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FIB

Quote: from DrLove on 8:37 pm on Nov. 10, 2007
IMHO This thread was already finished with post #3 on the first page...



But we would have missed the spectacle of poor mel's wild written gesticulation attempting to hide his earlier mistake under the not so gentle prods of seajohn. Isn't it what this forum is all about? No? Oh well...


Quote: from Mel Gibson on 5:34 am on Nov. 3, 2007
Phae ( like pack without the k) is for ghost



wrong, as pointed out by many


Quote: from Mel Gibson on 8:29 pm on Nov. 10, 2007
I guess when it comes to the ghost word Phee I am trying to convey a falling tone when I say half way between the English words PEA and PEAR ( PEAR without a LONG "R").



Now, one week later, Mel gets it right. Glad to see Mel can learn.



Bangkok Girls : Meet Attractive Thai Girls
Posted on: 5:55 am on Nov. 10, 2007
seajohn
IBFarang is fairly correct (thank you), and I have to agree with Doc here, too, in regards to the original post.

But I do feel that you have asked some important questions, Mel, which seem sincere and which I believe I can answer to your satisfaction, and thereby helpfully clear up the confusion, without sarcasm (I promise!).

First, your mai mai mai mai mai question.

Now I wrote this with 5 mai's instead of 4, as you did, because Thai has 5 tones. These tones are always expressed in a certain order, so one would assume that that is the order that you mean, and the meanings of these words would be clear. Following that system, yes, I could tell you the meanings.

However, yes, as you say, you could theoretically mix up the words as they appear in English and no one would know. That is correct.

And yes, I understand that you may even want to change the English vowel (a e I o u) spellings of words to ea or I or ee or whatever you like, if it helps you to somehow get the tone right. Hey, whatever helps.

But, you see, when you quote me above:

"Pi in this case is different from pi as in elder because it is a totally different word with different spelling"

I was not talking about the spelling in English, as you can easily see. I was talking about the spelling in Thai, which we cannot see and which I made no attempt to try to 'recreate' with English letters. I was talking about Thai spellings because we were then discussing the meaning of a word (not its pronunciation or its spelling) however it appeared in English. I was differentiating between a word that meant "older sibling" and one that meant "ghost" based not on spelling in English but on a cultural context of a common expression in Thai. That's how we decided what the Original Poster's girl had told him.

Basically, language can be said to have 4 categories:
1.meaning
2.form (grammar, structure, spelling)
3.pronunciation (including tones and stress)
4.appropriacy (such as levels of politeness or cultural context)

Although they are inter-related, meaning is supreme and above and beyond the others for the purposes of communication. However, in this thread, I have at one time or other discussed every one of these aspects as they applied.

Next, the second time you quote me thus:
" I did not state that, and I have nowhere made any reference as to how it should be spelled."

This is from a much later post, where I was talking about the transliterated spelling of the word in English. I was telling you, again, that I didn't care how you spelled the word in English; it was irrelevant to me.

You see, although you put those two quotes together like that, they are not related. I hope this clears that up. I really do want to clear this up, so that no one is confused.

Lastly, considering my paragraphs above, when I asked you what you meant by writing "Phae ( like pack without the k) is for ghost" on Nov 3rd, I feel that I am still waiting for an answer.

"Phae", fine, you can spell the word in question however you like, but when you say it is like "pack without the k", this makes the reader believe you are telling us that the vowel is like the vowel sound in pack or sack or stack...

as opposed to the vowel sound in see or pea or tree...

... however one wishes to spell either one of those vowel sounds.

So the question was moved from a question of meaning to one of pronunciation. It was never really a question of spelling in English.

However, were you to use that vowel sound (as in pack) in the word, it would change the meaning in Thai, just as it would were we discussing an English word.

Now, as a kind of exegesis, let me further add that there are many phonetic scripts out there neither English nor Thai, which we could conceivable transliterate either language into. Unfortunately this Forum program doesn't host them, I believe. But phonetics and their transcription is also is a science--that of putting sounds into symbols that we can read. That is why when you said, "phrae like pack without k," an educated person must assume you are talking about the phoneme which we call a vowel and which is found in the word pack, referred to as a short 'a'. I contested this because the correct sound is that which we call a long 'e'.

