Learn Thai From A White Guy

So I watched Wolverine today.  I thought it was decent.  I was entertained even though I was bullied into watching it at Robinsons which I despise due to 21-28 minutes of pre-movie garbage (and paying 140 baht when I can watch it at Central for 70 = no-good).  Maybe 4 minutes of that are previews.  And in the Thai subtitles at the end it says something like อย่าพุ่งไป…จะมีอะไรต่อ.  Don’t bother.  You can wait through 10 minutes of credits to see Wolverine drink 2 shots of booze in Japan.  Oooh.   Wish I had left with everyone else…

อย่าพุ่งไป = don’t run off (just yet)

พุ่ง is a surprisingly useful word that I didn’t really know until last year.  Perhaps I’ll do a whole post on it sometime if I remember (dubious).  Remind me!

This one shouldn’t be too tough.  Give it a try.  Really..just do it for 5 minutes.  I pulled it from movieseer.com which is occasionally useful for movie showtimes, but not always correct.  The Thai is almost always short and easy.  This is a good example… 

เอ็กซ์ เม็น กำเนิด วูลฟ์เวอรีน(X-Men Origins: Wolverine )

ในภาคกำเนิด วูลฟ์เวอรีนนี้ โลแกน/วูลฟ์เวแรน (ฮิวจ์ แจ๊คแมน) เป็นมนุษย์กลายพันธุ์ที่พยายามจะค้นหาความลับในอดีตของเขา ซึ่งเนื้อเรื่องจะเป็นเหตุการณ์ก่อน X-Men ภาคแรก เล่าเรื่องราวการไล่ล่าล้างแค้นจอมวายร้ายที่เป็นตัวการในการสังหารแฟนสาวของเขา โลแกนจะพาเราไปสู่ต้นกำเนิดและค้นหาความจริวที่เราไม่รู้มาก่อน โดยมุ่งไปข้างหน้าด้วยความกล้าหาญและเส้นทางใหม่

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Wolverine

เป็นมนุษย์กลายพันธุ์ is a mutant

ที่พยายาม that is trying to…

จะค้นหาความลับ find out a secret

ในอดีตของเขา from his histroy

ซึ่งเนื้อเรื่อง so the plot of the story ..

จะเป็นเหตุการณ์ is the situation/cause

ก่อน X-Men ภาคแรก before the first X-Men movie

Not too often though.  This is a vid about tones.  It got cut off when the mem card filled up and I never finished it.  Its a bit raw. I’m away for a few days so it will just have to do.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZkNHDa7Ri8]

I’m off-camera this time interviewing someone else.  

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqhCSLla19c]

As requested, here are some potentially SRS-worthy bits from the clip: 

• อากาศไม่สะอาด       the air isn’t clean
• เพิ่งกลับมาเมื่อวาน   I just got back yesterday
• พูดดัง                         speak up/speak louder
• ไกล้ (จะ) สอบ แล้ว   almost time for exams
• Mau ke mana?        where are ya going?
• Mau belanja.          Going to the market.
• Bagaimana.             Its good/I’m good.
• Apa kabar?              Whats new?
• ที่อินโดมีศาสนาอะไรบ้าง    What religions to they have in Indonesia? 
• ค้นหา คือ search       ค้นหา means (to) search
• ไ ปนานมี้ย                       did you go for long?
• พูดไ ด้รึยัง                 So then can you speak (something yet)? **refers to Bahasa Indonesia  

Short audio blurp from a vid I didn’t finish. I have a few of these. If I can edit out most of the garbage I’ll try and put ‘em up soon.

[blip.tv ?posts_id=1773935&dest=-1]

“สุดยอด!” ชาวปพระมงอุทานอย่างตื่นเต้น “แล้วผ้าปิดตานั่น”

“เหงื่อเ้ข้าตา”   โจรสลัดตอบเสียงเบาๆ

“อะไรนะ! …  ท่านเสียตาไปเพราะพิษเหงื่องั้นหรือ”

“เอ่อ…” โจรสลัีดตอบเขินๆ “พอดีมันเป้นวันแรกที่ข้าเพิ่งใส่มือตะขอ…”

สุดยอด Whoa! ; amazing!

อุทานอย่างตื่นเต้น exclaimed excitedly

ผ้าปิดตา eyepatch

เหงื่อเ้ข้าตา saliva went into (my) eye

ตอบเสียงเบาๆ answered quietly

ตอบเขินๆ answered abashedly;shyly

พอดีมันเป้นวันแรก well the thing is, it was the first day

ที่ข้าเพิ่งใส่มือตะขอ that I put the hook on

In case its not entirely obvious, tone marks are depicted by the first letter of the following: common, low, falling, high, rising.  You should be able to cut and paste it into a spreadsheet to mess around with it to make a SRS file.   If anyone can think of a sentence/phrase that you say everyday that I haven’t mentioned, do bring it up.    

