Mastering Thai Tones in CM

[PlanetX]

Hi Everyone,

I was wondering if anyone had any successful experiences mastering "Thai Tones" with a teacher in Chiang Mai?

I am just looking for someone to try and master the tones with for 1-2 hrs everyday.

I am not trying to make an advertisement or anything - just wondering if anyone has found a person that has helped them match the tones.

Thank you!

[bottledwater]

Sorry I can't specifically answer your question as I don't know anyone. But I did spend some time in CM looking for a private tutor (but it turned out my schedule didn't allow me to take lessons). I did learn that you can get a private tutor for 250 Baht an hour. It seemed to be a rate I kept hearing. And you can also pay a lot more if you want . . . .

Tones are not easy as you know. If your at the beginner level there should be many Thai teachers out there that can help. The more your skills advance (I've found) the harder it is to find a teacher who can push you even higher. I don't know why.

In the meantime I'd suggest youtube. search "thai tones" for starters. Literally 100s of Thais (and some foreigners) have posted Thai classes on youtube. Tones, vowel sounds, consonant sounds, you name it. The good part is you can keep rewinding and listening as often as you want. The bad part is you get no feed back from an actual Thai listener. But its something AND its free!

Good luck,

bottled

[CMSteve]

What no one wants to hear: There are only 5 tones, mastering them is easy. To use them is tough. The only way to do that, is to get out and speak. Thats the toughest part for me as I don't like being corrected (go figure), but it's truly the only way to learn the language.

[northernjohn]

1. I had a teacher who made me learn the tones.

The problem is that my ears are not that good and I can't pick them up when some one is speaking them. there are certain frequencies I can not here. so I lost the ability to use them.

[mesquite]

For a farang, learning Thai gets harder the older one is. After age 50 or so we cannot remember anything unless we hear it many times. Repetition is key.

Regarding "the tones," they are part of the Thai language and not an optional extra. Many farangs think if they are saying the word without the tone, they are close. Nothing could be further from the truth. They are speaking gibberish. Mis-pronunciation is a big issue as well.

Recommend getting a private tutor and letting him/her correct your pronunciation. Suck it up.

Edited June 28, 2014 by mesquite

[onthedarkside]

Don't know how many times I have asked my wife (Thai) to speak a simple Thai word (like cow) in all 5 tones. I just don't appreciate any difference in the tone. Must be that I am tone deaf. So I have just given up trying to master the tones and just speak my style of Thai that gets blank looks from the local populace. Luckily my staff have learned to know my limitations and at least try to understand what I am trying to say.

[Mousehound]

What no one wants to hear: There are only 5 tones, mastering them is easy. To use them is tough. The only way to do that, is to get out and speak. Thats the toughest part for me as I don't like being corrected (go figure), but it's truly the only way to learn the language.

I understood that Central Thai has five tones and the Northern dialect six tones. Most people learn the Central Thai dialect but I found that the person teaching me was actually from the north but lived in Bangkok. Interestingly she found it quite hard to understand the local Bangkok dialect. So I now speak a mixture of both - so no one understands me at all. The fact is I think you need to find someone who speak Central Thai as their first language and stick with that at least until you are proficient. Also if you learn to read the language it does help a lot with the pronunciation.

[NancyL]

I found I didn't appreciate the differences in tones until I learned to read in Thai. Then it's obvious what tone a syllable is suppose to have. While I don't claim to use correct tones most of the time, I found I started to come much closer to doing it by reading aloud and insisting that my teacher correct my mispronunciations. It didn't do me any good just to pronounce isolated words -- I had to be saying entire sentences, reading them in Thai, before I came to understand how to pronounce tones. Plus, there are phrases that are commonly used, so you learn the tones for the entire phrase, not just the individual words.

Edited June 28, 2014 by NancyL

[habfan]

Don't know how many times I have asked my wife (Thai) to speak a simple Thai word (like cow) in all 5 tones. I just don't appreciate any difference in the tone. Must be that I am tone deaf. So I have just given up trying to master the tones and just speak my style of Thai that gets blank looks from the local populace. Luckily my staff have learned to know my limitations and at least try to understand what I am trying to say.

