticizing others.

Yeh, it's shit.

No offence, but I'd say <deleted> might be a better description.

[transam]

Talk about the kettle calling the pot black I think you should work on your own English a bit before you start criticizing others.

Yeh, it's shit.

No offence, but I'd say <deleted> might be a better description.

I am from south England .

[Morakot]

Fair play.

[wolf5370]

My wife has lived in the UK for half her life and speaks it fluently. However, some words she just can not say - I call them her tease words, we both get the giggles when she tries. One is "Grill" she can do "Gr" and even "ill", but put it together and its "goo-uh", has us both in stitches.

My word is (in Thai) "horse", always comes out as "dog" or "come", other high tomes are fine, but that one for some reason never comes out like it sounds in my head. I can do the usual supposedly hard ones like -'eur-' (shirt - seur) and 'ng-' prefixed (work ngarn), but 'horse' - aghghghgh.

Luckily 'grill' and 'horse' don't come up much in conversation - unless we are talking about European "beef" burgers I guess