ศาลาชุมนุม

[telstrareg]

No doubt everyone who has tried to learn to read Thai has been frustrated by the absence of word spacing (It's as if the Thai writing system was designed by a sadist!) I understand that in school, up to a certain grade, children's learning material has words with spacing.

After a lot of practise I can read Thai reasonably now although anything more than a few paragraphs is quite tiring. When I need to read longer passages I usually copy the text to a website that spaces the words for you. I find this way I can read almost twice as fast.

My question to native Thai readers is, do you find it easier to read Thai spaced or unspaced? I have included a short passage below so you can test if you are unsure.


1. ชั้นบน มี ห้องนอน สาม ห้อง ห้อง น้ำหนึ่ง ห้อง ชั้นล่าง มี ห้อง รับแขก. ห้องครัว ห้องอาหาร กับ ห้องน้ำ อีก ห้อง หนึ่ง. แล้วก็ หลังบ้าน มีเรือน คนใช้ กับ ห้องเก็บของ อยู่ ต่างหาก

2. ชั้นบนมีห้องนอนสามห้องห้องน้ำหนึ่งห้องชั้นล่างมีห้องรับแขก ห้องครัวห้องอาหารกับห้องน้ำอีกห้องหนึ่ง แล้วก็หลังบ้านมีเรือนคนใช้กับห้องเก็บของอยู่ต่างหาก

[claude06thailand]

Although I am not a native, I think you will find my point of view rather interesting :

When I started reading Thai ten years ago, I found it very difficult because of the absence of spacing and punctuation.
So, I used to separate the words and it took me much time to read a few lines...
It took me about 2 years to be able to read without separating the words (1 to 3 hours everyday)
I started reading THAIRATH, KHAOSOT and other newspapers about 7 years ago and everyday, so that I now have a rather wide vocabulary and do not need to look for words in a dictionary. I think I am now very near to reading as fast as average Thai people.
And to answer your question more precisely, it is now rather difficult for me to read thai with separated words... I suppose Thai people will feel the same as me ?
Anyway, I really think that spacing and punctuation would be a great improvement most appreciated by foreigners and very easy to apply for all Thai and foreigners.

[buckjoy]

Like most everyone, reading was a very difficult at the beginning....but as time goes on, more and more words pop out from the text....and as a result, it's not the chore it was at the beginning.
I do, however, dislike the Thai way of running conversations all together in the same paragraph....without quotes.

[telstrareg]

Thanks for sharing those experiences claude06thailand and buckjoy. Unfortunately I'm not 'seeing' the words yet. I'm still sounding them out character by character. Until the words start appearing as a whole, it's going to be slow. It's amazing how word prediction from context speeds up my reading. Sometimes I just read the first character of the word and I know what it is from the context. I'm wondering if drilling common words on flash cards might be helpful to me learning to 'see' them.

I made a conscious decision not to learn to read the tone rules in the beginning (too much to take in). I think that was a good idea and I can learn to apply them later when I'm more satisfied with the fluency of my reading. I still read transliterations a lot because it's so much faster and my vocabulary and grammer both benefit from doing that.

[pensive]

You're heading the wrong way. You should be studying the tone rules while you read. You should not be reading transliterations.

I hope you have the rudiments of separating syllables? For example, ai mai malai, sara-e, sara-ae and sara-o always occur at the beginning of a syllable (well, almost always). There is no final syllable after an "ai" sound. A tone mark ends an initial cluster, etc.

It certainly is difficault to read lines containing ความ, นาน, ควร and so on, but that is the challenge. Try, as in English, to recognise whole words and not construct words from their constituent letters.

So stop grumbling and just do it. OK?

[simonbournemouth]

Recently there was an article over at New Mandala discussing the pros and cons of scriptio continua:

Reforming Thai language structure

[pensive]

Hmmm, I'm not convinced. Firstly, if there were a need for spacing in Thai writing, it would have been invented. That's just evolution. Secondly, I don't really believe that the lack of spaces means the brain cannot think about the meaning. Surely if this were the case, writing would not have been invented?

Also, the description of krengjai doesn't appear to be correct. I think krengjai *is* fear. Remember the end of "Nang Nak" where the monk says to her, "How will you make merit?" This was enough, the *fear* of not being able to make merit, which drove Nang Nak away. There is nothing warm and cuddly about krengjai.

[Toffeeman]

I made a conscious decision not to learn to read the tone rules in the beginning (too much to take in). I think that was a good idea and I can learn to apply them later when I'm more satisfied with the fluency of my reading. I still read transliterations a lot because it's so much faster and my vocabulary and grammer both benefit from doing that.

I would also suggest that you learn the tone rules as soon as possible. That way you can read the word with the whole package. By that I mean the consonant and the vowel which is probably where you are now. But there is so much to take into consideration to read properly. What class is ths 1st consonant of each syllable, not just word, does it have a short or long vowel, does it have a tone marker and does it have a soft or hard final sound.

If you learn to read by just using consonants and vowels you will have to unlearn these words in the future when you add the tone. Unlearning is much harder than taking the time to learn correctly 1st time. It all sounds so daunting but it is definitely worth the effort.

Another reason for learning to read the tones early is that they sometimes influence the vowel sound. A falling tone will often, though not always shorten the vowel. Eg: ต้อง = must. Read without the tone marker it reads with a long vowel. Dtawng rhymes with dawn in English. But the word is said with a short vowel plus a falling tone. It sounds like the Dtong which rhymes with song. The majority of native Thais would not understand this word with a long vowel.

When I talk to people who are trying to learn Thai I encourage them to learn the alphabet and tone rules as soon as possible. From my experience this helps you self correct yourself. Also I have noticed those that read well generally speak well too.

[pensive]

I agree with your sentiments, obviously, but on the matter of falling tone and short vowels I don't think you have a case with ต้อง. This vowel, along with sara-e and sara-ae, are shortened with mai daiku. But, you cannot have mai daiku present with a tone mark - the tone mark takes precedence. In that case, therefore, a tone mark with one of these vowels would be pronounced with a short vowel. As a counterexample, ชอบ has falling tone but a long vowel.

[Rick Bradford]

From Stephen Krashen, one of the giant names in SLA (Second Language Acquisition).

I've devoted a lot of time recently to research on recreational reading, or "free voluntary reading." I think it is the most powerful tool we have in language education, first and second. Another continuing interest is in writing and creativity (eg writing blocks).

His 200-plus page report on SLA called Principles and Practice is available here.