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Yurune
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Noticing my spelling mistake in my post above.... can I just say that CCup should be pronounced nom
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Thai Girls : Meet Sexy Thai Girls
Posted on: 10:28 pm on June 11, 2006
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seajohn
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Skip, your post is bit confusing, because on the previous page I had just written the opposite.
If you're talking about the Thai word for glass, crystal, drinking glass etc, it is spelled with gor gai... the same letter as words such as gin (eat) or gum (grip) or gor (a hard-to-define partice such as "Well...")
And this sound in spoken Thai is definately nearest what all English speakers recognize as a hard G
Much nearer than any form of what we know as K
Except to theoriginal linguists who were concocting a written transliteration of Thai and used K because within the accepted written phonetic family of K, G is a cousin
There is no other reason why in many dictionaries and Thai names you will find words which start with the first letter of Thai alphabet (such as in chicken) written with a K or KH. It is a transliterative mistake which is insensitive to the reality of the spoken phonetics.
Examples, take the words used in association with first few letters of the Thai alphabet:
gai: a hard g as aspirated, could be gh, a mid tone consonant though in this word marked and made low. (chicken)
kai: a k with minimal asperation, could be k, a rising tone consonant (egg)
khuat: a k, aspirated, could be kh, rising tone (bottle)
khwai: a k, heavily aspirated, could be kh, mid tone.
No matter how many people feel obligated to continue writing Kh or K for the first letter of the Thai alphabet, any honest linguist would use G or GH because that is the letter in English which is least deceiving to how it is pronounced, especially in the Thai of the Central Plain. You will find some books admitting this.
G is a good letter and should be used. Just like J for the eigth letter of Thai. Linguists keep transliterating CH (as every related sound must be imbecilically written with CH) and that is misleading. Jatujak, not Chatujak. J is a great letter.
You will find these confusions and many more when you read Thai names, making them almost incomprehensible using the normal transliteration that Thai school teachers still use when kids get their done names in English or the gov't makes a passport for somebody. On I think just the previous page I was railing against this specifically, so, sorry if my writing seems terse. It's just that like many of the forms in Thailand, this is archaic, robotic, and unrealistic.
And, if you go around using speaking K for G, it will be an indication ofa strong foreign accent.
Skip, the top of the page which you linked us to presents the Thai letter and says:
chicken The 1st consonant in the Thai alphabet, a middle-class letter pronounced like a 'K' or a hard 'G.'
OK. So, "or" huh?... Well, I know which one I would use in speaking no matter how the "experts" feel obligated by an outmoded system to write it. Most of the writers of those dictionaries are NOT experts but just following an old, and I have emphasized, inaccurate phonetic system; one that is misleading to speaking (though it may be correct within an understanding of that closed phonetic system).
Hope you like the seajohn (not seachohn) system better guys (not khuys) ! 555
Gracias.
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Bangkok Women : Meet Sensual Bangkok Women
Posted on: 10:35 pm on June 11, 2006
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Mel Gibson
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seajohn, you are spot on. Lonely planet books, where I usually begin to learn languages changed from the "K"
to the "Gh" about 4 years ago, definately helped my pronunciation.
So it is Gai and Khai,, therefore this prooves my theory that the Chicken came before the egg?
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Thai Girls : Meet Sexy Thai Girls
Posted on: 10:51 pm on June 11, 2006
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Loung Steeb
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Based on the glass size in Thailand, I would rather have a bottle of Singha than a glass. How well has that glass been washed is another factor. PS: I would not order a Singha anyway.
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Bangkok Girls : Meet Sexy Bangkok Girls
Posted on: 1:08 am on June 12, 2006
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