Whenever I feel my Wife (Thai) and I have been getting along too well I just say to her…. let's work on my tones. After 5 minutes we're not talking to each other for the rest of the day.

[bkkden]

Don't think about tones at first. Build vocabulary and learn reading. Go out and speak as much as possible immediately and when you hear words you already know you will start to pick up on the tones naturally. Good luck and enjoy!

Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect Thailand

[naboo]

I have come to realise the only way I'm going to pick up the tones is passively. I'm hoping it comes along like an accent and I am now at the point of hearing a word and thinking 'they said that differently to normal' then realising it was a different tone, different word.

All of my attempts at learning tones including reading, resulted in confusion. I just try to imitate what I hear now with no conscious thought for tone.

[northernjohn]

Don't know how many times I have asked my wife (Thai) to speak a simple Thai word (like cow) in all 5 tones. I just don't appreciate any difference in the tone. Must be that I am tone deaf. So I have just given up trying to master the tones and just speak my style of Thai that gets blank looks from the local populace. Luckily my staff have learned to know my limitations and at least try to understand what I am trying to say.

I find that if I get the wife to speak slow and look at her mouth and tounge it helps me. Now I have to work on memory.

[northernjohn]

Don't think about tones at first. Build vocabulary and learn reading. Go out and speak as much as possible immediately and when you hear words you already know you will start to pick up on the tones naturally. Good luck and enjoy!

Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect Thailand

I have a friend who doesn't speak tones. He maintains you don't need them. How ever I have noticed when we are out for diner I will have no problem mispronounce the word for sure but point to the item on the menu.

He insists on speaking Thai and can't figure it out when his order is not as he wants it. It has got to the point in one restaurant he will only deal with one waitress who understands him.

[PlanetX]

Thank you everyone so much.

I have learned basic Thai and have learned how to read, but I really need someone to help me match the proper tones.

I completely understand those that choose to ignore the tones - vocab and context mean a lot and can be acceptable.

I am just at a phase in my Thai where I would love to master tones and was wondering if anyone found a great teacher for this specific skill.

Thank you so much to everyone - it has been fantastic to read the different experiences - Thank You ThaiVisa Chiang Mai

[WinnieTheKhwai]

Personally opinion: this is one of those language things that native speakers never have to learn, and also never consciously have to teach, and therefore suck at teaching non-native speakers. It's like with gender grammar in French or German cases, it comes naturally to native speakers.

Thai the tone rules are very clear and logical, but when you ask just about any Thai 'which tone' for a particular word then they don't even know, they do know how to pronounce it but they're typically not very good at teaching you.

So you might as well learn this from a book and then keep your ears open, or from a foreign teacher who has had the experience of learning it himself/herself.

And then finally don't over-value tones. It's every bit as important to make a distinction between different consonants that don't all exist in English as separate sounds. (K-P-T specifically which all have an aspirated one and a non aspirated one.) Some people will tell you it requires a musical ear or some such; that's silly, it's not too different from stressing the right syllable in an English word. (Again one of those things that comes naturally to native English speakers, but that Thais (for example) find incredibly hard.

So for me I'd say you learn the *rules* about the tones from a book or the Internet, and after that it's just pronunciation training. Which you get by speaking to lots of people. And not just the women, or you'll end up sounding really gay.

Addition: This is also one of those things where it helps to understand the writing. Because when you see a word written, you also know the tone. It is very consistent and logical, with very few exceptions. Yes, you then still need to pronounce the tone but that'll come naturally.

Edited June 28, 2014 by WinnieTheKhwai

[stoli]

For a farang, learning Thai gets harder the older one is. After age 50 or so we cannot remember anything unless we hear it many times. Repetition is key.

Regarding "the tones," they are part of the Thai language and not an optional extra. Many farangs think if they are saying the word without the tone, they are close. Nothing could be further from the truth. They are speaking gibberish. Mis-pronunciation is a big issue as well.

