Thai Language thread

[Marble-eye]

I am totally discombobulated, the Thais have under 3000 words in their vocabulary, in English they're are over 171,000 words, the mind boggles.

[Bluesofa]

3 minutes ago, Marble-eye said:

I am totally discombobulated, the Thais have under 3000 words in their vocabulary, in English they're are over 171,000 words, the mind boggles.

Ha ha! No wonder we have so many words in English - 'discombobulated' is an excellent example.

I have no idea about the size of the Thai vocabulary. Where did you find this nugget?

I wonder if it's all Thai vocabulary, or excludes words made up from other roots? I just don't know.
I find the way some Thai words are made up really interesting.

For example in English we have one specific word/specific phrase  'dengue (fever)' or '(aircraft) hangar', or 'ambulance'.

dengue fever is ไข้เลือดออก (kai-luad-og)  comes from ไข้ (fever)   เลือด (blood)   ออก (out)

aircraft hangar โรงเก็บเครื่องบิน (rong-geb-kruang-bin)  comes from โรง (hall/shed)    ก็บ (store/keep)    ครื่อง (machine)   บิน (fly)

ambulance  รถพยาบาล (rot-pai-ya-ban)  comes from   รถ (vehicle)    พยาบาล (nurse) 

 

[Marble-eye]

13 hours ago, Bluesofa said:

Ha ha! No wonder we have so many words in English - 'discombobulated' is an excellent example.

I have no idea about the size of the Thai vocabulary. Where did you find this nugget?

I wonder if it's all Thai vocabulary, or excludes words made up from other roots? I just don't know.
I find the way some Thai words are made up really interesting.

For example in English we have one specific word/specific phrase  'dengue (fever)' or '(aircraft) hangar', or 'ambulance'.

dengue fever is ไข้เลือดออก (kai-luad-og)  comes from ไข้ (fever)   เลือด (blood)   ออก (out)

aircraft hangar โรงเก็บเครื่องบิน (rong-geb-kruang-bin)  comes from โรง (hall/shed)    ก็บ (store/keep)    ครื่อง (machine)   บิน (fly)

ambulance  รถพยาบาล (rot-pai-ya-ban)  comes from   รถ (vehicle)    พยาบาล (nurse) 

I was just interested to compare our languages and I remember when I first moved to Thailand, and a friend telling me that there wasn't many words in the Thai language, so just Googled it.

And I know at least 1 hundred words in the English language and 10 in the Thai language, so percentage wise I guess I know more Thai than English.

https://www.languagetrainers.com/blog/common-mistakes-westerners-make-attempting-learn-thai/#:~:text=Thai is a basic language,words in the Thai language.

The friend also told me, please correct me if he was wrong, he said that the Thais don't have a word for glove but call it 'bag for hand' and same with sock 'bag for foot'.

What I like doing on Lazada is trying to read the Thai words, one word that jumped out at me was โปรโมชั่น, at first I read it as promochan (promotion) then I re-read it and it actually says por mo chan, is this correct BS?

 

[Bluesofa]

7 minutes ago, Marble-eye said:

I was just interested to compare our languages and I remember when I first moved to Thailand, and a friend telling me that there wasn't many words in the Thai language, so just Googled it.

And I know at least 1 hundred words in the English language and 10 in the Thai language, so percentage wise I guess I know more Thai than English.

https://www.languagetrainers.com/blog/common-mistakes-westerners-make-attempting-learn-thai/#:~:text=Thai is a basic language,words in the Thai language.

Thanks for the info. I like your logic about your ability to speak Thai better than Engrish.  

From your link above:
[quote]
It’s believed that there are approximately 2,864 words in the Thai language. When comparing that to the 171,476 words we currently have in the Oxford English dictionary, it would seem that Thai should be easy to learn. Because most Thai words are monosyllabic, it can give the impression that the Thai language is quite a basic one. That is not entirely true. The monosyllable words are often pieced together to create other terms that have broader meanings. Although to this day nobody knows the exact amount of Thai words, it’s far more multi-faceted than you initially perceive.
[end quote]

"The monosyllable words are often pieced together to create other terms that have broader meanings"
The way I read it, this is the point I've been making in a lot of my earlier posts, about the way Thai words are 'pieced together'

Just to reiterate one of the examples I used:
ambulance  รถพยาบาล (rot-pai-ya-ban)  comes from   รถ (vehicle)    พยาบาล (nurse)

That's why when I got to the stage of being able to read Thai script, I don't necessarily understand all the run-of-the-mill words, but I can sometimes guess what the word means.
'Aircraft hangar' was one I worked out the first time I read it, just by separating the word out into the individual 'bits'. It doesn't work every time though.

