ศาลาชุมนุม

[John]

How is it that the "ร" in "ปรารถนา" is pronounced as a "t", not an "n"?

[JingJo Thames]

คุณ จอห์น ครับ

I believe it is widely understood to be a "silent letter", not a "ร" with a mutated final pronunciation.

โจ้

[John]

Reply to my own question.

I see in the pronunciation notes on "http://www.thai-language.com/id/133232" that the "รถ" combination is prounounced as a "t".

It all makes sense now.

[Rick Bradford]

But not always - การถอนเงิน (gaanM-thaawnR-ngernM), where the ร and the ถ belong to different phonemes.

[Passerby]

Fellows,

Imagine this. If someone writes an English sentence with all the words string together, without any space between words; and then gives to a Thai who is not fluent in English. He is going to have trouble separating the words. However, you wouldn't, right?

You have to know each word in Thai so you can separate each one, by the same token. If the word does not make sense after you put all the characters together, you need to try a different combination.

In the case of ปรารถนา, it is one of the exception. Even Thai children need to learn how to spell it.

[buckjoy]

The word that irritates me, probably because I see it nearly every day and it slows down my reading (aloud), is สามารถ. Now matter how many hundreds of times I've read the word, my brain has a hard time ignoring the ร. Sort of like a Thai reading the word 'thumb'.

[Rick Bradford]

^^
เยาวชน always gets me confused, no matter how many times I see it.

As Passerby says, there is no substitute for reading and more reading, until you become familiar with all these difficult words. I'm still not quite sure how to formally parse 'เศรษฐกิจ', but I've seen it so many times that I recognise it immediately.

[Ron_boon]

If there is "ร" at the end of the word, pronounce it as "น".

For example: การ = กาน ( same sound)
หาร = หาน

[Ron_boon]

But in this case " ปรารถนา" we say " ปราด ถะ หนา", so this "ร" will be "ด" sound.

[simonbournemouth]

But in this case " ปรารถนา" we say " ปราด ถะ หนา", so this "ร" will be "ด" sound.

Surely it's the "ถ" that gives us the final "ด" sound?.. and "ร" is silent.