|
You are now in Bangkok, you will undoubtedly have heard one "Sawatdee"
greeting somewhere in the airport as you were going to your taxi
or limosine. The main language here is Thai, and every local here
speaks that language. You could move around in English, however,
you could be frustrated at times, as the level of English of proficiency
is uneven, so do speak slowly when communicating with the locals.
You will find that being able to speak their language would help
break the ice for you. The more you can speak, the better your fun
in general. We thought of completing the entire section first before
putting it up, but after some consideration, we figured what the
heck, we will just put it up so that you can use what is here first
and come back for more as more and more words are updated. Currently,
no Thai script has been added but will be added shortly so that
you can consult with your girl if in doubt.
Notes on transliteration:
The Thai words can be transliterated in several ways, some have
opted to use some International Phonetic Alphabets, some use their
own systems and so forth. Our guess is that none of us are linguists
or at least not the majority, so we have opted for our own style.
The "ph" representation should not be pronounced
as "f" like in "photo". It represents
an aspirated "p" sound. The plain "p"
alone as in "pla" is to give it a pure "p"
sound. We will upload a sound file for you to hear the difference
soon.
E.g. Phuket should be pronounced as "Poo-ket"
rather than "Foo-ket".
Another aspirated letter is the is "k". Note the
difference between "kh" and "k".
The word "kai" is for chicken, whilst, "khai"
is for "egg". Listen to the word Kai (chicken)
and then Khai (egg) a few times until you can distinguish between
the two of them. Notice the aspiration in Khai.
One possible difficult vowel is "ng" as in "ngoo"
which means snake. You can practice the "ng"
sound as in "singer".
A note on the "r" sound. You will hear Thais often
pronouncing a word with the "r" substituted with
the "l" instead. For example "Na rak"
would sound like "Na lak" or "Thee
Rak" sounds like "Thee Lak" (some times
written as "tilac").
|