When it comes to official documents however, I really struggle with most of them.

38 minutes ago, Marble-eye said:

The friend also told me, please correct me if he was wrong, he said that the Thais don't have a word for glove but call it 'bag for hand' and same with sock 'bag for foot'.

Yup, that's spot on. In fact I mentioned that very subject nearly a year ago:  https://thethaiger.com/talk/topic/4428-thai-language-thread/?do=findComment&comment=58743

 

37 minutes ago, Marble-eye said:

What I like doing on Lazada is trying to read the Thai words, one word that jumped out at me was โปรโมชั่น, at first I read it as promochan (promotion) then I re-read it and it actually says por mo chan, is this correct BS?

You're doing well Marble-eye! I never claim to be fluent in Thai, but being hard-of-learning I've just stuck it out for years.

The English word 'promotion' has crept into the Thai language.
The first syllable โปร is 'pro'. I can understand completely why you read it as 'por'.
The thing is, those first two consonants are both together as a 'consonant cluster' as it's sometimes referred to, followed by the vowel โ (oh)  (written at the front of course in this example!)
Hence it is 'pro', with no final consonant.

This 'consonant cluster' makes it a PITA when you start reading Thai. How the hell do you know if it should be 'por' or 'pro'?
You often don't, as a non-native Thai speaker. It's just down to guessing sometimes and then having to remember.

As an aside, I was just looking up the phrase 'consonant cluster' here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consonant_cluster  
I noticed it mentioned that in English, the longest possible combination is three consonants.
One example it gave was 'split' - and we all know how to pronounce it like a Thai don't we!  'sa-plit' 

[BigHewer]

Please forgive my clueless interjection, but on the subject of compound nouns, I’ve always found it somehow poetic that: 

honey =  น้ำผึ้ง (water bee)

river = แม่น้ำ (mother water)

Is the idea that honey is water of the bees and that rivers are the mothers of all water? Or have I got it wrong?

 

[Bluesofa]

 

A quick one about the way some more Thai words are 'pieced together'

โทรศัพท์มือถือ (tor-asap-meur-teur) mobile telephone

It can be shortened, and referred to as มือถือ (meur-teur) mobile (as in phone)

If we break มือถือ (meur-teur) down even further, we have มือ (meur) hand    ถือ (teur) hold/carry

Doing this makes it easier for me to follow how Thai works.

I can only apologise for my inability to write some English translations from Thai. There are sounds in Thai that we don't have in English.

The other thing is I don't always know the best way to spell some words in English that we can say, it being  quite subjective on how to do it.
Saying it is one thing, writing it down can be something completely different.

I'll give this a try and await comments: https://translate.google.com/?sl=th&tl=en&text=โทรศัพท์ มือ ถือ &op=translate  
Near the bottom of the page, click on the speaker icon underneath the Thai script on the left-hand side.

There's a wiki page all about it using the International Phonetic Alphabet, but being a bear of very little brain, it makes my head feel like it's about to explode: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA/Thai  

If anyone has any questions or comments, please let me know.

 

 

[Bluesofa]

1 hour ago, BigHewer said:

Please forgive my clueless interjection, but on the subject of compound nouns, I’ve always found it somehow poetic that: 

honey =  น้ำผึ้ง (water bee)

river = แม่น้ำ (mother water)

Is the idea that honey is water of the bees and that rivers are the mothers of all water? Or have I got it wrong?

Thanks for joining in. You haven't got it wrong at all regarding how those two words are made up.
Whether or not it was decided to build these words on the way you've described, I have no idea.

Understanding how those two compound nouns come together can give us some opportunity for humour (bad as it might be!)

You could point to some water in a jar, or cup, and say to your mother, as an exclamation, "แม่น้ำ"
As there are no spaces between words when writing Thai, it would look like the statement could be meant to be used either way.
Rubbish joke, I know, but you can see it opens up the chance to interact in Thai.

