Where Thai Excels, or Comes Up Short

[Richard W]

For me, the biggest problem with reading written Thai are the hidden vowels. The exceptions on the in tone rules Richard mentioned are in my opinion just a little problem compared to the problem of the hidden vowels (f.i.ปกติ).

I don't disagree. However, the implicit vowels in monosyllables are not a problem.

I am totally confused about the vowel use in English.

There doesn't seem to be a good account of English spelling on line, which is why I have to reference Hau to pranaunse Inglish. I encounter a good monograph on the subject once, which even explained the choice of 'au' or 'aw', but unfortunately I didn't make a note of the author's name.

[pablodiablo]

been reading all this highbrow content,had trouble sleeping prior to reading your thoughts, but am now falling asleep at my desk top, thanks guys

I'd hate to think we are keeping you from a relaxing day at the dump shooting rats.

ha ha, down to my level now! to easy!

[kriswillems]

I am totally confused about the vowel use in English.

There doesn't seem to be a good account of English spelling on line, which is why I have to reference Hau to pranaunse Inglish. I encounter a good monograph on the subject once, which even explained the choice of 'au' or 'aw', but unfortunately I didn't make a note of the author's name.

Thanks for that reference. I've ever tried to explain English to Thai people and I very quickly came to conclusion I didn't understand it myself. So, I stopped with trying to do that.

This reference may help... although it might be more suitable for linguists.

Somehow, probably due to knowledge of similarly written words, I manage to get the pronunciation of English right most of the times. The fact I know other Germanic languages helps me a lot. It must be very hard for Thai people to understand the English writing system.

[HeijoshinCool]

I am totally confused about the vowel use in English.

There doesn't seem to be a good account of English spelling on line, which is why I have to reference Hau to pranaunse Inglish. I encounter a good monograph on the subject once, which even explained the choice of 'au' or 'aw', but unfortunately I didn't make a note of the author's name.

Thanks for that reference. I've ever tried to explain English to Thai people and I very quickly came to conclusion I didn't understand it myself. So, I stopped with trying to do that.

One of the reasons I started this thread: you can never really understand your own language until you've learned others, just as you will understand your own country better, if you've spent time in others.

So where does Thai excel, and fall short?

[Dag Ekeberg]

While that works for most monosyllables, it significantly breaks down for longer words. I presume you are aware of the irregularities and oddities of such common and simple words as น้ำ, เพชร, ทราบ, ทรมาน, เล่น and ตำรวจ and of the normal pronunciation of grammatical words such as ผม, เขา and ไหม.

You are right about เขา and ไหม. Your other examples follow the rules of the language, as least as Ive learned them.

น้ำ, as an independent word, is pronounced น้าม.

เพชร is pronounced เพ็ด. I'm not sure how one should work out that it is not pronounced เพ-ชอน.

ทราบ is pronounced ซาบ, which you could claim as regular. However, ทรมาน is pronounced ทอ-ระ-มาน, with the first vowel short through lack of stress, not ซะ-มาน.

เล่น has a short vowel; Thai orthography has no way to show whether the vowel is short or long. The long vowel does occur with mai ek in closed live syllables, but unfortunately I don't remember an example.

ตำรวจ is pronounced ตำ-หรวจ, not ตำ-รวจ.

Those spellings don't work for all the dialects of Thailand. The merger of the tones of low consonants with mai ek and of high consonants with mai tho has not happened throughout Thailand. The spelling of these words in Northern Thai (in the Lanna script) and in Lao are โส้ เถ้า ข้า and have different tones to those implied by โซ่ เฒ่า ฆ่า (in Lanna script) or โซ่ เท่า ค่า (in Lao). The standard pronunciation of Siam has retained the merger of the two tones, so Thai doesn't have confusing spellings like English busy (spelling follows Southern England/West Midlands pronunciation, but with East Midlands pronunciation) and bury (spelling follows Southern England/West Midlands pronunciation, but with Kentish pronunciation).

ทร is a prefix (ทอ-ระ) in a number of words, but also a specific rule, in that it’s pronounced ซ when followed by a vowel.

When I hear ผม, it’s pronounced with a rising tone, as it’s written.

There are a few exceptions, you’re right, but a very manageable number to learn. Not like the mess of pronouncing English vowels…

If I were you, I wouldn't include regional dialects in this discussion. That’s what make them dialects, for a large part, the difference in tones…

[kriswillems]

There are a few exceptions, you’re right, but a very manageable number to learn. Not like the mess of pronouncing English vowels…

There are more than just a few exceptions when pronouncing written Thai, there are thousands of exceptions if you include the hidden vowels or hidden glottal stops (that very often don't seem to follow any rules). For some people it might be manageable to learn, for other it's a struggle. If you ask a 9 or 10 year old Thai child to read a random Thai text, the child will make lot's of mistakes in this field. Sometimes I see adult Thai people making the same mistakes Thai children make (probably in an attempt to sound cute), for instance หก-กะ-ล้ม

If you compare Thai with German, for instance, Thai has much more exceptions that don't follow the pronunciation rules.

