ศาลาชุมนุม

[JF80]

I am learning to read Thai at the moment and can do ok when reading single words or syllables but once I start reading sentences I get confused quite quickly.

My main problem is I don't know when one word ends and another starts so I don't know if I am reading an initial consonant or a final consonant or whether there should be an invisible vowel and if so which one.

I'm starting to realise that the vowels that change form can be a good way to work out if a word if finishing or there is another consonant after the vowel. For example when you see this one:

อือ

When you see this one you know there is no 'closing' consonant and any consonant that follows it is the start of a new word/syllable.
If it is written like this then the following consonant is part of the that word and is a final con:

อื

Does this character (the one above the aww ang): แอ็ indicate the same thing? I.e. a short vowel with a final consonant after it. Where as this one: แ-ะ indicates that the next consonant will be the start of a new word?

This is another one:
Will have a final consonant: เอิ-

Won't have a final consonant: เ-อ

Another one:
Will have a final con: -ว-

Won't have a final con: อัว

I hope these are correct and I am on the right path here?

Are there any other ways to tell that a word is ending and another one is beginning?

Thanks

[Tgeezer]

I am learning to read Thai at the moment and can do ok when reading single words or syllables but once I start reading sentences I get confused quite quickly.

My main problem is I don't know when one word ends and another starts so I don't know if I am reading an initial consonant or a final consonant or whether there should be an invisible vowel and if so which one.

I'm starting to realise that the vowels that change form can be a good way to work out if a word if finishing or there is another consonant after the vowel. For example when you see this one:

อือ

When you see this one you know there is no 'closing' consonant and any consonant that follows it is the start of a new word/syllable.
If it is written like this then the following consonant is part of the that word and is a final con:

อื

Does this character (the one above the aww ang): แอ็ indicate the same thing? I.e. a short vowel with a final consonant after it. Where as this one: แ-ะ indicates that the next consonant will be the start of a new word?

This is another one:
Will have a final consonant: เอิ-

Won't have a final consonant: เ-อ

Another one:
Will have a final con: -ว-

Won't have a final con: อัว

I hope these are correct and I am on the right path here?

Are there any other ways to tell that a word is ending and another one is beginning?

Thanks

You will definitely like the book I recommended, all that is covered in the third chapter page ๑๕ It should be a comfort to you to see it all written down simply.
Here is how ็ (ไม่ไต่คู้) is explained.
ล + เ_ ะ + ก -> เล็ก (แปลง/วิสรรชนีย์/เป็น/ไม้ไต่คู้)
ะ = วิสรรชนีย์ so it says; Change ะ into ็
ส + ัว + น -> สวน (ลก/ไม้หันอากาศ/เหลือ/แต่/ตัว/ว) Drop ั leaving only character ว.
I have separated the words so that you learn the vocab. more easily; change, to be(into), etc.

[Toffeeman]

I am not sure I understand Tgeezers answer. Even though I know how to read and can read quite fluently it all looks over complicated.

Looking at your 2 pairs of vowels, you have correctly explained them.
อัว and อว have the same 'ooa' sound. The 1st vowel cannot have a final consonant so therefore is the end of a word or syllable and the 2nd one must have a final consonant.

It is the same with เออ and เอิ. Same 'er' sound but the 1st vowel cannot have a final consonant and the 2nd must have a final consonant. Of course all rules can be broken but usually that is just with transcribing foreign loan words. Eg term - เทอม.

A couple of other helpful pointers. เอ, แอ, ไอ, ใอ and โอ must be the start of a word or syllable and อะ must be the end of a word or syllable.

[David and Bui]

You may also wish to look at http://www.thai-language.com/id/830221 and http://www.thai-language.com/id/830222 .

[Tgeezer]

I am not sure I understand Tgeezers answer. Even though I know how to read and can read quite fluently it all looks over complicated.

Looking at your 2 pairs of vowels, you have correctly explained them.
อัว and อว have the same 'ooa' sound. The 1st vowel cannot have a final consonant so therefore is the end of a word or syllable and the 2nd one must have a final consonant.

It is the same with เออ and เอิ. Same 'er' sound but the 1st vowel cannot have a final consonant and the 2nd must have a final consonant. Of course all rules can be broken but usually that is just with transcribing foreign loan words. Eg term - เทอม.

A couple of other helpful pointers. เอ, แอ, ไอ, ใอ and โอ must be the start of a word or syllable and อะ must be the end of a word or syllable.

