There are two letters that I still can't pronounce correctly, ตอ and ปอ.

My girlfriend can't teach me and even my Thai teacher (who was very good) was not able to teach me these two letters.

I understand can't pronounce it as a "t" or "p" but what English words can I use to pronounce these two letter?

Thanks for your help.

Assuming that you're an English-speaker, ต is pronounced the same as the t in 'stop'. If you say 'top' with your hand in front of your mouth, you can feel a little puff of air (this is called aspiration) but if you do the same with 'stop' there is no air. In English we don't distinguish between these two sounds (the aspirated t in 'top' and the unaspirated t in 'stop') and we think of them both as being the same sound but in Thai they are two different sounds (ท and ต respectively).

You can learn to produce the unaspirated t (ต) by producing a word such as stop (or stick or stone or stab or any word where the t is not the initial consonant in a consonant cluster) by producing the sound with a gradually lengthening break between the s and the t.

stop

s.top

s..top

s....top

s......top

After a little while, you should be able to produce and to recognize the two different sounds (i.e. the aspirated and non-aspirated versions).

ป is the same. It is an unaspirated p so we find it in English words where the p is in a non-initial position within a consonant cluster, for example spin, sport, spine, etc. You can do the same thing, contrasting pin and spin, port and sport and pine and spine to feel the difference in aspiration. Practice in the same way.

Be careful, though, that you don't start voicing the sounds, which will change them to ด and บ. (or d and b ). If you're not used to it, detecting voicing can be difficult, especially in plosives, so keep checking with a native speaker that you are keeping the sound unvoiced.

T is more like a dt

Try humming duh duh duh duuh duh from valkarie using dt dt dt dddt dtt it will get there

P

Is like a bper is horrible sounding letter. Say that ten times really fast.

Hope that helps

wow great explanations.

ป = bp

ต = dt

two sounds that don't really exist at consonants in English. As explained above dt is the top in stop.. << just go off that and eventually you will get it. Kind of training your mouth kind of thing..

for the ป say like boy, bye, pie, etc.. then put those together.. almost starting with lips tight.. eventually will come.

Also start with easy works to practice with, with the ป/bp use ไป or Thai word for GO! or number 8 แปด

For ต maybe try ตาย or the Thai pronunciation of die (dying..) these are just ideas, and this is how I got them down, focusing on a few words first then expanding.

For ง or ng which is common in English but at the end of words like sing, ring, thing.. a bit easier since they are aspirated..

Listen, practice, and have someone (or many ppl) who will help you and listen. A common thing is people (ie gf) will get bored of you and just "OH YEAH AWESOME !!!!" just to get you to shut up, so beware.

Another good way is practice saying them in sequence like d / dt ด / ต and b / bp บ/ป so you can start getting used to the differentiation

Thanks for the clear explanation, very - very helpful.

Time to practise again.