Learn to read Thai - Tutorial 3

We're going to be a little adventurous today and cover three consonants and a vowel.

If you say 'tog' and 'dog' alternatively, you will be aware that your mouth makes basically the same shape. However, if you hold the palm of your hand in front of your mouth as you say these words you will feel a puff of air when you say 'tog'.

If you do the same thing while alternatively saying 'bunch' and 'punch', you will notice the puff of air with 'punch'.

This is because 't' and 'p' are aspirated sounds so we get that puff of air.

Transliteration from Thai into English gets really messy with aspirated sounds because some genius decided that an 'h' after the initial consonant would be used to indicate aspiration. However, as we all know, putting an 'h' after a 'p' or a 't' makes an entirely different sound altogether in written English.

This is why Lonely Planet podcasters can't pronounce 'Thonburi' correctly, and why the pronunciation of 'Phuket' has become a joke with some people in the English-speaking world (the correct pronunciation doesn't sound anything like 'fukit'). The 'h' is not only unnecessary but it is damn confusing.

English has many words that have a sound somewhere in between 'b' and 'p' and 'd' and 't'. The 'p' in 'super' and the 't' in 'sister' aren't fully aspirated sounds but they do produce a tiny puff of air.

If written English was accurate there would be another couple of consonants for these sounds. However, there isn't so we use 'p' and 't', which isn't very accurate.

Written Thai, being a much more accurate written language, does have separate consonants for these sounds.

ป

Name in Thai: ป ปลา
Name in English: Bpor Bplaa (fish)
Initial: bp
Final: p
Class: Mid
Usage: Very common
Comments: For transliteration purposes I think the best way to write this is 'bp' to indicate the sound is somewhere between a 'b' and a 'p' but you will often see it transliterated as simply 'p'.

ต

Name in Thai: ต เตา
Name in English: Dtor Dtao (turtle)
Initial: dt
Final: t
Class: Mid
Usage: Very common
Comments: For transliteration purposes I think the best way to write this is 'dt' to indicate the sound is somewhere between a 'd' and a 't' but you will often see it transliterated as simply 't'.

บ

Name in Thai: บ ใบไม้
Name in English: Bor Bai Mai (leaf)
Initial: b
Final: p
Class: Mid
Usage: Very common
Comments: This is a straight 'b' sound when used as an initial consonant.

Next, another vowel (sorry if this is starting to sound like Countdown but I will try not to call you Carol).

This vowel is always written above the preceding consonant so I will write it above the zero consonant อ

อี

The sound this vowel makes is 'ee' as in 'see' or 'sea'. It's quite long. People are aware that tones are important with Thai but vowel length is also very important and for most (all?) vowels there is a short and long version.

We have now covered enough letters for our first word.

Reading practice

กระบี

You should recognise the first syllable from Tutorial 2. The second syllable is the 'b' sound followed by 'ee'. This vowel, remember, is written above the consonant.

What about the tone of the second syllable? Just like the first syllable there is no tone mark used. This syllable ends with a long vowel so it is live. The initial consonant class is mid so therefore the tone is also mid (see the table below).

Transliterated, it sounds like gruh-bee (first syllable low tone, second syllable mid tone). By the way, there is a distinct pause between the two syllables.

This is a place name that is normally written in English as Krabi. If you tell an American you are feeling 'crabby' they will know you are in a rotten mood, but if you tell a Thai you are going to 'crabby' they won't know what the hell you are talking about thanks to a transliteration system that is completely useless.

'Krabi' isn't the only such example. Most Thai place names are transliterated into English so badly that if an English speaker reads the transliterated version a Thai won't have a chance of understanding.

The only way you will be able to make yourself understood is by throwing away those useless phrase books and learning how to read Thai.

Recommended books

If you are serious about learning how to read Thai, I highly recommend the following two books. These two books taught me almost everything I know and I still use them almost every day for reference purposes.

Most of the phrase books and text books for beginners that I have bought sit on my bookshelf accumulating dust. They are next to useless and good only to fuel the fire, except that it is never cold enough here to need a fire. However, if a sudden cold snap happens to descend, I will be grateful to Lonely Planet.

If you want to learn how to speak Thai, learning to read Thai will assist your pronunciation enormously. If you are trying to learn to speak Thai from books that use hopeless transliteration systems you are wasting your time because Thais won't be able to understand you.