That's interesting, learning another language involves lots of information but it is not complicated taken one step at a time in a logical order.
I only posted an example of a primary school book because JF 80 expressed an interest. It is a lot of learning but you also learn a lot of Thai doing it. Also if you want to discuss vowels with a Thai teacher or moderately well educated person it is useful. Few people remember all the basics but it is nice to have learnt it and quickly refreshed if needed.

This is all it says for words with a closing consonant and the short vowel เ _ ะ without my comments.
ล + เ_ ะ + ก -> เล็ก (แปลง/วิสรรชนีย์/เป็น/ไม้ไต่คู้)

For someone who wants to learn Thai there are two vocabulary words แปลง เป็น there which we use everyday. The other two words will have been explained in preceding chapters.

[JF80]

Thanks for the replies. I will check out the links.

Are there any other ways to spot the start/end of a new word/syllable apart from looking at the vowels.

Sometimes I see quite a few consonants next to each other with no (visible) vowels. In this case I assume there are implied vowels but I have no idea whether each consonant is the start of a new syllable or the middle or end of an existing one.

Is there a rule like: you can only have one word/syllable with an implied/invisible vowel in a row (wishful thinking I know!)?

If you look at the word for road: ถนน

If I didn't know it was 'ta non' I might think it was 'ton na'. Does that make sense?

Thanks.

[Richard Wordingham]

If you look at the word for road: ถนน

If I didn't know it was 'ta non' I might think it was 'ton na'. Does that make sense?

Yes, but it doesn't work. A word-final vowel has to have a final representation, with a few very rare exceptions - perhaps พระพุทธเจ้า, depending on whether you regard the เจ้า as a separate word. Also note that if there were a prefix 'ton na', the second part would not start with a vowel, but rather they'd merge into a single vowel.

However, there is another problem. These compounds are composed of Pali or Sanskrit words, and a double consonant in writing would be preceded not by /o/ but by /a/, which would be written with mai hanakat. As a prefix, ถนน- would be tha-non-na-.

Your reasoning does work with words like นนทบุรี 'Nonthaburi'.

One rule you didn't make explicit is that ะ terminates a syllable, though it can be followed by a silenced consonant, almost always ห์.

Finally, karan terminates a syllable, and usually a word, though some names do contain a karan in the middle, as พันธุ์ทิพย์ 'Pant(h)ip'.

[David and Bui]

Usually knowing the word and its context provides the answer. Take this headline from this past weekend:

ความขัดแย้งขยายตัว แต่อย่ากลัวการต่อสู้

The question is how to read "อย่ากลัว", as "อย่าก ลัว" or "อย่า กลัว". Well, you could go thorough an analysis that says, the word "อยาก" does not need a "ไม้เอก" to produce a low tone because a low class consonant modified to be a mid class consonant via the use of a "อ" coupled with a long vowel and "แม่กก" as a "ตัวสะกด" results in a low tone for the syllable as a whole. Therefore, since the spelling of อย่าก would be incorrect, the initial word must be "อย่า" and the "ก" must be the first letter of the next word.

For me, that's too long of a thought process for my meager intellect. Its much better to know that อย่า means "don't" and "กลัว" means "to be afraid". The full headline would then mean, "Disagreements continue to expand but, don't worry about an [open] conflict".

[JF80]

Thanks again. Think this has gone a bit over my head but good to know there are a few more 'signs' out there to solve this problem!

[keith]

Thanks again. Think this has gone a bit over my head but good to know there are a few more 'signs' out there to solve this problem!

i am still a beginner learner or maybe early intermediate whatever those terms may mean. I understand and sympathise with your "problem" I think that as beginners we must try to think about how we learnt to read our own language and how Thai children first learn to read. The thing that jumps out straight away is that we/they start with a large vocabulary already! There's a kind of chicken and egg situation there.

There are other difficulties to face, it seems to me that Thai script, in books and on the net is always written so small that certain consonants and certain vowels are nearly impossible to distinguish. The text book I am learning from is excellent in that it does not use any romanisation, but the script is fairly small (though a normal font size). Initially I used a magnifying glass!! I later scanned and printed vocab lists larger. Soon however, with familiarity, I was able to distinguish these things.

When reading a longer text - just a sentence or two, I used the technique of printing an enlarged copy, then with a pencil, lightly marking obvious syllable boundaries (using whtever rules I knew) then looking at the smaller blocks of text for words that I recognised, marking them off, then trying to make sense of what remained. I used pencil because sometimes, it would take several attempts. Gradually, I was able to recognise more and more words or groups of words and so the process became easier and the "puzzling blocks" became smaller. It's the same process as when you learnt to read your own language, first having to decode letter by letter and then being able to decode whole groups of symbols as you saw them. It really is just a question of practice, practice and then practise.