Why don't Thais want to pronounce the letter 'R'?

[Aforek]

R in a French way is very easy to pronouce for us French, you can understand it ; as for "mètre", it's exactly the same pronounciation than the verb " "mettre " ( to put ) );

A surprising number of sites supposedly giving the pronunciation have a clearly enunciated schwa at the end of the word in isolation or utterance final, and the 'r' is not very guttural.

why Thai write "เมตร" and pronounce "เม็ด" ?. I wonder why there is not a karan over the ร because it's a foreign origin and they don't pronouce it

See earlier post for the lack of karan on final ร. I searched a list of 18,057 Thai words, and final ร์ only occurs after ด ต ถ ท or ธ if it also silences that letter. It might also be relevant that the word is not borrowed from English.

are you sure that เมตร is hight tone ? my dictionnary and thai language.com says it's falling tone

Search the referenced Matichon article Royal Institute Pronunciation Corrections for the word. It shows that the official assessment is that is pronounced as though spelt เม้ด. As to thai-language.com, can you find any evidence that the pronunciation has been reviewed? By default, the pronunciation shown is deduced from the spelling. My dictionary, New Standard English Dictionary by Nit Tongsopit, shows the tone as high. Unfortunately, it's not reliable on vowel length.

Thank you for your explanations you have references that I don't have ; phonetics is very difficult to write : for mètre and litre, the final " re " is light, almost inexistant , true, but it exists and it's not difficult for us but it's much more difficult to explain it with phonetics

[Rhys]

/l/ /r/ same sound in Thai..

[Richard W]

/l/ /r/ same sound in Thai..

In many idiolects yes, but not in Standard Thai. My wife learnt /r/ in school, and learnt it well, but I've only recently started hearing her use it in Thai. (We live in England.) Perhaps the influence of English has finally got to her. I suspect she had long felt it would be pretentious to use it when speaking Central Thai.

[ChengLi]

Why don't Thais want to pronounce the letter 'R'????

It's even part of their consonant alphabet (ร)

1. Why do they insist on changing the ร sound at the end of words to the n sound?

Because that's how that letter works.

Some thai letters are simply read differently if they are used at the end of a word. Just like you mentioned, ร equals the western "R", but has to be read as "N" at the end of a word. But that doens't make it a "N". It is still a "R" in general. The different reading is an exception. The additional pronunciation is not part of the thai alphabet and has to be learned seperately.

There are several thai letters that work this way. Compare it to the japanese kanji system. The same kanji is to be read differently in a different context.

Thai is hard to read for the beginner. Learning the letters is the easy part. You have to learn to read it. But as soon as you get the rules behind it, it's way easier compared to english for example, since the written word tells you exactly how to pronounce it. Written thai is perfectly precise. You don't have to get a feeling like in english. The pronunciation is right in front of you.

Always keep in mind that a foreign language might work completely different to your own. Don't try to simply apply the logic of your native language to a foreign one. It might work in one case and won't in the other. If something doesn't make sense to you or seems to be faulty, you might just not understand it, yet. And, yeah, you might also not be able to grasp the difference in speach if you are unfamiliar with the language.

Well, the thai side of my family lives in the north, close to the border to Laos. A village of rice farmers. They do pronounce the "R" really clear. Even roll it. (Spain would be proud!) Children to elders, people without any education and college students- it doesn't matter. All of them pronounce it properly.

I also hear it clearly from people from the neighbouring city, larger ones like Chiang Rai, and even Bangkok, salesmen, flight personal, taxi drivers and announcers. And I have to add that language programs, courses and reading instructions for foreigners teach you to pronounce it properly, too.

As someone mentioned before, it's just that thai people tend to slack on pronunciation (and also formal way of speaking) at times or speak dialects, so you might get the wrong impression of basic thai. But keep in mind that it's the same in other languages, too. Just look at the english language and all it's informal ways of speaking, abbreviations, local characteristics etc.

[fire69water]

Reminds me of someone who travelled halfway aroung the world, saying he wanted to experience other cultures but wonder why other cultures cannot be like his own.