#  >  > Living And Legal Affairs In Thailand >  >  > Learn Thai Language >  >  Online Thai-IPA chart

## Sumbitch

I just started a YMCA basic Thai conversation course which textbook utilizes a phonetic transcription alphabet. The problem is that for each phoneme, the examples given are a Thai word (+definition): e.g. /k/    kin   =  to eat.  Of course the teacher pronounces 'kin' but the pronunciation is easy to forget with 40 odd vowels, consonants, mixed consonants and dipthongs to remember. And there's no way to go back to my book to remind myself of an English word that has the same kind of sound as the Thai vowel or consonant.  I wonder if there's an IPA chart that lists the Thai vowels and consonants and examples of words in English that approximate that sound. Note: my textbook is using the IPA transcription, not Romanization. I especially would appreciate a Web site that lets u clik on the vowel (the IPA transcription, not Thai script or Romanized) and hear its sound.

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## Necron99

The problem is that there are some that have no english equivilent.
You are much better off making some flashcards using the standard Thai chart and having a thai speaker take you through them a few times, or get a talking dictionary app. (Paiboon publishing has an excellent one)
This will also teach you about 60 common thai words..

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## Neverna

Thai alphabet - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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## cyrille

> The problem is that there are some that have no english equivilent.


Exactly.

The idea that the phonetic spelling of the Thai word for 'eat' is /kin/ is a very good example.

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## Zooheekock

> The problem is that there are some that have no english equivilent.


The OP was about the IPA, which can more-or-less record any sound found in natural languages.

The Wikipedia page above seems like a good list. If you need to hear any of the sounds, they are all on Wikipedia too (you can search for the IPA symbol). I don't know what the YMCA is like but if you're keen on improving your pronunciation, I think it's worth learning at least a little about articulatory phonetics. There's a good free book at https://archive.org/details/Comprehe...tics_Exercises  It's long but you'll only be interested in a few sections. Accompanying audio files can be downloaded from https://archive.org/details/Comprehe...tics_Exercises

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## Necron99

he wants English words that express the correct sounds.
They're aren't any in many cases, better off learning a thai word.

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## P Kupic

Not sure if this is what you want.

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## P Kupic

For that go to... thai-language.com - Forums - /thai/ or /thaj/ in IPA?

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## Zooheekock

^^^ No he doesn't. His language school writes out Thai in the IPA and he wants a reminder of which sounds the IPA letters represent. A lot of the IPA consists of regular Roman letters (/kin/ is the IPA transcription of กิน (gin to eat) - the slashes mean the bit inside is phonemic IPA. Square brackets show phonetic IPA) but some of it isn't. For example, if  the school is strict about using the IPA, they would write out เจอ (jer (?) to meet) as /tɕɤ/, which, if you can't read the IPA, is a bit tricky to decipher.

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## toddaniels

Even though IPA is the "official" way to represent almost any language with the correct sounds, so few people can really read IPA that it's a non-starter... 

That's why most if not all Thai language schools geared towards teaching Thai to non-native adult speakers use some type of what is erroneously called "transliteration" or "romanization" but which in reality is "phonemic transcription"; a fancy word for the representation of one language's sounds in the roman alphabet along with a mix of various characters and symbols.

The official Thai version is called the RTGS (Royal Thai General System); but it totally sucks as it makes no distinction between short and long vowels, no indication of intonation, etc. 

The most "famous" or most used version is Benjawan Poomsan Becker's version called "Paiboon". Almost all private Thai language schools in this country use a version of this Paiboon method, although some are a little different.

The BEST way to wrap your head around how to pronounce Thai words is NOT to connect them to the corresponding English sound but learn the Thai sounds right out of the gate. That way you can start using Thai pronunciation guides called "Phonemic Thai" and which are in most all Thai language only dictionaries.  

By learning the 44 consonants (which BTW: only make 21 sounds) and the 32 vowel sounds (which BTW in English, even though we have only a-e-i-o-u & y as vowels we can make about 25-28 different vowel sounds, so pretty close to Thai) and the corresponding consonant classes and tone rules you can pronounce almost any Thai word with a really high percentage of accuracy using that Phonemic Thai system.  It takes time, and you're ALWAYS going to sound like a non-native speaker because of your accent, but don't let that stop you. Thais will totally understand what you're saying even with your foreign accent..  

