ศาลาชุมนุม

[Martin]

Hello all together

I'm new here and have just started to learn thai.
Having intensively red the informations on this page, which are outstanding, I still face a lot of words I cannot bring into english as there are no informations about the vowels spoken.

Example 1:

also, as well as, too --> ก็ --> gaaw F

Obviously a "g" sound with shortening sign. Also a mid consonant and a live syllable.
So it shoul become: ga M
Why is this not the case ?

Example 2:

law --> กฎหมาย --> goht L maai R

1. Word: Obviously a "g" and "t" sound. Also a mid consonant and a dead syllable.
So it shoul become: g...t L
How can i know its an "o" vowel?

2. Word: Its an "m" + "aai" according to the glide endings table. Also a low consonant and a live syllable with long vowel (see table).
So it should become: maai F
Why is it Rising? Low initial consonants can never be rising due to the tone rules.

How does the ห fits in there ?


Example 3:

The saL watL deeM khrapH --> สวัสดีครับ

Taking the first 3 letteres I got: sws
Taking the last 3 letters I got: khrp

Certainly there are vowels missing but why a's and not other ones???


This is all very confusing to me. I just don't see the rules I certainly miss.
Please enlight me so that I don't lose the passion.

[mangkorn]

I empathize fully: I suffered the exact same difficulties when I first began to study independently.

1) ก็ is a singular exception to any rules. (Think of it as ก้อ, but the pronunciation varies: the vowel may be short or long, depending on the speaker's mood, the particular rhythm of the sentence, etc.)

2) กฎหมาย - you have identified two words here, so that's most of the puzzle solved. A single-syllable word like กฎ always has an implicit "o" vowel. That is because it is not possible to write out the Thai short "o" vowel with a final consonant. หมาย has a rising tone because it begins with ห. (One key function of ห is to serve as a silent marker to make the syllable begin with a high-class consonant, determining the tone. In other cases, it is a voiced consonant; you will quickly learn to discern the difference.)

3) สวัสดีครับ - in this case, all of the vowels are written (as long as you grasp the notion of non-conforming clusters, e.g., there is an implied vowel sound - not a vowel - between the ส and ว). As for your question about missing a's, they are both there; perhaps you were confusing them with the tone mark (ไม้โท)? If your font is small, they can be hard to distinguish for the untrained eye.

Best of luck.

[Richard Wordingham]

law --> กฎหมาย --> goht L maai R

1. Word: Obviously a "g" and "t" sound. Also a mid consonant and a dead syllable.
So it shoul become: g...t L
How can i know its an "o" vowel?

Most rules for reading polysyllabic Thai words are guides rather than certainties - even Thais disagree on some words.

One clue is that หม is a very common cluster in native Thai words, whereas it is not an initial cluster in Indic words. We can thus split the word into an Indic first part กฎ (clearly Indic because of ฎ) and a native second part หมาย. Compounds of Indic and Thai words normally don't have the linking -a-, so we expect the Indic part to end in the consonant. The implicit vowel in a closed syllable is an "o", so we get /kot/, or in Glenn's scheme, /goht/.

2. Word: Its an "m" + "aai" according to the glide endings table. Also a low consonant and a live syllable with long vowel (see table).
So it should become: maai F
Why is it Rising? Low initial consonants can never be rising due to the tone rules.

How does the ห fits in there ?

It's vital to the tone. It is no longer pronounced separately, but converts the ม into a high consonant.

saL watL deeM khrapH --> สวัสดีครับ

Taking the first 3 letteres I got: sws
Taking the last 3 letters I got: khrp

Certainly there are vowels missing but why a's and not other ones???

There is only one missing vowel - note that วั and รั provide two of the /a/ vowels. Thus the first and last 4 characters are swas and khrap. /khr/ is a native initial cluster in Thai, and therefore it is quite plausible that there is no missing vowel. Thai has it both ways with swas. If it is a single syllable, then it should have a low tone, as indeed it does. However, Thai doesn't (or didn't) allow the cluster /sw/, so a vowel must be inserted to break it up. This vowel is /a/. I would describe this vowel as epenthetic rather than implicit - it goes in after the tones have been assigned.

[Martin]

Hey you guys !

Thank you so much for your replies !!!

I was slightly frustrated, but now I see things much clearer.
Especially these implied and epenthetic vowels will keep me busy for some time

I hope with more progress this becomes natural to me.

Unfortunately there are no language courses for Thai near my place. Only professional schools but this is to much money for me... so I try it on my own.
The talking I will practice with my girlfriend and with CDs...

Cheers, Martin !!!

[sfhdweb]

What a great information,i really like it, thanks for sharing this great info..

[Tgeezer]

What a great information,i really like it, thanks for sharing this great info..

It is of no great importance but just in case there is a pub quiz or someone tries to catch you out ก็ is actually เก้าะ the ็ shows that both vowel and tone mark has been ommited.