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boxig
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If you want to learn some Thai language you should try this set of three dictionaries. These dictionaries do not use Thai alphabet and are great tool for learning how to speak with Thai people. The set include also some lessons for learning Thai. You can download here: http://www.phoneticthaidictionary.com
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Thai Girls : Meet Sexy Thai Girls
Posted on: 2:57 pm on Mar. 2, 2003
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JackAdams
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boxig,
I checked out that site and looked at their sample at:
http://www.phoneticthaidictionary.com/sample.html
All of their examples were missing tone indicators. Is that true of the actual product? Although Thai's can often use context to determine what a foreigner means when the wrong tone is used, major tone errors can cause confusion.
Jack
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Bangkok Women : Meet Sensual Bangkok Women
Posted on: 4:43 pm on Mar. 2, 2003
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boxig
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JackAdams
Yes, tone is the main problem. Unless you live a long time in thailand you never say it right. but as you said, Thai try to understand what you mean, but if you build your sentence in the right way they will always understand you. Like if you say "Ki Ma" you mean ride a horse and not a dog and if you say "Ma Ni" you mean "come here" and probably not "dog run away" which is also "Ma ni". I beleive that no one can learn tone of speak from books so it is useless to complicate the learning by adding tones. As a matter of fact, it is easier to learn Thai if you don't spend your time on tone.
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Thai Girls : Meet Sexy Thai Girls
Posted on: 5:30 pm on Mar. 2, 2003
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JackAdams
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boxig:
"...but if you build your sentence in the right way they will always understand you. Like if you say "Ki Ma" you mean ride a horse and not a dog..."
Building a sentence in the "right way" is not necessarily enough to assure understanding. Take your example. As you probably know, if you say "ki" with a falling tone and pronounce "ma" with a high tone, you have said "horse shit". So let's say I am standing near a horse and there is a pile of shit on the ground. Unless there is more context, the listener could think I was remarking on the shit, or suggesting that I wanted to ride ("ki" with a low tone) the horse. Proper tone not only resolves ambiguity, but makes it easier on the listener as they don't have to guess at what you mean.
"I beleive that no one can learn tone of speak from books so it is useless to complicate the learning by adding tones."
One can learn tones from books. But initially it helps to have a native Thai speaker pronounce all of the tones first. Then it is easy to use the tone encoding schemes use to indicate tone. Once you understand these schemes, the resultant pronunciation is much closer to correct. Better tone speeds up the rate that a listener can understand you, or whether they understand you at all.
"As a matter of fact, it is easier to learn Thai if you don't spend your time on tone."
If you don't spend time on tone, you are missing a fundamental component of the Thai language that effects communication tremendously. During the year I lived in Bangkok, this was demonstrated to me dozens of times. I worked with Thais, and regularly practiced Thai with a bilingual Thai coworker. His teaching and my in-street experiences reinforced the importance of tone. I have spent 6 additional months in Thailand since that year, and time and time again the importance of tone reproves itself.
Jack
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Bangkok Girls : Meet Sexy Bangkok Girls
Posted on: 9:39 pm on Mar. 4, 2003
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boxig
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JackAdams,
About the shit: totaly disagree. to take your example, if there is a pile of shit and I want to say "horse shit" there is a reaon why I want to say that, the same way that there is a reason I want to say "ride horse". So usually the reasons are:
1. Be carefult, there is a horse shit - then I will say: Rawang, ki Ma
2. It is very stinks, there is horse shit - then I will say: Men Ki Ma
3. If I want to tell my friend that the paper is made from elepant shit - then....etc, etc.
When the reason is that I want to ride a horse I usually will add another word like:
Yak Ki Ma, Py Ki Ma etc.
This is building a sentence with logic. For Thai there is no problem but for us, if we don't spend time on learning tones, which you also agree it is very difficult or even impossible to learn from books, we have just to pay a little attention to what we say.
What ever you say, add a word or two which will enable the Thai to understand what you mean, even your tone is wrong. As I said above, this is very easy because we always want to say something with connection to something else.
Also the situation many times make it clear. If we are at the train station at Bangkok we will ask:
"What time the train going to Chiang mai is leaving"
so whatever mistake you make, they probably will understand you because you say "train", "Chiang Mai" etc.
You are right about the importance of tones in the Thai language but don't forget that we are talking about people who want to learn Thai and not master in Thai. To begin with you must have a simple way and learning tones will only disencourage you and make the learning very difficult. Then, while in Thailand, you hear how Thai speak and pronounce the words and you start imitate them.
I know from my self, started learning at home and not in Thailand. It was very difficult but when I decide not to pay attention to the tones, it went very quickly. Then, spending time in Thailand, I very fast learnt how to pronounce, since I knew already the words.
I think there are some points in what I just said, don't you ?
boxig
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Thai Women : Meet Matured Thai Women
Posted on: 12:29 am on Mar. 5, 2003
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JackAdams
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"I think there are some points in what I just said, don't you ?"
Yes I do. And I'll address them as follows.
"About the shit: totaly disagree. to take your example, if there is a pile of shit and I want to say "horse shit" there is a reaon why I want to say that, the same way that there is a reason I want to say "ride horse". So usually the reasons are:
1. Be carefult, there is a horse shit - then I will say: Rawang, ki Ma
2. It is very stinks, there is horse shit - then I will say: Men Ki Ma
3. If I want to tell my friend that the paper is made from elepant shit - then....etc, etc.
When the reason is that I want to ride a horse I usually will add another word like:
Yak Ki Ma, Py Ki Ma etc.