Here is the word สวัสดี (which is ususally translated in English as "hello")
Here's Phonemic Thai; สะ-หฺวัด-ดี
Here's Paiboon; sà wàt dii
Here's RTGS; sawat di
Here's IPA; sà wàt diː
Sometimes Paiboon and IPA are close to the same, sometimes they're not.

Now seeing as NOTHING in this country is written in Paiboon, IPA or Phonemic Thai, the faster you can learn to read "real Thai" the faster you'll be able to pronounce words you see.  

FWIW; I think there are only 2 or maybe 3 vowel sounds which English doesn't have. That's just another lame assed excuse given by people who are too lazy to learn Thai. 

It's right up there with;I can't hear the tonesI'm too oldmy thai gurlfriend she speak engrish goodand my favoriteI'm not good with languages.Here's a news flash; there're close to 70 million people in this country who seem to speak, understand, read and write Thai just fine. I'm pretty sure while it's plausible one percent of the world's total population is smarter than you are; it's a statistic impossibility that all 70 million of those people are thais. 

You don't learn it because you don't want to. It's motivation NOT methodology which makes a person acquire the language..

I'm just a dumb hillbilly from the midwestern US and I admit I'm NOT the sharpest tool in the proverbial shed. Still if I was able to teach myself to read, write, type, speak and understand this language anyone who really tries can too.

Good Luck.

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## cyrille

> The OP was about the IPA, which can more-or-less record any sound found in natural languages.


It's nowhere near being a record of all sounds found in all 'natural' languages. 

It's a representation of the sounds found in the _Latin_ alphabet.

Hence, as necron pointed out, not really suitable for rendering the often very different  sounds of the Thai language.

The 'half /d/ and half /t/' sound that is the first consonant in the Thai word for 'policeman' is another example.

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## taxexile

> I just started a YMCA basic Thai conversation course which textbook utilizes a phonetic transcription alphabet. The problem is that for each phoneme, the examples given are a Thai word (+definition): e.g. /k/    kin   =  to eat.  Of course the teacher pronounces 'kin' but the pronunciation is easy to forget with 40 odd vowels, consonants, mixed consonants and dipthongs to remember. And there's no way to go back to my book to remind myself of an English word that has the same kind of sound as the Thai vowel or consonant.  I wonder if there's an IPA chart that lists the Thai vowels and consonants and examples of words in English that approximate that sound. Note: my textbook is using the IPA transcription, not Romanization. I especially would appreciate a Web site that lets u clik on the vowel (the IPA transcription, not Thai script or Romanized) and hear its sound.



it is all too easy to bury yourself in books and confuse yourself with strange phonetic transcriptions and symbols that are as hard to decipher for the novice as thai script is. you are in fact having to learn two new language scripts.

correct or at least acceptably correct pronunciation will gradually come from repeated hearing and speaking, todd daniels post gives sound practical advice on getting past the first seemingly unsurmountable hurdles of learning this language.

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## Zooheekock

> Hence, as necron pointed out, not really suitable for rendering the often very different sounds of the Thai language.
> 
> The 'half /d/ and half /t/' sound that is the first consonant in the Thai word for 'policeman' is another example.


It's true that there's a bias and perhaps the basic dividing lines favour English but it's not true that you can't write out Thai in IPA. In your example, ต is /t/ in IPA so ตี is /ti:/ and ที is /tʰi:/ If you can read the IPA, there is no problem at all distinguishing between these. The exact point of articulation isn't recorded in a phonemic transcription but you can use diacrits to give a better indication of where that is.

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## Zooheekock

> it is all too easy to bury yourself in books and confuse yourself with strange phonetic transcriptions and symbols that are as hard to decipher for the novice as thai script is. you are in fact having to learn two new language scripts.


The OP is at a school which uses the IPA so the decision has been made for him but generally, sometimes yes and sometimes no. It depends enormously on the individual. One advantage of learning some phonetics (and that small part of the IPA which is relevant to learning Thai) is that it helps enormously (for some people) in understanding and training in the mechanical aspects of producing a better approximation of native speakers. But obviously if this is not an important consideration then, yes, it may well be a waste of time.

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## cyrille

> diacrits


Hmm... _diacritics_ no problem at all for someone wanting to learn Thai?