I do hope that this clears up something. I wished that I had explained all this from the beginning, rather than merely alluding to it, if I have done so.

Maybe we can all get on to your great suggestion of a holiday now!


Bangkok Women : Meet Sensual Bangkok Women
Posted on: 6:26 am on Nov. 10, 2007
Mel Gibson
Firstly, thanks FIB for your inaccurate contribution,, the use of PACK was withdrawn several pages back,, QUOTE from Mel"I dug out my talking dic it spells ghost PHEE, and the sound is somewhere between PEE and phe ( pear without the r). I'll be having words with my Mrs in the morning,,LOL.
Thank GOD you are FIB and not the CIA.

To be fair it seems seajoihn also missed that post,,,,,,,,,,
quote"Lastly, considering my paragraphs above, when I asked you what you meant by writing "Phae ( like pack without the k) is for ghost" on Nov 3rd, I feel that I am still waiting for an answer.

"Phae", fine, you can spell the word in question however you like, but when you say it is like "pack without the k", this makes the reader believe you are telling us that the vowel is like the vowel sound in pack or sack or stack...

as opposed to the vowel sound in see or pea or tree...

... however one wishes to spell either one of those vowel sounds.

So the question was moved from a question of meaning to one of pronunciation. It was never really a question of spelling in English.

However, were you to use that vowel sound (as in pack) in the word, it would change the meaning in Thai, just as it would were we discussing an English word.

OK, MY BEST SHOT at writing the sound I hear for ghost,, you know the French word Pierre??? yep that with a MUCH shorter erre.

I still await seajohns' reply for the mai mai mai mai,, if you want to do 5 intead of 4, ok,, I admit to only remembering new, wood burns, not (no) but please show the forum your skills at giving us usable sounds in english to differentiate the actual sounds of those words. It is NOT really possible to replace the sound of 30 ( arguably 32) Thai vowels with the 5 available in English.

Phi-air PEE-ahr,,, ahhhhh

Regards
Mel


Thai Girls : Meet Sexy Thai Girls
Posted on: 7:57 am on Nov. 10, 2007
LocalYokul


Bangkok Girls : Meet Sexy Bangkok Girls
Posted on: 5:22 pm on Nov. 10, 2007
seajohn
Again, I promise to post without sarcasm.

Mel, thank you for finally admitting your mistake. Cheer up. A foreign language is difficult, but one of the most rewarding things on Earth that one can learn, in my opinion.

However, I appreciate that by this point you are desperate to win something from me (human nature being what it is), and so did not see my reply to your "mai x 5" question in my post above... or perhaps you did not understand it. Hence, your strange challenge.

Again. It would be completely arbitrary how one might change the English spelling of the vowels in order to somehow capture the tones in Thai language. Someone, somewhere, may have invented a system to do so, but I don't know it, and I have never said whether that is possible or advisable; I would never really be interested in such a phonetically absurd question myself.

You are the only one here who seems to think that's a good idea, as far as I can see, and the only one who has tried it.

I'm sorry, but it's just not linguistically sound with our present English alphabet, in my opinion. That's why people who want to describe tones, make extra-alphabetical marks to illustrate the tones. But in any event, it has nothing to do with anything I asserted previously....

It's akin to asking me if I could build a skyscraper with condoms, in order for you to win at last. I am trying to maintain an image of your sincerity in these kinds of questions (with your permission), so please do not bombard with some other challenge that you dig up somewhere. I am not a computer game that you can outsmart with a few tricky moves. I am obviously just a person who happens, through hard work, to know a little more about a certain subject than you do.

I am sure there are other topics in which you could excel me in knowledge or performance.

Now, I think that that would be ending this post on a positive note. However, I would like to go further than that and help you a bit more.