This is building a sentence with logic."
I often include words that Thais might normally drop just to reduce potential ambiguity. ("building a sentence with logic" as you call it). But Thais do drop words all the time. If you drop words as Thais do AND blow your tones, problems can arise.
"What ever you say, add a word or two which will enable the Thai to understand what you mean, even your tone is wrong."
Often true. But I like minimizing mistakes. I would expect it sounds nicer to Thai when if you say what you mean and don't leave them with a guessing game because of tone errors.
"As I said above, this is very easy because we always want to say something with connection to something else."
But if that "something else" that is could be used for context also has boobed-up tones, you stick the Thai with the challenge of piecing together your intent. It isn't clear to me it's always "easy" for the Thai. I have screwed up badly enough that I have had to use new sets of words to re-express my thoughts. Better tone pronunciation reduces this problem.
"Also the situation many times make it clear. If we are at the train station at Bangkok we will ask:
"What time the train going to Chiang mai is leaving"
so whatever mistake you make, they probably will understand you because you say "train", "Chiang Mai" etc. "
Agreed.
"You are right about the importance of tones in the Thai language but don't forget that we are talking about people who want to learn Thai and not master in Thai."
I can't forget who we are talking about because nobody has yet identified them. I am just speculating who we are talking about as are you. I have assumed that there could be readers of this thread who fall into, or will fall into the "beginner level" as I have defined below. I have also assumed that some of those readers may not be aware of importance of tones if they want to progress in the language. Here are some beginning level definitions that seem fitting:
The beginner level describes the ability to greet people, ask where the bathroom is, ask what time it is, and maybe do simple price negotiation on the street. Tones don't matter for this level because not much is really being said. Ideas don't span multiple sentences. What is being said is so common that Thais quickly know what you mean.
The advanced beginner level describes the ability to converse about more advanced topics like people's feelings, likes, dislikes, and work. A richer vocabulary and longer sentences are used. Thoughts span more than one sentence. The speaker at this level cannot read or write Thai. They haven't committed to formal language training or really embraced the language. Tones do matter at this level. This is my level.
"To begin with you must have a simple way and learning tones will only disencourage you and make the learning very difficult."
I agree, it's a pain.
"Then, while in Thailand, you hear how Thai speak and pronounce the words and you start imitate them. "
Yes. And imitating in conjunction with seeing the same words written in tone-marked form enables you to then correctly pronounce other written words that you have never heard spoken.
"I very fast learnt how to pronounce, since I knew already the words."
If you didn't know the tones, you didn't know the words. 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. (For those readers not into Thai tones, I have romanized tone marks before "mai").
It would be nice if there was a Thai member interested in participating in this thread.
Jack
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Bangkok Women : Meet Beautiful Thai Girls
Posted on: 3:31 am on Mar. 5, 2003
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jjj
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Boxig,
"...................I beleive that no one can learn tone of speak from books so it is useless to complicate the learning by adding tones. As a matter of fact, it is easier to learn Thai if you don't spend your time on tone. ........"
I totally disagree with this. Tones are a crucial part of the Thai language, so if you're not bothering to learn tones, then you're not learning proper Thai. For example. take the word "glai" - pronounced with a middle-tone, it means "far", but pronounced with a falling tone, it means "near". Clearly, if you're not concerned with tones, a lot of confusion can result.
Once a Thai speaker has demonstrated to you how the 5 different tones should sound, then you certainly can use books to learn the correct tones of each word.
".................To begin with you must have a simple way and learning tones will only disencourage you and make the learning very difficult...................."
Learning the tones is not difficult, it is just different to what most farangs are used to. I have been learning Thai for nearly 2 years, & was taught about tones in the very first lesson. It doesn't discourage people to learn; in fact, it is very encouraging when you realise that the tones are not that difficult & as a result you can easily learn how new words.
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Bangkok Girls : Meet Attractive Thai Girls
Posted on: 4:42 am on Mar. 5, 2003
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Smegma
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JJJ,
With the word "glai" i figured that I always said the same thing -no matter how much I tried. They always understood "far". Thus, instead of trying to insist on saying "near", one day it ocurred to me to start saying "glai" and "mai glai", and voila! my problems were solved 
Not trying to go into the specifics of the tone issue, just providing such anecdotical solution to those who have problems with both "glai" words. C'mon jjj, didn't you ever think of this one?
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Thai Girls : Meet Active Thai Girls
Posted on: 4:47 am on Mar. 5, 2003
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jjj
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Smegma,
To help clarify which word you want to use,
"Glai" meaning "far" is pronounced with a long vowel, while "glai" meaning "near" is pronounced with a short vowel, and is usually repeated. So when you want to say "near" say "glai glai". Repeating the word like this would never be done to mean "far".
I'll take my anorak off now.
Cheers
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Thai Women : Meet Matured Thai Women
Posted on: 5:01 am on Mar. 5, 2003
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Smegma
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hmmmm... why nobody told me before the say "glai glai" thing? Finally I will be able to stop saying "mai glai".
Thanks JJJ.
[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.]
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Bangkok Girls : Meet Attractive Thai Girls
Posted on: 5:03 am on Mar. 5, 2003
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