Alphabet

[sebastian]

Hi all,

I am currently learning Thai, can speak a bit but now want to learn to read and write.

What I want to know is, is it worth learning the alphabet- as in gor gai, kor kai.

The reason I ask is if you learn the English alphabet learning ABC doesn't help in the pronunciation of words, i.e B (bee) doesn't help you say boat. The baby alphabet we learnt at school -abc- helps more, i.e 'a' for apple, not A (ay) for apple.

I hope you understand what i'm getting at.

[silvero]

I find the Thai alphabet crucial in order to pronunciate words correctly, english transliteration is very non-standard and there aren't even standard characters for every sound in the Thai language. Reading a place-name for example, it's difficult to be sure of the sounds, and impossible to say the tone correctly.

[meadish_sweetball]

You should learn how to read and write Thai to be able to advance quicker. It really helps for learning new vocabulary - you can ask Thais for the spelling and write the word down, instead of trying to rely on your hearing. Most people's visual memory capacity is far better than their audio(audial?) memory capacity.

To learn the alphabet by heart is not your first priority although it will help you when looking words up in a dictionary later; what matters most is being able to grasp the rules required in order to decode Thai script correctly.

Thai is not read straight left to right like Roman script on a sign by sign basis, rather left to right on a syllable by syllable basis. Within the syllable, the order you interpret the signs can be different.

Before you have learned to recognize individual words you will need to encode one syllable at a time - each syllable has a tone, so you must learn to deduct the tone from the information provided. The tone is typically designated by the initial consonant and the final sound of the syllable, and any additional tone marks.

Thus you need to grasp what a possible syllable is, so you can divide the text into syllables for correct analysis.

There are a number of courses that provide the rules required.

My own personal favourite books for learning how to read and write are the AUA books. It is possible I am partial towards them because they are the ones I used when learning to read.

You will probably have better results and progress quicker with an experienced teacher, as it can be a bit daunting to tackle and make sense of all the rules yourself (by no means impossible though, several people posting in this forum have done it).

[sebastian]

So, for example if someone were to spell something starting ก would they say GOR GAI as in A for apple or would they just say GOR?

[jdinasia]

the answer is "sometimes" ..... or even "mostly" ... since many letters have the same sound .. sometimes you MUST spell it out por pan ... etc

but really you MUST learn the alphabet and what class of letters they belong to ... otherwise just don't bother to start ... it aint easy but you'll get it with enough repitition

[Richard W]

What I want to know is, is it worth learning the alphabet- as in gor gai, kor kai.

The reason I ask is if you learn the English alphabet learning ABC doesn't help in the pronunciation of words, i.e B (bee) doesn't help you say boat. The baby alphabet we learnt at school -abc- helps more, i.e 'a' for apple, not A (ay) for apple.

It's all 'a' for apple, though sometimes the letter sound is the first sound of the second syllable. The sounds as first and last sounded letter in a syllable are different, but with one exception the final sound follows naturally from the first sound. (The exception is ญ yo ying, which you may find helpful to think of as the Thai ñ - it's very occasionally transliterated 'ny', with the 'n' being silent word initially.)