Short words in English vs Sentences in Thai

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Onlyme
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Post by Onlyme »

Asking for a milk shake has been known to raise a few eyebrows!
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Bamboo Grove
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Post by Bamboo Grove »

Asking for a milk shake has been known to raise a few eyebrows!
Surely, the same would happen if you got what you asked for. :mrgreen:
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Short words in English vs Thai translation

Post by Arcadian »

Could someone please explain why a taxi driver was unable to say Buffalo Bills, coming out as Buffawo Biws, yet my name is pronounced Lobert ?
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Post by VincentD »

It is a problem many of the Straits Chinese have. The 'L' and the 'R' sounds are exchanged.

I remember an old TV program, 'Mind your Language' where in one episode Miss Courtney, the principal, fills in for Mr. Brown. She proceeds to teach tongue twisters, which the Chinese girl Su Li could not pronounce. When Miss Courtney decides to mock her with the interchanged 'R's and 'L's, she speaks it perfectly...
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Vital Spark
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Re: Short words in English vs Thai translation

Post by Vital Spark »

Arcadian wrote:Could someone please explain why a taxi driver was unable to say Buffalo Bills, coming out as Buffawo Biws, yet my name is pronounced Lobert ?
It does my head in too! The Thais can get their little tongues round the 'L' and 'R' sound but, as you quite rightly say, they swap them round. I can sort of understand it when they're translating Thai into English - but my name isn't pronounced Rindaa and Parahandy's name isn't Henlee. The students have fun with 'Red lorry, yellow lorry' when I try to teach pronunciation (mind you, I find it rather difficult after a beer or two :) ).

Leary?

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Post by Korkenzieher »

Possibly resurrecting an ageing thread, but a lot of these pronunciation issues boil down to Thai pronunciation rules - effectively which consonants can be allowed to form dipthongs.

Almost always, the Sa-pain (for Spain, Steve, Stamp) construct is because the two sounds aren't allowed to be combined in Thai, and Thais will instinctively insert a 'sara a' (short 'a') in between, which then also affects the tone rule for the word, forcing it either to be low, or more frequently rising, which is why there always seems to be such emphasis in the pronunciation.

Similarly, there is a very limited number of sounds which are allowed to close out a Thai syllable - 8 - and the rhor-ruher character, which we always see as an R, is more often pronounced as an L the further north you go.

A lot of the inconsistency in the Thai language, written and spoken, surrounds the use and abuse of rohr-ruher. Look at Suvarnabhumi in Thai script, and there is a double rohr-ruher, which is pronounced 'am' - neither R nor L - but in the transliteration, there is an R which the Thais would never pronounce. And that doesn't even begin to deal with why there is an 'i' at the end!
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Post by bozzman101 »

must try kfc aow song nom gui yai!!!!! :thumb: :thumb:

beleive it should be oak gui song khrap :cheers:
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Post by PeteC »

This R and L problem starts at a very young age, my daughter a case in point. She's only 3 and has been exposed to both Thai and English since birth. Now in nursery school and learning the alphabet and different words each week and sure enough, she has a problem with L and R words in English. Recent meeting with teacher indicates it's common with kids from a mixed household and tends to disappear when they get into grades 1 and 2, we'll see? She also indicated there is a boy in the class whose Father speaks mostly Norwegian at home, The Mother is Thai but speaks mostly Lao, the boy is in a British school and learning in only English. He's quite confused at the moment but will probably emerge knowing four languages in a few years. :shock: Pete :cheers:
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Post by Onlyme »

I'd just like to pick up on Korks reply to the Sapain etc.
You will also find the use of sara o ( as in orange.)
An n with an m would be pronounced as nom. (No visible vowel)
Technically the sara a ( as in apple) would only be used when the word consisted of words made up with three or more consonants. ( No visible vowel)
Canom would be a good example.
BTW. There would not be a visible vowel in the above word, just to confuse you a little bit more! :wink:
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Post by Roel »

Actually it is like this, I quote:

inherent vowel
A vowel which is invoked in a syllable with no written vowel grapheme (symbol). In Thai, inherent /-oh-/ is invoked between a syllable's initial consonant and final consonant when there is no written vowel. Sub-syllable inherent /-a/ is invoked within a non-conforming initial consonant cluster. /-a/ or /-aaw/ are also invoked in some standalone syllables with a single consonant.

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