I realized that a few lines of news might be daunting so I may occasionally explain just headlines as below.

พิษหึงผัวเฒ่าฆ่าเมียน้อยแล้วยิงตัวตาม 

Jealous Husband Shoots Mia Noi Before Turning Gun on Self

พิษหึง poison+jealous

ผัวเฒ่า “husband” + old man

ฆ่าเมียน้อย kill + girlfriend (mia noi = gf on the side)

แล้ว and then

ยิงตัวตาม shoots self afterwards

I was watching Ice Age 2 the other night dubbed in Thai and during one scene one of the mammoths said something along the lines of “ทำให้ีชีวิตมีรสชาติ”  Which means “Give life some flavour”  I don’t feel like I’ve ever heard anyone say that before, but I looked for examples of it online and found loads.  Anyways, make a mental note of the expression and listen for it.  I find that it tends to be a waste of time to actively look for situations when you can use an expression.

Getting used to the sounds in any language takes practice.  Getting used to them in a tonal language when you are coming from a non-tonal language is a bit tougher, but as with anything else, it is easily accomplished with a bit of time and effort.

One simple piece of advice that can make a big difference in your pronunciation is to emphasize the last tone of a sentence and to a lesser degree of a stop in a phrase.  Open your mouth a bit when you talk.  Pay attention to what native speakers are doing with their mouths now and then.

Know how to say 3 ?  Know how to say it correctly?  Your mouth should be opening wide at the sides in a big smile-like expression.

Look at the following sentence – พรุ่งนี้  ไม่ว่าง (tomorrow – not free)

There are 2 great opportunities to make your speech sound ชัด here.  Hold that high toned นี้ in พร่งนี้ and make it long and hold it for a moment.  Not too long, but long enough that its a clear high tone.  Then on the ว่าง of ไม่ว่าง…remember its a long vowel and its falling.  The sounds we hear right before a pause are more memorable than the ones that precede them and when you are still trying to climb up that slippery language ladder, little tricks like these will make you sound ชัด beyond your ability bringing the praise that motivates you to keep going.

First off, you gotta learn the alphabet. There isn’t going to be any getting around it. Not here anyways. The alphabet has a bunch of sounds that we don’t have in English. So the sooner your brain can process those letters as Thai sounds and not English sounds, the sooner you will start speaking correctly.

Now I’m gonna try and scare you off. Thai is tonal, has lots of letters and a bunch of rules you need to get used to in order to figure out which tone a word should be. Its a bit heavy at first, but if you take it in gradually it is by no means unattainable.

First the letter, then in [brackets] how its referred to. Formula is as follows:

letter – [letter + อ + name of letter]

ก – [กอ ไก่] This letter happens to be the first in the alphabet. Not a bad place to start. More importantly it is a middle class consonant and thats what we should be learning first. The rules are easier to grasp and there aren’t that many letters in the group. Only 9 in fact. Can’t get any easier than that..right?

I’m going to avoid using any linguistic terms because we don’t need them. If you need to learn words like bilabial and alveolar (who does?) then find a site that teaches English.

Back on track. This letter ก [กอ ไก่] is pretty simple. It kinda looks like a bird to me so use that as mnemonic if you’d like. It fits as the name of the letter is actually ไก่ which means chicken. Too easy.

The sound of ก might take a bit of getting used to, but its not really that hard. Phrasebooks tend to peg it as a k, but I’d say its much closer to the ‘g’ in guide. Then again, its not a g or a k, its a ก.

You may be wondering about that symbol after the ก. Thats the vowel. Thai vowels are like a group of rowdy kids. They are all over the place and never where you expect them. Under, over, before and maybe after the consonant if your lucky. There are some invisible vowels too, but we’ll get to that fun stuff later.

For now let’s make sure you are heading in the direction of grasping this vowel ไ [สระ ไอ]. While it is written before the consonant..the actual sound of the vowel still follows the consonant. The sound of the vowel is mighty similar to the vowel sound in words like – my, try, lie, spy, and of course, Thai [ไทย].

อ – [ออ อ่าง] While this is most certainly a middle class consonant, it also acts as a vowel or a placeholder and you will learn it quickly because you will see it all the time. Any time we spell a word in Thai [ไทย], we say a sound which combines the consonant + อ. In those cases it functions as a vowel sound. The sound is a lot like the word ‘awe.’ Any time we want to write a vowel, it must have a placeholder and that placeholder is อ. In those cases, it just takes the form of the vowel it is spelling. Like this – ไอ [to cough; vapor]. We just say the sound of the vowel – see above.

Lets go over those again now -

ไก่ is a chicken

ไอ means ‘to cough’

I’ll explain อ – [ออ อ่าง] as well as give some more easy word examples in the next post.