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Pronunciation

 

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          If you want to speak the kind of Thai that Thai people will be able to understand, you will need to keep on practicing good pronunciation.  It is as important at this stage of the fame as it was at the beginning, because, no that you are able to say a great many things in Thai quite easily, you have to take care that you do not become careless in your pronunciation habits.  The pronunciation practices given below are designed to give you a chance to check up on this.         
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          1. Initial consonant clusters
          Only a few consonants may be followed by another consonant at the beginning of a syllable.  The following combinations occur: pl, pr, tr, kl, kr, kw, phl, phr, khl, khr, and khw.   You will notice that the first consonant  is always an aspirated or unaspirated voiceless stop, while the second consonant is l, r, or w.  In going through the practice below, concentrate on the two following things:

          (a)  Take care to distinguish the unaspirated consonants from the aspirated ones.

          (b)  Guard against substituting English bl (black), br (brown), dr (drown), gl (glade), gr (grow), and gw (Gwendolyn) for the Thai clusters pl, pr, tr, kl, kr, and kw, respectively.

   Practice I

plaay

end, end-part

phlaay

male (of elephant)

praaN

stupa (a type of Buddhist monument)

phraaN

to deceive, hold back the truth

klOON

drum

khlOON

canal

kruu

to throng, swarm

khruu

teacher

kwa3aN

to be wide

khwa3aN

to hurl

troN

to be straight

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          There is no word to contrast with troN 'to be straight', because th is never followed by another consonant.  Now go through the practice a second time, this time reading the examples in reverse order.

 

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          2.   Keeping o and O apart.
          Some speakers of English have trouble keeping Thai o and O apart.   Moreover, those who have trouble with long vowels may confuse either a short or a long o with a short or along O.

   Practice II

loN

to descend
lOON

to try out
looN

coffin

sO3Om
fork

so3m

orange

ho4oy

to wail

hO4Oy

shellfish

 

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          3.   How is your ee sound?
          If you have difficulty in pronouncing the words in the practice immediately below, go back to Practice 1 in the Hints on Pronunciation of Unit 2, and review it thoroughly.

   Practice III

เกิน

 keen

to exceed

เชิญ

 cheen

to invite
เดิน deen

to walk
บังเอิญ baN?een

accidentally
เถิด the1et

(word of command)
ประเสริฐ pra1se1et

(name for a man)
เปิด pe1et

to open
เกิด ke1et

to originate, be born
เบอร์ bee

number
เหม่อ me1e

to be in a brown study
เซ่อ se3e

to be foolish
เพ้อ phe2e

to be delirious
เผลอ phle4e

to be incautious, reckless

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          4.   Keeping apart words having different tones
          Read Practice 4 through at least twice, the first time as written, the second time in reverse order except for the last group of short sentences.

   Practice IV

ชา chaa tea
ช้า cha2a to be slow
พอ phOO

to be enough
พ่อ phO3O father
เหนือ nf4a

to be northern; above
เนื้อ nf2a meat
แหม mE4E (exclamation)
แม่ mE3E mother
พัก pha2k to rest
ผัก pha1k vegetable
ผัด pha1t to fry
พัด pha2t to blow
ส่อง sO1ON to shine
สอง sO4ON two
ซอง sOON

(classifier for packs of cigarettes)

na3N  duu  na3N

to sit and look at the movie

kha4w  kha3w   maa

he came in

ma3y  na1k   na2k

not very heavy

si4i  si1i   si4i

four colors

bu1ri1i   sO4ON  sOON

two packs of cigarettes

pha3a  ma1y   ma4y

is the cloth new?

pha3a  ma3y   ma1y

the cloth isn't new
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