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boxig
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In some way you are all right. But I have to emphasize that I was only talking about beginners. From my private experience, and I never spent any time on learning tones, when I say the right sentence I am understood. In my talks with Thai most is understood from what we are talking about. If I say "Mai Yu" when we are looking for someone or when I am lazy to carry bags from market, they always understand what I mean, even I pronounce it the same. If you say "Mai Tong" if someone tries to sell you a gold ring then he can think you say you don't need it or it's not gold. But these cases are rare.
I still stick to my idea that learning tones, if you just start to learn Thai, will only make it dificult, while ignoring the tones will enable you to learn Thai in few months. Yes, you will not talk the correct language, but at least you will learn Thai good enough to find your way with Thai people.
I also noticed that even if you know about 100 words it will be enough. I learnt Thai from Dictionaries ignoring tones in only two month and, except few times, I could always make people understand me in my first visit to Thailand.
But, if you use a tape with sounds to learn, you can learn the tones too. Using only books, it will take you a year or two to really know how to pronounce.
and remember, I am talking about beginners.
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Thai Girls : Meet Sexy Thai Girls
Posted on: 8:01 am on Mar. 5, 2003
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JackAdams
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[Edited to add this: I went to the website, and I think that besides the criticism already stated about the tones another shortcoming is the oversimplified transliteration. Many Thai phonemas are are wrongly shown when using only our simple alphabet without any other additional explanation. I leave it to those better versed about this to expand. I am still a novice.]
I was going to back on out of this thread, but Smeg has hit on another very important point here that has motivated to make a couple more points.
* Because dictionary authors use non-standardized translation schemes to express phonemes. So the reader must learn how to correctly interpret them on an author-by-author basis.
* These authors all provide English language examples for all the phonemes, but we all don't pronounce English the same way! So our Thai pronunciations will be different. Getting calibrated to a given dictionary by asking a Thai to pronounce words of interest is very enlightening.
Jack
I was going to back on out of this thread, but Smeg has hit on another very important point here. Because authoris
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Bangkok Women : Meet Sensual Bangkok Women
Posted on: 10:37 am on Mar. 5, 2003
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bkkz
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There is a sort of a standard for transliteration. It doesn't look pretty, but it is logical. Additionally, it does not require special characters, just your standard ASCII set.
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/thai/language/
JA, you are right, one would need to calibrate the pronunciation of vowels, as they seem to vary. Some consonants may need that too. Some problems may occur when one uses one's language rules to read the words. And what about those languages that do not use roman characters such as Russian or Arabic or Chinese?
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Thai Girls : Meet Sexy Thai Girls
Posted on: 11:20 am on Mar. 5, 2003
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JackAdams
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Another point just popped to mind. The non-aspirated sounds "dt" and bp" don't transliterate to English well. Here is another example where speaking with a Thai for clarification is very helpful.
Now that I have made my preferences known regarding learning tones, here are the books I believe better fit the challenge of learning Thai for the serious beginner. Both these recommendations are available at Asia Books. My first recommendation is:
* A two book set. "The main of thai grammar" and "The main of thai vocabulary" by Charles Degnaux. These books are a good starting point.
* Once you are getting the hang of it a bit, and want to build your vocabulary, I like "JUMBO English-Thai Dictionary" by Gordon H. Allison. The tone-marking and transleration system is quite different than my first recommendation, so you would have the extra hassle of learning that too.
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Bangkok Girls : Meet Sexy Bangkok Girls
Posted on: 1:03 pm on Mar. 5, 2003
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Dryborg
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Ok. Here's my 5 pennies worth:
I agree with the notion that reading a book and learning the basic sound of even several hundred words through transliteration will never give you the ability to 'speak' Thai. IMHO this will give you only a crude understanding of (parts of) the language.
Learning to speak proper Thai, or any other language for that matter (I speak 5 different languages myself coming from a very small Scandinavian country) is very much about using your ear. You need to actually hear a sound for your brain to be able to imitate it. No book alone can give you this.
You need to combine your (ever growing) knowledge of the 'linguistic mechanics' of any language you are learning (the books) with a bombardment of your ear with the music of the language. Listen to Thai radio, watch their awful soap operas on TV. Or better still move down there and insist adamantly that all your TGs speak Thai to you all the time (in between the bouts, that is)  If you have a musical ear, chances are you will pick up the subtleties of the mysterious Thai intonations more easily. If, on the other hand, you are completely tone deaf, you may want to consider learning a different language altogether. 
But first, I would suggest, you should learn the sounds of the alphabet. There's a wealth of pronunciation information hidden in that alone:
http://bkkx.com/cgi-bin/forum/topic.cgi?forum=17&topic=55&start=18
Greetings, Salutations and good luck
DryBorg
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Thai Women : Meet Matured Thai Women
Posted on: 5:57 pm on Mar. 5, 2003
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haam sup
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I almost posted earlier in this thread, because I feel very strongly about this issue.
Jack Adams' observations about the importance of tone CAN NOT be over emphasized. While in BKK, many people hear common words pronounced with incorrect tone, and are able to guess what you mean, it is wrong to assume that the same is true for Thais who rarely encounter Western attempts at their language.
Boxig keeps pounding the point that his approach is good for beginners, but this could not be further from the truth. Again, quoting Jack Adams:
"A "word" in Thai includes the tone. Take mai, (l)mai, (f)mai, (h)mai, (r)mai. These are five words, not one word said five ways."
This is crucial. It would do a beginner no good at all to be told that "My boxwrench hates farts" means "I like your smile". Yet sentences formed of Thai words, without regard to tones, will probably not mean ANYTHING to ANYONE, let alone an intelligible sentence.
(f)glai and (m)glai don't sound remotely the same to Thais - it is your own tone-deafness, and a flawed transliteration system that make them appear to Westerners as similar.
There are HUNDREDS of other examples, but it all boils down to the 'house of cards': a poor foundation is worse than none at all.
haam sup
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Bangkok Women : Meet Beautiful Thai Girls
Posted on: 6:53 pm on Mar. 5, 2003
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JackAdams
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"It would do a beginner no good at all to be told that "My boxwrench hates farts" means "I like your smile". "
That was hilarious, haam sup.
What if it were possible to mispronounce, "I like your smile", in a way to mean "My box wrenches hate farts." That could really screw up the start of a new relationship. Unless you said it to someone who happened to have box wrenches who hated farts, and they thought it a good thing you had this in common.
Jack
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Bangkok Girls : Meet Attractive Thai Girls
Posted on: 11:04 pm on Mar. 5, 2003
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Smegma
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Quote: from haam sup on 7:53 am on Mar. 6, 2003
While in BKK, many people hear common words pronounced with incorrect tone, and are able to guess what you mean, it is wrong to assume that the same is true for Thais who rarely encounter Western attempts at their language.
This is very true. I notice that at times I may say the same exact thing to two different people. One will understand me when the other one will not. The one who understands me would be a person who has had some exposure to westerners or even speak a few words of English.
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Thai Girls : Meet Active Thai Girls
Posted on: 11:33 pm on Mar. 5, 2003
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Smegma
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Quote: from haam sup on 7:53 am on Mar. 6, 2003
(f)glai and (m)glai don't sound remotely the same to Thais - it is your own tone-deafness, and a flawed transliteration system that make them appear to Westerners as similar.
I am not tone deaf. They do not appear to me similar. I can tell the difference. But I am tone mute!! I can not make the tones come out different from my mouth.
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Thai Women : Meet Matured Thai Women
Posted on: 11:37 pm on Mar. 5, 2003
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