Jump to content

Listen to Pattaya FM105
  2. → Viewing Profile: Posts: mangkorn

View New Content  

mangkorn's Photo


mangkorn

Member Since 2007-03-31
Offline Last Active 2011-09-15 16:26
-----

Posts I've Made

In Topic: Any Thai Words You Don'T Understand?

2011-09-08 17:00:36

View Postmidas, on 2011-09-07 22:28:05, said:

ภาษาอังกฤษ   paa-săa ang-grìt  (this ends with s so why does it have an  an ending sounding with a t/d )?

Thai syllables cannot end with an "s" sound. It is just not the way that Thai speech works. The same is true of other sounds, which one can readily consult in a beginners' book or any decent Thai-English dictionary.

Thus, the sound of some Thai consonants at the start of a syllable change when they come at the end of a syllable.

Case in point: the ridiculous"Sawasdee." No Thai person has ever pronounced the word like that; it simply boggles the mind as to why it is so often transcribed that way.

In Topic: Any Thai Words You Don'T Understand?

2011-09-08 16:40:33

View PostRichard W, on 2011-09-08 03:38:36, said:

View Postmidas, on 2011-09-07 22:28:05, said:

โทรศัพท์ toh-rá-sàp  (this ends with t so why does it have an  an ending sounding with a p)?
It's rather like English psyche and tmesis, except that it's final clusters that Thai deals with by dropping a consonant is speech.  (It's a bit more complicated, because the final consonant was followed by a now-dropped vowel in the source language.)

Another answer is that the symbol above the final consonant in โทรศัพท์" means: "This letter is silent." Therefore, the word does not end with a "t," at least not in terms of Thai pronunciation.

Such is the case with the beer so commonly mispronounced as "Sing-HA." In Thai, the consonant equivalent to the English "h" in the Indic loanword for "lion" is clearly marked as silent by that same symbol, and there is certainly no equivalent to "a" at the end of the word, neither in writing nor in pronunciation.

To be fair to unsuspecting farangs, however, the Thai beer company itself chose the unfortunate transcription "Singha" for its brand label - which is just plain ridiculous, and essentially demands mispronunciation.

The word "singh" is also known the world over, being the name of India's premier (in addition to just about every other religious Sikh male). I'm not absolutely certain how Sikhs pronounce it, but internationally nobody has ever said: Prime Minister Manmohan Sing-HA.

And surely no Thai person has ever said "bia Sing-HA" to another Thai - at least when no foreigners are around - unless they were just acting silly...




  









In Topic: Generic Placeholder Classifier For Abstract Concepts

2011-08-05 14:48:20

There are handbooks of nouns/classifiers on sale at Thai-language bookstores (especially Chula). Presumably, similar lists might be found on the internet, but the hard copy versions are compact and cheap, at about 40 baht. As Peppy says, there are a many nouns for which the classifier is the same word.


In Topic: Questions From ฉันคืออา...

2011-07-26 19:22:18

Whenever she refers to gold, she uses the word บาท - presumably, a weight/value measure. How much does 1 บาท correspond to in other terms?


Thanks.



In Topic: Questions From ฉันคืออา...

2011-06-08 02:14:03

For you few fans of this extraordinary storytelling, and lovely plain-style prose, she has just published the second installment of her memoirs. It carries the same title, with the subtitle: กับประสบการณ์ท้องคุก The cover photo is different, too. SE-ED now has both displayed together (store clerks say they're flying off the shelves...) Enjoy.

Quick Navigation   View New Content Site search:
  1. Thailand Forum
  2. → Viewing Profile: Posts: mangkorn
  3. Privacy Policy
  4. Forum Rules ·