But, I agree with you reading English might be more difficult than reading Thai.

[Aforek]

Because of the short syllabes, I think that thai language is very good ( as english ) for rhythmic music: I love to listen thai songs and I think Thai musicians are very good , I think it comes from their singing language

something else : I like the very difficult spelling ; the more difficult it is , the more I like it ( I am French , my language is complicated for spelling, may be that's why I like spelling , but thai spelling is much more difficult, and a wrong spelling means something else, I love it ! )

something else: the tones can be read in the writing, it's so different than our western languages ; only for this, I think it's very interesting language.

reading without space is no problem for me, except when comes name of people or of places, because I don't know all the time they are names, and I look in my dictionary, and of course, I don't find them.

[HeijoshinCool]

Ah, there's one: looking something up in a dictionary.

Every Thai I know says it often takes some time to look up a word. We've had contests, in fact. A moderator says a word in Thai, and in English. I've almost always won, finding the English in the dictionary sooner than they find the Thai. Even my girlfriend can find the English faster than the Thai.

[Dag Ekeberg]

Because of the short syllabes, I think that thai language is very good ( as english ) for rhythmic music: I love to listen thai songs and I think Thai musicians are very good , I think it comes from their singing language

When I started learning Thai, I wondered how they could write lyrics at all, when the tone of a word had to match the tone in the music. Turns out they don’t, they cheat… Much great music, though, agreed.

reading without space is no problem for me, except when comes name of people or of places, because I don't know all the time they are names, and I look in my dictionary, and of course, I don't find them.

I have that problem when I stumble on English words in a Thai text, or when I listen to Thai. I'm having few problems until they say something like โหวต. What the hell is that? Oh, right, VOTE… (Thais can't say O or V it seems)

[tgeezer]

[

One of the reasons I started this thread: you can never really understand your own language until you've learned others, just as you will understand your own country better, if you've spent time in others.

So where does Thai excel, and fall short?

That is so true. Now that people have got past the 'fluent in both languages' rider to your original post the topic has got quite interesting.

I think the answer lies in that rider. Does any language have shortcomings once you are fluent? The deficiencies appear to me to be in learning languages.

There is the obvious apparent deficiency suffered by Thai and that is the need to incorporate the technology of the more advanced countries, England being foremost among those countries and one of the first things which was adopted was grammar, making it possible to say soooo much and still be understood throughout the country. If there is a deficiency I think that this is where you will find it.

Edit: I post as someone who does not claim fluency in either language.

[Richard W]

Every Thai I know says it often takes some time to look up a word. We've had contests, in fact. A moderator says a word in Thai, and in English. I've almost always won, finding the English in the dictionary sooner than they find the Thai.

How does it work with written words? Thais seem to have a very complicated way of learning alphabetical order. Instead of learning a single sequence of symbols (excluding tone marks and maitaikhu), they learn the order of the compound vowel symbols. This doesn't help with the alphabetically ordered sequence กร๊าฟ กรุง การ กุ๊ก เก่ง เกรง. To me, the Thai alphabetical order seems to have been designed to be extremely computer friendly, even though a lot of old programs actually have great difficulty sorting Thai.

[Richard W]

Does any language have shortcomings once you are fluent?

English suffers from a lack of ready distinction in 3rd person pronouns. It is only rescued by the sex (he v. she) and animacy (he/she v. it) distinctions. The sex distinctions helps because so many interactions involve a man and a woman. I've seen an account of an altercation which was totally unclear because one couldn't tell whom the 'he's and 'him's referred to.

I'm not sure how Thai fares in this regard.

[tgeezer]

Does any language have shortcomings once you are fluent?

English suffers from a lack of ready distinction in 3rd person pronouns. It is only rescued by the sex (he v. she) and animacy (he/she v. it) distinctions. The sex distinctions helps because so many interactions involve a man and a woman. I've seen an account of an altercation which was totally unclear because one couldn't tell whom the 'he's and 'him's referred to.

I'm not sure how Thai fares in this regard.

Richard that Is a good point I must go out now but I would ask; is the lack of that feature really a shortcoming?

The latest translation on TL.com showed me that I had not tried to determine the sex of the protagonists.

