As Thai language is a tonal language and mainly influenced by Pali and Sanskrit, Thai sound can be only approximately rather than exactly represented by English letters.
For the first 3 common Thai alphabets
ก , ข , ค ( ฃ is not used presently) they can be called "
Gor , Khor , Cor".
These first 3 letters are widely used in the same manner as A,B,C.
ก is pronounced like "
Gor Gai" or "
Gor" in short (no need to stress "r" just like "Gor" or "Gore" without "r")
ข is pronounced like "
Khor Khai" or "
Khai /
Kai" in short (this letter has high tone, you can imagine when you say "What??????" your tone will be very high. It is like "
Khor" (with very high tone). Again, no need to stress "r".
ค is pronounced like "
Cor Kwaay" or "
Cor" in short.
In Thai language, each alphabet is represented by each individual indicator. For example
ก is presented by a Chicken because a chicken in Thai uses this letter;
ไก่่.
ข is presented by an Egg, yes, as an egg in Thai uses this alphabet it is written as
ไข่่.
ค is presented by a Buffalo, as a buffalo in Thai word uses this alphabet it is written as
ควาย.
And so on for every Thai letters, one certain thing is a symbol of one certain alphabet.
See pictures.The sound of
ก (Gor) ,
ข (Khor) ,
ค (Cor) (no "r" sound like in English.) are very similar even among Thais. They can easily confuse foreigners. This might be one reason that we use additional symbol to indicate the certain alphabet. Thais normally say
"Gor Gai" instead of just
"Gor" to call the first letter
ก.
Moreover, if you are in Thailand many Thai words represent "ก" by the "K" letter but intended to sound like "G". For example:
กาญจนบุรี (a province in Thailand), is officially written as
"KAN-CHA-NA-BU-RI" but aimed to be pronounced like
"GARN-JA-NA-BU-RI".
or
กรุงเทพ ( to call Bangkok in Thai) is written as
"KRUNG-THEP" although its pronunciation is more similar to
"GRUNG-TAPE".
Therefore, in Thailand it is using "K" to represent
ก but it actually sounds "G".
You can hear the sound of Thai consonants from
this website.
For learning
Thai | Category
Uncategorized | Level
Unspecified |
Second language
English | Created
Jun 05, 2008 22:24 | Views
877 |
| |