There's a humorous point to น้ำผึ้ง (honey) too.
Years ago I was watching a film with a Thai girl. It was "Meet The Fockers" with Robert De Niro (yes, it really was called that:  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0290002/ ) 
It was a cheap VCD (remember those?) with the original English soundtrack and Thai subtitles, making it easier for both of us.
While listening to the dialogue, I was also attempting to read bits of the Thai subtitles.

This is no word of a lie.
At one point, Robert De Niro arrives home and says to his wife, "Hi honey"
The Thai subtitles had the caption: สวัสดีน้ำผึ้ง (sawadee-nam-phung) hello honey (from the bee), whereas it should have been สวัสดีที่รัก (sawadee-tee-rak) hello sweetheart.
I don't know who did the translation, but they weren't paying attention.

[Bluesofa]

 

Making a monkey out of me - half-Engrish names.
Going ape is one thing, but in Thai four out of five of the apes use the English words:

กอริลลา (gor-ri-la)
ชิมแปนซี (chim-pan-see)
ลิงบาบูน (ba-boon)
อุรังอุตัง (oo-rang-oo-tang)
ชะนี (cha-nee) (gibbon)

ลิง (ling) is generally used as 'monkey'. For some reason, the first four above sometimes have the prefix ลิง (ling), although not always.

I was once called the last one - ชะนี (cha-nee) by a katoey whose advances I rejected. Makes a change from being called a ควาย (kwai) (buffalo) I suppose.

 

[Bluesofa]

Some words that sound very similar in Thai.
I hope I'm not getting too carried away now, talking about vowels and tones.

In Thai it's not just a case of getting the tone correct, but the length of word itself too. That's why there are long and short vowels - the same vowel basically, but one is pronounced very short and the other longer.

To keep it brief, here are just two pairs of words:

 

ลูก (look) (child - usually when referring to your own son/daughter)   It has a 'falling tone' - you

need to make your voice go 'up', then come back 'down' again: https://translate.google.com/?sl=th&tl=en&text=ลูก&op=translate  (click on the speaker icon below the Thai word)

 

ลุก (luk)  (to get up) It has a 'high tone', meaning it goes 'up', but doesn't come

back 'down' again: https://translate.google.com/?sl=th&tl=en&text=ลุก&op=translate 

  

The two words above have a vowel called 'oo' (this one's written below the first consonant).

The first word is pronounced as a long vowel, and the second one is the same, but a shorter version of the vowel:
  ู this is pronounced like the vowel in the middle of 'soup'.      

ุ this is pronounced like 'book'*  - very short

'book'* I'm talking about Brits pronouncing the vowel now:
If you're a southerner, then 'book' sounds like 'buk'. If you're a northerner and will tend to say boook (exaggerated), but for Thai it needs to be very short.

 

 

ฝน (fun) (rain)  has no vowel at all. Not uncommon in Thai.

This one has a 'rising tone' - the word goes 'down', then back 'up': https://translate.google.com/?sl=th&tl=en&text=ฝน &op=translate 

 

  ฝุ่น (fun) (dust)  has the short 'oo' below it. Also happens to have 'low tone' - which goes straight

'down': https://translate.google.com/?sl=th&tl=en&text=ฝุ่น &op=translate   

 

 

 

[Marble-eye]

20 minutes ago, Bluesofa said:

Some words that sound very similar in Thai.
I hope I'm not getting too carried away now, talking about vowels and tones.

In Thai it's not just a case of getting the tone correct, but the length of word itself too. That's why there are long and short vowels - the same vowel basically, but one is pronounced very short and the other longer.

To keep it brief, here are just two pairs of words:

ลูก (look) (child - usually when referring to your own son/daughter)   It has a 'falling tone' - you need to

make your voice go 'up', then come back 'down' again: https://translate.google.com/?sl=th&tl=en&text=ลูก&op=translate  (click on the speaker icon below the Thai word)

ลุก (luk)  (to get up) It has a 'high tone', meaning it goes 'up', but doesn't come

back 'down' again: https://translate.google.com/?sl=th&tl=en&text=ลุก&op=translate 

The two words above have a vowel called 'oo' (this one's written below the first consonant).

