This page is a record of my continued and pathetic attempts to learn the Thai language. After careful analysis of my failings over the years I have come up with an approach which, whilst probably not unique, may just allow me to get beyond limited light conversation. Or maybe not.
The page was last updated on 2nd April 2011.
My boredom level is very low regarding languages and whilst some foundation is necessary, rather than just repeat the rote learning used for the consonants I have chosen to look at reading some real Thai text.
So, in at the deep end, here is the title of the consonants picture book that I used in the first chapter.
First let us write out the consonants that we are already familiar with:
ค-ัด-ล-า-ย-ม-ือ = kor kwai - ? - dor dek - lor ling - ? - yor yuk - mor maa - ? - or aang.
Vowels in Thai are written before, after, above and below the consonants. There are also inherent vowels which are inferred although they only make one of two sounds, thank heavens.
The first vowel we meet is -้ : (note: the vowels are not allowed to be written by themselves in isolation so 'or aang' is usually used as a 'place holder' for them or in this case I use the '-' symbol). This vowel is known as myhunahgaht and is pronounced as a short 'a', the same as the vowel -ะ. However the former vowel is always used when there is a final consonants and when sounded together produces a sound more like 'u' as in 'run' or Sunday. The use of this vowel indicates that dor dek is the final consonant so we have our first word, 'k','u','d'; or nearly at least. One further complication is that some consonants have a different sound if used at the end of the syllable than if used at the beginning and dor dek happens to be one of them: at the end of syllable it is pronounced as 't' (see the table at the beginning of Chapter 1). So the first word is pronounced k-u-t which means to copy or transcribe.
The second vowel we meet I see frequently, -ๅ, which is pronounced as a long 'a' as in 'ah'. So the second word is pronounced l-ah-y. How did I know that this was the complete word? Well from the same table of consonants above I see that yor yak never appears as a final consonant. When it is in this position it becomes a vowel but only in combination with another vowel. In other words I should recognise that ๅย is a compound vowel that together are pronounced as 'ai' as in aisle. So our second word is pronounced l-ai and it means design or pattern.
The last vowel is -ื and in this case it and the or aang form a compound vowel that is pronounced 'ewer' as in brewer and is usually represented by eu-a. So the final word is pronounced m-eu-a which means hand. Lai-meua together means handwriting.
So the title of book is 'copy handwriting' or คัดลายมือ (lut lai meua) in Thai.
I think a small lie down is in order before we look at the next word(s).
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