I see conflicting information in dictionaries and other references on the pronunciation of ใต้ (dtâai (long) vs. dtâi (short))

Are there any hard-and-fast rules for this? Any times it is mid-length?

 

Thanks,

NG

 

 My wife says it is always 'long'.

Ask the Thai person to say the following two sentences:

ไปได้ไหม

ไปได้

Compare the vowel length in each ได้. Are they different?

Ask the Thai person to say the following two sentences:

ไปได้ไหม

ไปได้

Compare the vowel length in each ได้. Are they different?

 

hehe you made the same mistake I initially did when reading this thread.

He's asking about ใต้ not ไต้

 

(Although as far as I'm aware, the rules should be exactly the same for both ใ & ไ).

 

@OP - Do you have some examples in context, of when you think that ใต้ is short, and when it's long? (similar to what the previous poster posted).

You're right, Sly Animal, I did misread his post. However, I think that the long/short distinction in practice exists in the ได้ context also.

It's irregular.  It's always pronounced long, though written as if short.

 

Dictionaries sometimes get this stuff wrong.  Benjawan Poomsan Becker is particularly notable in this respect, basing vowel length upon the written spelling, rather than the common pronunciation.

It's irregular.  It's always pronounced long, though written as if short.
 
Dictionaries sometimes get this stuff wrong.  Benjawan Poomsan Becker is particularly notable in this respect, basing vowel length upon the written spelling, rather than the common pronunciation.

Thanks. You're right about the dictionaries getting it wrong sometimes.

thai-language.com has it as both short/long
Paiboon Publishing app has it as long
SEAlang dict. has it as long
thai2english has it short

To add to the list:

 

LEXiTRON has it long

 

Paiboon = Benjawan Poomsan Becker so I'd ignore that.  Frequently wrong.

 

thai-language.com uses a computer algorithm to work out its pronunciation, and freely admits it sometimes gets it wrong.

 

It's definitely long.  

Under the tree : ใต้ต้นไม้ : short or long

รถไฟใต้ดิน : short or long

The south : ภาคใต้ : long only

พัทยาใต้ : long only

 

Under the tree : ใต้ต้นไม้ : short or long

รถไฟใต้ดิน : short or long

The south : ภาคใต้ : long only

พัทยาใต้ : long only

 

 

So, could we generalize and say that ใต้ is short or long when meaning 'under' but always long when meaning 'south' ?

If so, that is the only irregularly pronounced word I am aware of that has a conditional pronunciation based on meaning rather than on position in a compound.

 

Under the tree : ใต้ต้นไม้ : short or long

รถไฟใต้ดิน : short or long

The south : ภาคใต้ : long only

พัทยาใต้ : long only

 

 

So, could we generalize and say that ใต้ is short or long when meaning 'under' but always long when meaning 'south' ?

If so, that is the only irregularly pronounced word I am aware of that has a conditional pronunciation based on meaning rather than on position in a compound.

 

 

Whilst I'm on the fence as to whether kriswillems is correct about this word having two vowel lengths, it's not the meaning, but it's the positioning.  If it comes at the end of a compound word it's always long.  If it's at the start it's (possibly) short.  It's the same for a few other words such as น้ำ, ไม้ and ได้.  The meaning distinction here is purely coincidental.

thai-language.com uses a computer algorithm to work out its pronunciation, and freely admits it sometimes gets it wrong.

There are also manual overrides (both complete and semi-algorithmic), but there is no way of telling whether pronunciations have been corrected. It also suffers badly from the design assumption that Thai morphemes are invariant, whereas in fact both spelling and pronunciation depend on context.