Recommend getting a private tutor and letting him/her correct your pronunciation. Suck it up.

After age 50 1 or so we cannot remember anything unless we hear it many times. Repetition is key. No matter what your age, learning Thai requires a lot of study, and you will receive a lot of payback as well. .I wonder if there are groups that meet for students that have had at least 20 lessons? It would make for good practice I would think.

[uhhh ohhh]

This is not exactly on point to your question regarding tones but GOOGLE........"tedx utube How to learn any language in six months." This is not an ad for a language program but some sound advice, via some credible research, regarding learning/improving your language skill. Take the 18 minutes to watch the video. Some very good points on improving language skills for anyone!

[Ulysses G.]

I found I didn't appreciate the differences in tones until I learned to read in Thai.

IMO this is the key. After more than 20 years of speaking Thai, I can only hear one of them - I think that it is the rising tone - and that is the only one that I use. I can usually make myself understood, but will never be fluent.

Of course, that is true of the vast majority of Western Thai speakers that I have met. I only know one or two that are actually fluent and one of them is Joe Cummings who has been studying the language and writing Thai phrase books for something like 40 years.

[Cyclist]

You might want to try this lady: http://www.thailanguagechiangmai.com

I studied with her and she's a stickler for proper tones.

[siamod]

My thaifriend told me, the tones are very important for similar words, means same spelling. For example mai, kaw, haa and many more.

The tones are not that important for words that exists only one time like for example mahaawittayaalay (university), puujadgaan (manager) and so on. Thats what she tells me, if i try too hard with the tones for the latter. Hopefully she is right...

[Mousehound]

I don't spend much time with lists of words. I find that phrases are better. Also I am coming to the conclusion that the duration of parts of words is possibly more important than the tones for me.

[DavidMavec]

The best way to learn to pronounce Thai correctly is to learn to read it. Practice reading out loud to a Thai person one hour every day for six months, having them correct you when you make a mistake, and you will speak clearly.

[Beetlejuice]

Don't know how many times I have asked my wife (Thai) to speak a simple Thai word (like cow) in all 5 tones. I just don't appreciate any difference in the tone. Must be that I am tone deaf. So I have just given up trying to master the tones and just speak my style of Thai that gets blank looks from the local populace. Luckily my staff have learned to know my limitations and at least try to understand what I am trying to say.

I can assure you, you are not alone.

The Thai word for white is khaw, pronounced; coWA, just to add to the confusion.

Being here since the Jurassic period I still have not been able to master the tonal pronunciations of the Thai language, because like you I just am not able to distinguish the tones or hear them properly and although I do manage to get by, most of it with me is guess work and a hope that I am understood, which at most times I don`t have problems.

I am sure that the Thais in many cases have to be mind readers when conversing with us farangys or maybe they sometimes mistakenly think that white man speak with forked tongue? Which can lead to a lot of misunderstandings through language difficulties and misconstruing of what we actually mean.

Edited June 29, 2014 by Beetlejuice

[MrBrad]

Have you ever wondered:

• Are there any Thai people who say that they are tone deaf? Why are some of us non-Thais afflicted with this imagined handicap?
• And, since tones cannot be sung, how do Thais understand lyrics in songs?
• Do Thais whisper? As with singing, tones are lost in whispering?

[WinnieTheKhwai]

^ Tones are not lost when whispering.

Also it's the relative tone that matters from one syllable to the next. So in singing the whole lyric can go up or down as a whole, while preserving the tone differences. And consider that quite often it's not just 'tone' but also a shortening or lengthening of the vowel sound, and that a falling tone is very similar to stressing a syllable in English. (Like when you'd say 'No!' in English.).

Many people here seem to think of it as some sort of alien art form. But any language in the world -even English- has tones. (See what happens when asking a question, giving a command, etc.) The only difference is that tone in Western languages doesn't semantically affect the meaning of a word or syllable.

Similarly, Thais have a lot of difficulty in using tone in the way it's used in Western languages. (That's where new speakers of English go monotonously " hello-how-are-you-I-am-fine-thank-you-and-you. " without any rhythm, pause or intonation.