[Aforek]

Ah, there's one: looking something up in a dictionary.

Every Thai I know says it often takes some time to look up a word. We've had contests, in fact. A moderator says a word in Thai, and in English. I've almost always won, finding the English in the dictionary sooner than they find the Thai. Even my girlfriend can find the English faster than the Thai.

I look pretty often in my thai-english dictionnary because I don't pretend to be fluent, just a student of a language that I like , and as I know by heart the roman alphabet, it's not the case for thai alphabet, so I cheat: on the last page of the dictionary , I wrote the thai consonnants and in front of each consonnant I wrote the number of the first page for any consonant ; after all , after many searches, its not too long to find a word , but I would be faster to find an english word than a thai word

I have a method ( from "the fundamentals of thai language ) to use a thai dictionary , in english: if anybody is interested I can put it here .

[HeijoshinCool]

Does any language have shortcomings once you are fluent?

English suffers from a lack of ready distinction in 3rd person pronouns. It is only rescued by the sex (he v. she) and animacy (he/she v. it) distinctions. The sex distinctions helps because so many interactions involve a man and a woman. I've seen an account of an altercation which was totally unclear because one couldn't tell whom the 'he's and 'him's referred to.

I'm not sure how Thai fares in this regard.

Most likely less a shortcoming, than poor command of written English, or laziness. Pronoun use is discouraged in narratives, but even bestselling authors use overuse them.

[tgeezer]

Does any language have shortcomings once you are fluent?

English suffers from a lack of ready distinction in 3rd person pronouns. It is only rescued by the sex (he v. she) and animacy (he/she v. it) distinctions. The sex distinctions helps because so many interactions involve a man and a woman. I've seen an account of an altercation which was totally unclear because one couldn't tell whom the 'he's and 'him's referred to.

I'm not sure how Thai fares in this regard.

Pronoun use is discouraged in narratives,

That is nice to know and where, from what I have seen of Thai, narrative writing is good. It takes only one syllable to say 'maternal grandmother' and so it is for a host of relations and where not, relative age, relationship and sex can all be shown with brevity, that has to be good. Are we looking for shortcomings in English? If so, I would include the lack of brevity in this regard as a shortcoming in English.

[tgeezer]

Sorry;iPad can a moderator cut out the repeats pleas.

[tgeezer]

Does any language have shortcomings once you are fluent?

English suffers from a lack of ready distinction in 3rd person pronouns. It is only rescued by the sex (he v. she) and animacy (he/she v. it) distinctions. The sex distinctions helps because so many interactions involve a man and a woman. I've seen an account of an altercation which was totally unclear because one couldn't tell whom the 'he's and 'him's referred to.

I'm not sure how Thai fares in this regard.

Pronoun use is discouraged in narratives,

That is nice to know and where, from what I have seen of Thai, narrative writing is good. It takes only one syllable to say 'maternal grandmother' and so it is for a host of relations and where not, relative age, relationship and sex can all be shown with brevity, that has to be good. Are we looking for shortcomings in English? If so, I would include the lack of brevity in this regard as a shortcoming of English.

[tgeezer]

Does any language have shortcomings once you are fluent?

English suffers from a lack of ready distinction in 3rd person pronouns. It is only rescued by the sex (he v. she) and animacy (he/she v. it) distinctions. The sex distinctions helps because so many interactions involve a man and a woman. I've seen an account of an altercation which was totally unclear because one couldn't tell whom the 'he's and 'him's referred to.

I'm not sure how Thai fares in this regard.

Pronoun use is discouraged in narratives,

That is nice to know and where, from what I have seen of Thai, narrative writing is good. It takes only one syllable to say 'maternal grandmother' and so it is for a host of relations and where not, relative age, relationship and sex can all be shown with brevity, that has to be good. Are we looking for shortcomings in English? If so, I would include the lack of brevity in this regard as a shortcoming of English.

[orpheus454]

Thai is actually possible to learn properly because the words are pronounced the way they are written.

While that works for most monosyllables, it significantly breaks down for longer words. I presume you are aware of the irregularities and oddities of such common and simple words as น้ำ, ทรมาน, เล่น and of the normal pronunciation of grammatical words such as ผม, เขา and ไหม.

What's irregular or odd about these?

[Richard W]

...so I cheat: on the last page of the dictionary , I wrote the thai consonnants and in front of each consonnant I wrote the number of the first page for any consonant

It's not really cheating. The RID has such a list as part of its list of contents, and I've seen such lists in Thai-English dictionaries. It's as though dictionary writers don't expect readers to know the order of the alphabet well.