I'd suggest that since, at a generous estimate, about 0.01 percent of English speakers (never mind Thai teachers) would understand how to use _diacritics_ and IPA phonemes that the op would be better off just learning the Thai script.

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## Necron99

It's quite amazing that anyone would think, in this day and age of technological aids, that learning a highly complex artificial alphabet and approximate pronunciation as a bridge to learning a completely different language and alphabet is a good idea. 

It's all very 18th century abstract learning where a missionary who book studied with no native speaker assistance for years travels abroad only to find no one has a clue what he is saying.

Get a talking dictionary, or youtube videos and learn the correct thai sound and characters and you can dispense with the redundant gibberish.

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## Zooheekock

^^ Whether or not the IPA is useful for learning Thai is a different question to whether or not it's possible to use it to make an accurate transcription of Thai. As for diacritics, I can only think of one which is essential in writing out Thai - the superscript h for aspiration. As I said, they tend only to be useful for phonetic transcriptions so wouldn't really feature in a regular langauge class.

^ I've been learning Chinese recently and knowing the IPA has been incredibly useful in being able to make a far better approximation of sounding Chinese right from the beginning than I could ever hope to do by just trying blindly to imitate somebody else. It's not going to be for everyone, but for some (me, for example), it is undoubtedly useful.

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## charleyboy

Why would anyone want to Romanize Thai script in the first place?

How the fook does เกาะ become Koh?

^ Suppose I'd have to read the IPA chart first?

When I first wanted to understand a 'bit' of Thai, I stepped away from the Romanization and went to the Thai websites (learningtahi.com) is the one I first started out with.

I agree with Todd and Tax.

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## Sumbitch

> For that go to... thai-language.com - Forums - /thai/ or /thaj/ in IPA?


This is an interesting chart. I take it the topmost line is the actual Thai character and each line underneath it lists a phonetical or IPA or romanziation form of the character with the bottom line being a close english pronunciation of the character. Correct? Like someone said, though, some sounds aren't found in english words. That's why I'd like to hear the sound of the character, then maybe a Thai word with that sound. 

Thanks to everybody else too. I'm working through this info and and it looks good.  :goldcup:

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## cyrille

> Whether or not the IPA is useful for learning Thai is a different question to whether or not it's possible to use it to make an accurate transcription of Thai.


The op is about _exactly_ the topic of learning Thai via IPA, and that was what I was addressing in my posts.

The guy wants to learn Thai, not get a post graduate qualification in Applied Linguistics.

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## Zooheekock

I misunderstood the OP. I thought it was a request for information on the IPA, not for advice from some randomly selected group of uninformed strangers on how he ought to go about learning Thai. Clearly my mistake.

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## cyrille

> I misunderstood the OP


Don't sweat it.

We all make mistakes.

At least I taught you the correct term for _diacritics_.

 :Smile:

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## Sumbitch

> it is all too easy to bury yourself in books and confuse yourself with strange phonetic transcriptions and symbols that are as hard to decipher for the novice as thai script is. you are in fact having to learn two new language scripts.
> 
> correct or at least acceptably correct pronunciation will gradually come from repeated hearing and speaking, todd daniels post gives sound practical advice on getting past the first seemingly unsurmountable hurdles of learning this language.


Thanks and see below.




> Now seeing as NOTHING in this country is written in Paiboon, IPA or Phonemic Thai, the faster you can learn to read "real Thai" the faster you'll be able to pronounce words you see.


Totally agree but I've devoted this year to just being able to speak and understand conversational Thai. And as stupid as it sounds, I don't want to read what I see. As soon as I feel capable, I will study reading and writing but for now, it's too much work for a retiree (I retired in order to play). And since I'm now required to learn the IPA or Paiboon alphabets, I want the quickest and dirtiest way to do that.

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## toddaniels

Well, the only people I've ever come across in the glorious "Land 'O Thai" who could read IPA with any degree of accuracy were cunning linguists indeed. In fact of the hundreds and hundreds of foreigners learning Thai I've come across; I've yet to meet a single one who could read it. 

Sorry for my "Off-Topic" answer..

FWIW; here's a link to almost every "karaoke Thai" system known to man (I linked to the IPA part);
Pronunciation Guide Systems for Thai - Thai Language - slice-of-thai.com

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