The first word is pronounced as a long vowel, and the second one is the same, but a shorter version of the vowel:
  ู this is pronounced like the vowel in the middle of 'soup'.      

ุ this is pronounced like 'book'*  - very short

'book'* I'm talking about Brits pronouncing the vowel now:
If you're a southerner, then 'book' sounds like 'buk'. If you're a northerner and will tend to say boook (exaggerated), but for Thai it needs to be very short.

ฝน (fun) (rain)  has no vowel at all. Not uncommon in Thai.

This one has a 'rising tone' - the word goes 'down', then back 'up': https://translate.google.com/?sl=th&tl=en&text=ฝน &op=translate 

  ฝุ่น (fun) (dust)  has the short 'oo' below it. Also happens to have 'low tone' - which goes straight

'down': https://translate.google.com/?sl=th&tl=en&text=ฝุ่น &op=translate   

I think that illustrates very well that it is much easier to get the word correct by reading directly from the Thai language, than reading the word that someone has translated into English.

 

 

[Bluesofa]

5 minutes ago, Marble-eye said:

I think that illustrates very well that it is much easier to get the word correct by reading directly from the Thai language, than reading the word that someone has translated into English.

You're absolutely right on that Marble-eye.
I was worried I might be getting carried away by trying to explain the sounds in Engrish.
However, I hope it might just give an insight into how involved Thai is when, for example, you might be a native English-speaker.

There's no way you could even begin to write how to say these two:  งู and  เมือง ha ha!
For the second one, muang, I remember my first Thai teacher saying that I needed to make the sound as if I was about to vomit.

[Marble-eye]

1 minute ago, Bluesofa said:

You're absolutely right on that Marble-eye.
I was worried I might be getting carried away by trying to explain the sounds in Engrish.
However, I hope it might just give an insight into how involved Thai is when, for example, you might be a native English-speaker.

There's no way you could even begin to write how to say these two:  งู and  เมือง ha ha!
For the second one, muang, I remember my first Thai teacher saying that I needed to make the sound as if I was about to vomit.

Yes a lot of vowels for example 'แ' I think of hairs on top of the head and becomes 'air', เ becomes a shortened hair to eh. 

ี was never a problem as it was the first word I ever read in Thai, the word was ดี and the satisfaction I got from reading that simple word encouraged me to learn some more, I realised the Thai language was doable. Although learning the old Buddhist letters (if they are Buddhist letters) have been a little off putting, the likes of ณ ฏ ฒ etc etc.

But going back to the มื vowel I just screw my face up and make my mouth look like I'm shaving and emit a sound and what ever sound comes out, it will do.

 

[DwizzleyMatthews]

I am surprised that Thai language with a small vocabulary but huge alphabet ( 42 consonants and 32 vowels I think) managed to make so many words sound the same !

Okay , so the tones make a difference but to the untrained ears ( mine in particular ) it just adds to the confusion.

 

Here’s a couple of examples:

 

 

[Bluesofa]

1 hour ago, DwizzleyMatthews said:

I am surprised that Thai language with a small vocabulary but huge alphabet ( 42 consonants and 32 vowels I think) managed to make so many words sound the same !

Okay , so the tones make a difference but to the untrained ears ( mine in particular ) it just adds to the confusion.

Thanks for the videos. I struggle to to hear these phrases clearly.

I've got some more tongue-twisters I'll post later.

Yeah, there's 32 vowels - that's including combinations of vowels. Just that part of it has I'm sure caused many of us ferangs to pull their hair out.

Regarding the 42 consonants. It's still 44, but there were only enough typewriter keys for 42, so a dastardly ferang missed two off when he invented it.
Then at the time of Rama VI there was 'a misunderstanding' which resulted in two consonants incorrectly 'disappearing' even though they didn't really.

It's all in an earlier post here:  https://thethaiger.com/talk/topic/4428-thai-language-thread/?do=findComment&comment=140256 

[Bluesofa]

2 hours ago, Marble-eye said:

Yes a lot of vowels for example 'แ' I think of hairs on top of the head and becomes 'air', เ becomes a shortened hair to eh. 