I have a method ( from "the fundamentals of thai language ) to use a thai dictionary , in english: if anybody is interested I can put it here .

The account there is horribly complicated. There is a much more succinct account of alphabetical order in the RID. In the 1999 edition it's on page (1) (not to be confused with page 1 - the parentheses denote a page sequence earlier in the book!). The RID has the basic facts, but it doesn't seem to integrate them.

The actual process for well-formed Thai is very simple. For the first comparison, ignore tone marks, maitaikhu and thanthakhat. Then:

1) Convert the text to a linear sequence (as in typing on a computer)

2) Swap preposed vowels with the immediately following consonant (singular).

3) Apply normal lexicographic order, ordering the characters ก to ฮ, อะ อั อา อๅ อำ อิ อี อึ อื อุ อู เอ แอ โอ ใอ ไอ.

4) Apply a tie-break order based on the first difference between on of the ignored marks or an ignored mark and its absence. Absence comes first, then maitaikhu, then the tone marks. The relative order of thanthakhat (อ์) seems not to be defined beyond possibly following absence.

One can equivalently deal with lak kang yao by treating ฤๅ (and ฦๅ) as single characters following ฤ (and ฦ), which is the procedure given in the RID.

The account in the Fundamentals of the Thai Language is much more complicated.

[tgeezer]

Thai is actually possible to learn properly because the words are pronounced the way they are written.

While that works for most monosyllables, it significantly breaks down for longer words. I presume you are aware of the irregularities and oddities of such common and simple words as น้ำ, ทรมาน, เล่น and of the normal pronunciation of grammatical words such as ผม, เขา and ไหม.

What's irregular or odd about these?

There is a widely held belief that the spelling used on computer chat sites reflects the pronunciation of the words, เค้า for เขา มัย for ไหม etc. but I haven't found it to be so.

น้ำ is pronounced น้าม however, and there are others.

[Aforek]

Richard W, what is RID ; a book ? can you write an Internet adress, I would like to have a look Thanks

[Mole]

When น้ำ is a compound with certain words such as น้ำมัน น้ำลาย น้ำปลา, it is pronounced with a short sound.

[Mole]

A few more which comes to mind

น้ำตาล น้ำแขง น้ำตา

[HeijoshinCool]

A lot of this is way over my head. But feel free to post, others might understand it. I'm still looking for more basic differences.

Here's another:

As a cop, I used lip reading on many occasions, investigating crimes. Must be nigh impossible in Thai. Anyone have experience there?

[Richard W]

Richard W, what is RID ; a book ? can you write an Internet adress, I would like to have a look Thanks

RID = Royal Institute Dictionary (พจนานุกรมฉบับราชบัณฑิตยสถาน), available at http://rirs3.royin.go.th/dictionary.asp . The section on sorting is available via that page, or you can go straight to http://rirs3.royin.go.th/wordmethod.html .

[Richard W]

There is a widely held belief that the spelling used on computer chat sites reflects the pronunciation of the words, เค้า for เขา มัย for ไหม etc. but I haven't found it to be so.

The tone shift isn't new. Li Fang Kuei mentions it as what appears to be a personal observation in a book he wrote (finished?) in 1977, but from his career it looks as though it was an observation made before the Second World War.

[Ajaan]

A lot of this is way over my head. But feel free to post, others might understand it. I'm still looking for more basic differences.

Here's another:

As a cop, I used lip reading on many occasions, investigating crimes. Must be nigh impossible in Thai. Anyone have experience there?

Actually, many deaf Thais are superb lip readers. I've met a number of deaf women, including one I see around the Sukhumvit night clubs and chat with regularly, and we have no trouble communicating whatsoever: I simply move my mouth to make Thai sentences (I see no reason to make any audible sounds when I do this, so I don't), and they follow me just fine and respond appropriately. Granted, these are not "deep" conversations, but it never ceases to amaze me how well they can lip-read. For more complex things, I'll type out something in Thai for them to read on my phone...but it rarely comes to that, at least not for basic pleasantries, "what have you been up to," "I love this song," (most of the ones I've met love to dance, and one is VERY good at it), etc.

[Ajaan]

I've been equally impressed by how well Khmers in Cambodia can lip-read...no tones there, but way more vowels than Thai, and much stricter on the unaspirated consonants at the beginning of words, so you might think it was just as difficult...but they do just as well as the Thais. My ex-girlfriend's niece, in particular (with whom I had many opportunities for much more in-depth conversations than I've had with random women in Sukh nightclubs), always blew me away with her ability to carry on a conversation solely based on lip-reading (she still does...when I'm Phnom Penh I often stop by just to see and talk with her, even though I haven't seen her aunt in years).