ศาลาชุมนุม

[lumdam]

I found a nice visualization of the tone rules and wanted to share. It's originally from Wikipedia's article on Thai script here. I drew my own version based on it:



open circle = live
closed circle = dead
narrow ellipse = short
wide ellipse = long

I tend to think visually, and found this presentation very intuitive and easy to memorize. I only needed 5 minutes and a few dozen practice syllables! It's also trivial to use in the other direction - figuring out which syllable types can result in a given tone.

Before finding this picture, I had tried memorizing the table at /ref/tone-rules a few times, but never managed to keep it in my head for more than a day.

Everyone learns differently, but at least for me, this picture was useful.

[claude06thailand]

Fine !
thank you for sharing !

[Magic_Mark]

AAGH !!
I find the tones hard enough with out learning what circle was where.
for me it is a matter of learning the hard way or old school.
Thanks.

[Tgeezer]

I think that it would be better to put the tones on the horizontal axis ด ด่ ด้ ด๊ ด๋ and make the vertical axis the three classes Mid High Low the tones. the logic is that you can use your fingers when you don't have the chart; 0,1,2,3,4, thumb, index finger and so on.

Live or dead words affect only 4/14 of all the cases, or less, if you consider the affect on high and mid as the same. They needn't be learned, just remember; short or long vowel, k,p,t endings for low consonants and kpt endings for mid and high class consonants.
Most people learn the tones without knowing that live and dead words exist.

[lumdam]

I think that it would be better to put the tones on the horizontal axis ด ด่ ด้ ด๊ ด๋ and make the vertical axis the three classes Mid High Low the tones. the logic is that you can use your fingers when you don't have the chart; 0,1,2,3,4, thumb, index finger and so on.

Interesting. Maybe. On the other hand, I like having the tones vertically because that's how they are in IPA tone letters, frequency charts, and the practice page here.

Most people learn the tones without knowing that live and dead words exist.

Excluding native speakers, is that still true? To each their own, I guess...

One reason I like patterns on a grid and have a good memory for them is that I'm an amateur Go player. Others prefer remembering verbal rules. So don't let my post confuse you, Magic_Mark.

[Toffeeman]

Most people learn the tones without knowing that live and dead words exist.

If you mean 'most ' in terms of Thai people then I would agree. They learn without knowing any rules like we learn Eng without knowing much of the grammar but for foreigners learning Thai I would say most, if not all, learn the tones by learning all the rules. Live and dead words are a very important part of tone learning.

[pensive]

Tgeezer was saying that we don't say "ends with p, dead syllable, low tone", we say "ends with p, low tone". I don't think you can argue that this is not generally the case, even if it doesn't apply in your case.

[djhutchinson]

Guys, I've got a point to make about the tones:

The tones are inaccurately described! There is not a rising tone, a falling tone, a low tone, a middle tone and a high tone. Brace yourselves...

There are 3 falling tones, and 2 rising tones! That's the way to think of it, I reckon. The tones start at different pitches and the glissando begins at different points and moves at different speeds; that's the key thing.

So, examples.

แฟน - boy-, girlfriend - ("mid tone") - middle tone, ending in a slight fall, mid-to-a-bit-lower
แตก - to break - ("low tone") - low immediate fall, a punctured tyre, low-to-even-lower
ใช่ - to be - ("falling tone") - extreme immediate fall, high-low
ร้าย - wild, bad - ("high tone") - high tone with a late rise, high-higher
สาย - late - ("rising tone") - extreme immediate rise, low-high

Can't draw on here. But to further describe (imagine these words are drawn on MS paint!):

1st tone: middle, falling at the end, a horizontal line with a late downward kink
2nd tone: low to even lower, diagonally downwards
3rd tone: high to low, smoothly and quite sharply diagonally downwards
4th tone: high to higher, horizontal with a late upward kink, rising at the end
5th tone: low to high, smoothly and quite sharply diagonally upwards

3 falling tones, 2 rising tones.

[simonbournemouth]

The tones are inaccurately described! There is not a rising tone, a falling tone, a low tone, a middle tone and a high tone.

Rising, falling, low etc. are just names... not accurate descriptions.

[Tgeezer]

Most people learn the tones without knowing that live and dead words exist.

If you mean 'most ' in terms of Thai people then I would agree. They learn without knowing any rules like we learn Eng without knowing much of the grammar but for foreigners learning Thai I would say most, if not all, learn the tones by learning all the rules. Live and dead words are a very important part of tone learning.

You already know the rules so there is no point in telling you.

There isn't much to learn, although it did take me a while, because I was never sure that I had it all covered and when I heard about live and dead words I felt inadequate that I was unaware of them, so rushed to the RID to nail them. The 2525 edition described dead words but for live words it just said, not dead words, which I thought was brilliant, imagine how I felt when I saw live words described in the 2522 edition.

We are all different, thank God, and should do as we please, anything which speeds up the process of learning I applaud.