ี was never a problem as it was the first word I ever read in Thai, the word was ดี and the satisfaction I got from reading that simple word encouraged me to learn some more, I realised the Thai language was doable. Although learning the old Buddhist letters (if they are Buddhist letters) have been a little off putting, the likes of ณ ฏ ฒ etc etc.

But going back to the มื vowel I just screw my face up and make my mouth look like I'm shaving and emit a sound and what ever sound comes out, it will do.

I'm with you about those not-so-often-used consonants. I can't remember them, I have to look them up if I come across them. Luckily they don't appear too frequently.

[Bluesofa]

2 hours ago, Marble-eye said:

Yes a lot of vowels for example 'แ' I think of hairs on top of the head and becomes 'air', เ becomes a shortened hair to eh. 

ี was never a problem as it was the first word I ever read in Thai, the word was ดี and the satisfaction I got from reading that simple word encouraged me to learn some more, I realised the Thai language was doable. Although learning the old Buddhist letters (if they are Buddhist letters) have been a little off putting, the likes of ณ ฏ ฒ etc etc.

But going back to the มื vowel I just screw my face up and make my mouth look like I'm shaving and emit a sound and what ever sound comes out, it will do.

It's been on my mind since you mentioned them as perhaps being 'old Buddhist letters'.
What makes you say that? I have no idea as why that group are hardly used, do you have any info about them?

[Marble-eye]

18 minutes ago, Bluesofa said:

Thanks for the videos. I struggle to to hear these phrases clearly.

I've got some more tongue-twisters I'll post later.

Yeah, there's 32 vowels - that's including combinations of vowels. Just that part of it has I'm sure caused many of us ferangs to pull their hair out.

Regarding the 42 consonants. It's still 44, but there were only enough typewriter keys for 42, so a dastardly ferang missed two off when he invented it.
Then at the time of Rama VI there was 'a misunderstanding' which resulted in two consonants incorrectly 'disappearing' even though they didn't really.

It's all in an earlier post here:  https://thethaiger.com/talk/topic/4428-thai-language-thread/?do=findComment&comment=140256 

But in reality how many vowels has the English language. It must be so confusing for a non English speaker to get to grips with our language. e.g. Sow can be pronounced as sow as in cow or sow (sow seeds) as in roe. Then you have sew.

How many ways can you pronounce 'ough' cough (coff), bough (how), Lough (lock).

Then to complicate people we start to put vowels together which totally changes their pronunciation. In reality we have probably about the same as the Thai vowels. I am guessing that Thais don't put two vowels together and basically what you see in Thai is what you get, where as in English you have to be English to know what context that word is being used.

Row as in crow and Row as in how, the mind boggles and what we take for granted must be so confusing to someone trying to learn our language.

[Marble-eye]

7 minutes ago, Bluesofa said:

It's been on my mind since you mentioned them as perhaps being 'old Buddhist letters'.
What makes you say that? I have no idea as why that group are hardly used, do you have any info about them?

Not really, I read it somewhere a few years ago, I will have another delve later.

[DwizzleyMatthews]

6 minutes ago, Bluesofa said:

It's been on my mind since you mentioned them as perhaps being 'old Buddhist letters'.
What makes you say that? I have no idea as why that group are hardly used, do you have any info about them?

Here’s something from my PTR App, apologies for the photos it wouldn’t let me copy text.

 

 

[Marble-eye]

2 minutes ago, DwizzleyMatthews said:

Here’s something from my PTR App, apologies for the photos it wouldn’t let me copy text.

Thanks Dwizzley, you have saved me delving.

[Bluesofa]

40 minutes ago, DwizzleyMatthews said:

Here’s something from my PTR App, apologies for the photos it wouldn’t let me copy text.

This is really interesting.
Apart from the point that I thought the Indian Emperor Ashoke brought Buddhism to pre-Siam around the 3rd century BC.
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_in_Thailand 

I had read before that Ramkhamheang is accredited as inventing written Thai. I knew there were Sanskrit and Pali origins (a lot of today's Thai originates from Sanskrit). I just didn't know how much.

Some of the little used letters are only for Pali words in Buddhist texts (or maybe loan words?) That must be why I never come across them.
So 44 consonants with only 21 unique sounds due to the absorption of Pali sounds into Thai.