It's difficult both ways.

Edited June 30, 2014 by WinnieTheKhwai

[MrBrad]

I'm not yet convinced that one can tonally whisper. And, at the risk of straying onto a new, but related topic, here are some interesting findings from a Google search:

Whispered speech is defined as speech without vibration of the vocal chords, and without such vibration, tones are impossible. It really is physically impossible for whispered speech to carry tones.

Try whispering a melody like “Happy Birthday” or your national anthem. You can’t. Record yourself just for the fun of it; it’s pretty flat even though you’re a good singer. Find someone who has never heard that song—a difficult task if a popular song is whispered, and ask him or her to hum the melody of your song. Most likely it will not sound at all like the song that you whispered.

Whispers lack what is called fundamental frequency, which is a basis for pitch. And that’s the aspect of normal spoken speech that carries tones.

It turns out that when people whisper a tonal language such as Thai, they naturally compensate for the lack of tones. Speakers whisper in such a way as to carry the same information that tones do, but differently by compensating for the loss by varying the syllable stress and syllable length.

And perhaps some of this is why I seldom hear Thais whispering. Murmuring, yes, but not whispering. On the other end of the spectrum, can shouting carry tones?

[WinnieTheKhwai]

^ You don't need to achieve any kind of tone level in Herz on a frequency meter, you just need to make sure the syllable gets a different affection. When I whisper Thai (just tried it) I still make different tones lower down in your throat for a low tone for example, and you use more air for a high one. You can hear (and see) that difference when speaking.

Again, this is not singing. And it's also not a case of achieving a tone like in a song for a person who never heard the song before; Thai speakers know very well what to listen for in the tone, and you can hear that difference just from the shape of your mouth, throat, etc.

[mania]

About tones...Realize Thai's as kids do not learn Thai in such a way of remembering tones etc.
They just learn words with definitions & how they are pronounced

so to them maa meaning come & maa meaning dog sound like two very different words.... to them

Sometimes I think it might be better for us to learn that way too
Just hear the words with pronunciation & definition & learn to say them correctly.
I know when I start thinking of tones & tone rules as taught to westerners
I found it confusing....still do to be honest & just do not worry as much

Because it all just takes time & practice

Edited June 30, 2014 by mania

[Slappz]

Since tone is embedded in every Thai word you will have some serious leaks in your Thai if you don't hammer them early and build the foundation. Though it does depend on how far you would like to take your Thai.

As far as learning them, look up on Youtube "Stu Jay Raj" he has some great in-depth videos on how to form these sounds correctly. You'll want to use a lot of mimicking early on, find a few different Thai people and audio programs and mimic them nonstop until it feels more comfortable. This is a skill and it takes time to build. Start with single words slowly then move on to sentences. Notice their flow in sentences and try to copy that over and over.

[northernjohn]

I'm not yet convinced that one can tonally whisper. And, at the risk of straying onto a new, but related topic, here are some interesting findings from a Google search:

Whispered speech is defined as speech without vibration of the vocal chords, and without such vibration, tones are impossible. It really is physically impossible for whispered speech to carry tones.

Try whispering a melody like “Happy Birthday” or your national anthem. You can’t. Record yourself just for the fun of it; it’s pretty flat even though you’re a good singer. Find someone who has never heard that song—a difficult task if a popular song is whispered, and ask him or her to hum the melody of your song. Most likely it will not sound at all like the song that you whispered.

Whispers lack what is called fundamental frequency, which is a basis for pitch. And that’s the aspect of normal spoken speech that carries tones.

It turns out that when people whisper a tonal language such as Thai, they naturally compensate for the lack of tones. Speakers whisper in such a way as to carry the same information that tones do, but differently by compensating for the loss by varying the syllable stress and syllable length.

And perhaps some of this is why I seldom hear Thais whispering. Murmuring, yes, but not whispering. On the other end of the spectrum, can shouting carry tones?

Seems to me that when I hear Thais talking to Thais in Thai they generally are a little bit louder than when speaking to me. Not a lot but for the most part it is noticeable.