ภาษาไทย

[khiemtran]

So, have you ever wondered how to read that Thai script? Here's a taste to get you started...

ขอข้าวผัดไก่จาน๑ครับ



So, first of all, there are no spaces so you have to work out where each word starts and stops. This isn't so hard once you get used it.

Let's start with the first word...

ขอ

The first letter,ข, is a "high class" consonant that gives a "k" sound. The second letter,อ, is a vowel that gives a long "or" sound (Thai vowels can be either long or short). So, that gives "kor", but to be able to pronounce it properly we also need to know the tone.

Here's where it gets a bit tricky. There are three properties of each syllable which tell you which tone to use. First, there's the "class" of the leading consonant ("high" in this case). Then there's whether the vowel is long or short (in this case "long"). And finally there's whether the syllable is "live" or "dead". A "live" syllable is basically one you can keep droning forever after you have said it. Anything ending in a 'p', a 'k' or a 't' is dead because once you've said the last letter you have to stop (you can sing "tooooooo" as long as you like, you can't keep singing "stoppppppppp" once you've hit the 'p'). Anything ending in a short vowel is also dead, because you can't keep singing it without making it a long vowel! (There's actually another little catch here that there's also a special character that can change the length of a vowel and which therefore makes "live" syllables into "dead" ones. But let's not worry about that now...)

So, high class ข, long vowel, live syllable. This tells us that kor will be pronounced in what's normally called the "rising" tone. In Thai, it means "to want" (or "would like").

The next word in the sentence is:

ข้าว

Okay, so can you pick the first consonant? It's ข again! So, a high class consonant with a "k" sound.

The next two letters are here both functioning as vowels, making an "ao" sound. (Incidentally, the last letter, ว can also be a "w" when acting as a consonant, which is why sometimes you'll see "ao" or "ow" sounds in Thai get written as "aw".)

So, low class consonant, another long vowel and live syllable. This should be rising tone, right?

Well, not quite, because of the little marker above the ข in ข้. This is a modifier that indicates that the tone follows a different set of rules and a high class consonant now means the whole syllable gets pronounced with a "falling" tone. So, we have kao meaning "rice".

On to the next word...

ผัด

This is a high class "p", with a short vowel (like the "u" in "but"), dead syllable (ending in a clipped "t"). The vowel comes from the little symbol above the ผ. Thai vowels can appear before, after, above or below the leading consonant and sometimes a consonant may have vowels on multiple sides. So, that gives us put in a "low" tone, which means "fried". (Incidentally this is the same word as the "Pad" in "Pad Thai".)

Next we have...

ไก่

"Mid class" consonant ("g"), vowel at the front ,ไ, giving "ai" and a tone marker at the top right which indicates that for all mid class consonants, it will be a "low" tone. This gives us gai, meaning "chicken".

Okay...

So, can you guess what we're ordering?

So far we've had...

ขอข้าวผัดไก่
Kor kao put gai

or "Would like-Rice-Fried-Chicken".

Turning this into English, we get "I would like chicken fried rice".

But how much do we want?

จาน

The next word has a "mid class" consonant with a "j" sound, followed by a long "ah" sound and then an "n". Mid class, live syllable, no other markings gives us "jahn" in a neutral tone. This means "plate".

Next comes just one letter, which is pronounced as "neung" in a low tone.

๑

How did we get the consonants, the vowel and the tone all from just one letter? Because it's a numeral! It's actually a distant cousin of "1".

So, "One plate of chicken fried rice"... We're nearly there! The last thing we have to do is be polite, which in formal Thai, for a male speaker, means adding ครับ ("krup") on the end (low class, short vowel, dead syllable = rising tone). (The podcasts I'm listening to are big on stressing the importance of politeness in Thai, to the point of including phrases for both "Call the police!" and "Call the police, please!" for those times when "you are not in such a hurry"...

So, there you have it!

ขอข้าวผัดไก่จาน๑ครับ

"Could I have a plate of chicken fried rice, please?"

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

You said that N and M were the consonants that you could keep on humming forever, and therefore made a syllable live, but the first word ended in an R--not a vowel and not an N or an M, but you said it was live, so does that mean that the little transforming catch happened to it?

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Good point! In this case อ is actually functioning as a vowel in Thai when it makes the "or" sound. There's a different letter, ร, for when you want an "r" sound as a consonant. I probably should rephrase the rules above to make it clearer (plus I missed a part about syllables ending with short vowels also being dead). Hang on a sec!

Okay, see above, where I've tried to explain the difference by listing what isn't live...

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

Complex but very interesting!

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

Unnecessarily complex, is how it strikes me, but I'm sure there's valid historical reasons, the same way there is for the unnecessary complexity of English orthography and the Latin alphabet, etc, etc, etc.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Yes, the main reason is that they came up with a system for indicating the tones quite early, but then the tones changed! There are also a number of words which are pronounced quite differently from how they are spelt (like "Worchester" in English). Nakhon, for example, is spelt "Nagara" using the original Pali name.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Actually, that last example turns out not to be true. Looks like Nakhon is actually spelt "Nakorn" at least in modern usage.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

It's not so hard as long as you learn the rules one by one. It also doesn't take long before you start recognising whole words at a glance, although it can still take quite a long time for me to parse a word I'm not familiar with. There are also a handful of letters I haven't learned yet, so I have to look them up whenever I see them.

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

What would a female speaker add?

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

ค่ะ (ka, low class + vertical dash on top = falling tone.)