I wrote the other day that apparently pure Thai words don't use the garan. Words introduced from Sanskrit often do use the garan, as it's indicating consonants that aren't sounded, just like some English words in Thai a lot more recently.

Thanks again for the post Dwizzley. I'm learning a lot today.

[DwizzleyMatthews]

22 minutes ago, Bluesofa said:

This is really interesting.
Apart from the point that I thought the Indian Emperor Ashoke brought Buddhism to pre-Siam around the 3rd century BC.
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_in_Thailand 

I had read before that Ramkhamheang is accredited as inventing written Thai. I knew there were Sanskrit and Pali origins (a lot of today's Thai originates from Sanskrit). I just didn't know how much.

Some of the little used letters are only for Pali words in Buddhist texts (or maybe loan words?) That must be why I never come across them.
So 44 consonants with only 21 unique sounds due to the absorption of Pali sounds into Thai.

I wrote the other day that apparently pure Thai words don't use the garan. Words introduced from Sanskrit often do use the garan, as it's indicating consonants that aren't sounded, just like some English words in Thai a lot more recently.

Thanks again for the post Dwizzley. I'm learning a lot today.

I got the info from an introduction on an app.
I downloaded 3 apps:

PTR - Pocket Thai Reading ( seems to have disappeared from the App Store ! )

PTS - Pocket Thai Speaking 

PTM - Pocket Thai Master

3 basic apps for learning the ….. basics !, very handy for the beginner as stored on your phone and can be revisited/revised as often as you want, also you have to pass a small test to rise to the next level which is a great incentive and stops jumping ahead.
 

You are obviously beyond this level @Bluesofabut may be handy for anyone following this topic who is looking for a starter pack or even refresher course , i am sure many, like myself, have let their studies lapse.

Very simple and effective I found and recommend.

[DwizzleyMatthews]

1 hour ago, Marble-eye said:

But in reality how many vowels has the English language. It must be so confusing for a non English speaker to get to grips with our language. e.g. Sow can be pronounced as sow as in cow or sow (sow seeds) as in roe. Then you have sew.

How many ways can you pronounce 'ough' cough (coff), bough (how), Lough (lock).

Then to complicate people we start to put vowels together which totally changes their pronunciation. In reality we have probably about the same as the Thai vowels. I am guessing that Thais don't put two vowels together and basically what you see in Thai is what you get, where as in English you have to be English to know what context that word is being used.

Row as in crow and Row as in how, the mind boggles and what we take for granted must be so confusing to someone trying to learn our language.

Yes, it’s surprising when we stop and think about our own language how difficult it is.

I helped my dil a year or so ago create an English quiz that she could present to the classroom.

It was all about words spelt the same with different pronunciation and meaning:

minute, read, live ,bow , close, invalid, produce etc

Also words spelt differently but with the same pronunciation:

bear - bare, break - brake, cue - queue, deer-dear, great-grate, hare-hair etc

Mr Google obviously helped me but i was surprised at how many of these examples there are .

 

[Bluesofa]

4 hours ago, Marble-eye said:

But in reality how many vowels has the English language. It must be so confusing for a non English speaker to get to grips with our language. e.g. Sow can be pronounced as sow as in cow or sow (sow seeds) as in roe. Then you have sew.

How many ways can you pronounce 'ough' cough (coff), bough (how), Lough (lock).

Then to complicate people we start to put vowels together which totally changes their pronunciation. In reality we have probably about the same as the Thai vowels. I am guessing that Thais don't put two vowels together and basically what you see in Thai is what you get, where as in English you have to be English to know what context that word is being used.

Row as in crow and Row as in how, the mind boggles and what we take for granted must be so confusing to someone trying to learn our language.

According to wiki, there are three dipthongs in Thai: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diphthong#Thai    

I'm not sure how to decide if it's a dipthong, perhaps I just haven't looked into it enough.

 

[Marble-eye]

12 minutes ago, Bluesofa said:

According to wiki, there are three dipthongs in Thai: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diphthong#Thai    

I'm not sure how to decide if it's a dipthong, perhaps I just haven't looked into it enough.

What a great word, that was one for Google. Dipthong came with this chart BS, I hope it means more to you than it does to me, I have just realised that I could be a dipthong too.