In English there are actually only 5 (and sometimes y) vowel characters in our alphabet. However, counting the actual vowel sounds that are made there could be anywhere from between 16 to 27, or even more, depending on which linguist you ask, which country they are from, and if you count diphthongs, and of course, the schwa. Here is a good place for you to start counting:

http://kiss.ifas.ufl.edu/kiss22.htm

And wikipedia has a short article about the aspects of vowels:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vowel

But, more simply, this site actually has sound bites to help you distinguish:

http://www.antimoon.com/how/pronunc-soundsipa.htm

Now, English is notoriously inconsistent in spelling, due to the language's history and the limited characters to represent all these sounds. That is why I am not very concerned about spelling in your latest question (mai, etc) or your earlier questions... unless they obviously refer to other vowel sounds (such as the difference between 'pack' and 'peak' or 'peek', which is nearly universally understood as different in English).

Now the problem with your latest comparison above:

"OK, MY BEST SHOT at writing the sound I hear for ghost,, you know the French word Pierre??? yep that with a MUCH shorter erre. "

... is that now you are comparing a singular vowel sound to a diphthong. That is, while the Thai has only one vowel sound (albeit in a tone not usual to you), you are comparing it to two vowel sounds. So, I'm sorry, in internationally accepted Phonology, that would not be permissible.

A diphthong is when you have two vowel sounds close together. As an example you can find diphthongs in the "i-e" of Pierre, but also in "house", "beer", or, more commonly, "name", "say", etc. Look, here is a PDF file for you which lists common diphthongs and also gives a good explanation of the aspects of pronunciation and writing:

http://www.ling.rochester.edu/people/cross/ling20/lect3.pdf

If you are really interested in the study of putting various sounds into English, as you seem to be, it would also be very advisable for you to learn the widely used International Phonetic Alphabet. Here is the chart:

http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/ipa/ipachart.html

Anyway, take a look at these sites I've posted for you, and see what you can come up with for your project about arranging English characters to form Thai vowels or tones. The former would conceivably be more interesting to me than the latter, for reasons cited above, but I haven't got time for either project now.

Looking forward to your productions. Good luck.




Bangkok Girls : Meet Attractive Thai Girls
Posted on: 2:17 am on Nov. 11, 2007
atl
come on guys........

this all started from a benign (sp?) question...

lets not get the panties in a wad over a thai phrase...
atl


Bangkok Women : Meet Beautiful Thai Girls
Posted on: 3:51 am on Nov. 11, 2007
seajohn
What are you talking about? Our recent posts have only become more informative and more civil and more sympathetic, me trying to answer Mel Gibson's honest questions about how to reconcile pronunciation and spelling between two languages. Does academic exposition intimidate you or something?

Get your filthy mind off of me and Mel's underwear!

And just for the record, I do not wear panties; I wear tighty-whiteys (in a variety of colors) !


PS, You spelled benign correctly. Good job.


Bangkok Girls : Meet Attractive Thai Girls
Posted on: 5:30 am on Nov. 11, 2007
expatchuck
I'm still trying to wrap my feeble brain around building a skyscraper out of condoms.


Thai Girls : Meet Active Thai Girls
Posted on: 9:48 am on Nov. 11, 2007
Mel Gibson
expatchuck,, reminds me of managemnt traing course I went on a decade or so back,, we hit the bit about "lateral thinking" and the instructer asked what we believe we could manufacture from a paper clip. Mel being my usual self, suggested an aircraft carrier, after the looks of shocked distain died down my suggestion was actually added to the list.
That evening I sought out the maintenance guy of the hotel we where staying in and borrowed a few tools.
Next morning I presented to the class a reasonable minature copy of an aircraft carrier madce from a papere clip, inclusive of it's ant sailors.Wish I could have found ants with wings for the aircraft but that was not to be.
So condom skycraper,, who knows

Mel


Thai Women : Meet Matured Thai Women
Posted on: 5:49 am on Nov. 12, 2007
Shredded Wheat
Well that has left me totally confused. I thought the good Doc had dealt it with perfectly well at the outset and then all that talk about the correct way to pronounce the "p" has fuddled my brain.

Is it a hard "p" like in crap; a soft "p" like in piss; or a totally strange "p" like in psychiatry?

Keep smiling guys.


Bangkok Girls : Meet Attractive Thai Girls
Posted on: 2:33 pm on Nov. 28, 2007
     

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