22 - a e i o u (y) : many true sounds of 'a' (PSE)

22 - a e i o u (y) : many true sounds of 'a' (PSE)

We have learned about vowels (เสียงแท้; สระ - สะ หระ).

In Thai, there are more sounds than the number of alphabets representing vowels. In English, we have learned that there are only 5 vowels ( a e i o u ) and a special alphabet 'y' [which can be consonant (พยัญชนะ; กลมกลืน) and vowel] and a lot more sounds.

We know that a word is made up from the sound of a vowel modified by the sounds of consonants. For examples: at = แ-ะ + ทึ, on = ออ + นึ, go = กึ + โอ

In Thai words, all vowels sound exactly as they are written (but in some Pali/Sanskrit words สระ 'ะ' may be implied but omitted, and consonant clusters { อักษรควบไม่แท้: จร, ซร, ทร, สร, ศร } can cause confusion in reading and writing Thai
.)   
As we have heard, English words are difficult to read and to write correctly. The vowel letter 'a' may be used to represent many 'vowel sounds'. For examples:

เอ    a (the letter a for apple), any, baby, bacon, bay, bake, cake, came, clay, crater, day, drake, fake, fame, game, gay, hay, jay-walk, lake, lame, lane, late, make, mane, may, name, nape, pay, pane, plane, race, rake, rate, sane, sway, tame, tray, stay, wake, way, vane, ...   

แอะ    apple, back, bat, cap, cat, chat, crack, fat, fact, gap, gnat, hack, hap, hat, has, map, mat, nab, nap, pack, pat, rack, rap, rat, sack, sap, sat, tack, tap, tat, vat, wack, ...
 
แอ    bad, bag, bamboo, ban, bare, caddy, caggy, camera, camp, care, can, dam, candy, dandy, dare, fad, fag, fan, fare, gag, hag, lag, (slag), lamb, lamp, mad, mag, man, mare, nag, (nomad, gonad), snare, ram, ran, snare, pad, pan, panel, pare, pram, spare, sad, tad, van, wad, ware, ...

อะ    about, above, abrupt, account, accuse, admire, afar (อะฟาร์), affect, ajar(อะจาร์), alike, alpha, amaze, apply, acquire, arise, asunder, at, attest, attire, attend, awake (อะเวค), aware, away, awhile, baboon, canoe (คะนู), (kayak คะยัค), calculate, canopy, ... (many many more)

อา    bar, barber, barometer, Calorie, car, carpet, darling, far, father (ฟาเดอรึ), (mother มาเดอรึ,) garden, harrow, fallow, Java, javelin, mal-formed, malfunction, marble, march, mark, market, marlin, marrow, marsh, narrow, parrot, quary, ravine, saloon, talon, tart,  vast, ... (a lot more)

ออะ/ออ    all, ball, call, mall, malt, stall, tall, wall, waltz, ...

ออ    brawl, claw, dawn, draw, fawn, gawk, haw, hawk, hawker, jaw, paw, pawn, prawn, raw, saw, sawn, taw, tawny, war, warm, was, wash, watch, what, ...

เออะ    'a' (article before a noun eg. a man
     we say เออะ แมน in normal use of article "a";
    we may say อะ แมน to mean "just one" man;
    we may say เอ แมน to mean "any one" man.)

We can see 'a' is used to represent many different vowel sounds in many different words. If we read the words incorrectly (or make different sounds), listeners would not 'get' (understand) the words or the meanings. For examples: reading 'claw' as 'คลาว' instead of 'คลอวึ'; reading 'pan' as 'เพน' instead of 'แพน', and so on.

It is difficult for Thai learners to read English because English vowels are not represented 'one letter-to-one sound'.

Is there any rule? There are patterns that we may recognize, for examples 'a' followed by 'e' or 'y' usually reads as 'เอ'; 'a' followed by 'r' reads as 'อา'; 'a' followed by 'w' reads as 'ออ' but 'war' reads 'วอร์' not 'วาร์'. So, there are exceptions. In facts there are more exceptions that make learning by rules more difficult than learning by 'senses' or memory.

Nevertheless, we can see that 'a' more often sounds like อะ or อา (in UK) แอะ or แอ in US.

In Australia (อ็อสสะ เตร เลีย in Thai) sounds อ็อสสะ ตรา  เลีย ;-)
 
[More to come.
You can help by giving more examples of words with letter 'a' and how (vowel) they read.

Remember? Learning PSE is about NOT waiting to receive instructions or knowledge. It is about going out to get new objects, new experiences, new ways for learning and new friends to enhance our learning iterations (by using and modifying our 'senses'). Each time we do a round (loop), we should also test for correctness. If we do not know, we should ask (the right questions) straight-away.]

How do we read names like:
   Abel, Abigail, Aaron, Hasan, Ayuddhaya,
   Sarah, Samantha, Vera, Tara, Jared, Maria, Nathan
   Abraham, Sam, gramp (grandfather), granny (grandmother), ...

Reference for Thai sounds:
นายอับดุลเลาะ แขวง [ครูภาษาไทย], "ระบบเสียงในภาษาไทย", โรงเรียนบ้านกาตอง ตำบลกาตอง อำเภอยะหา จังหวัดยะลา
http://eduvc.oas.psu.ac.th/~user168/intro.html

http://www.dutjai.de/PT009.html
อักษรควบไม่แท้ คือ พยัญชนะที่มีตัว ร ควบอยู่ด้วย แต่ไม่ออกเสียงตัว ร หรือมิฉะนั้นก็ออกเสียงเป็นเสียงอื่นไป

อักษรควบไม่แท้ที่ออกเสียงแต่พยัญชนะตัวแรก ได้แก่

จร    ตัวอย่าง        จริง                
ซร    ตัวอย่าง        ไซร์                
สร    ตัวอย่าง        สรง    สร้าง    เสริม    สระ    สร่าง
ศร    ตัวอย่าง        ศรี    เศร้า    เศรษฐี        

อักษรควบไม่แท้ ทร ออกเสียงเป็น ซ ได้แก่  ไทร   ทรง   ทราบ   ทราม   ทราย  ทรุด   โทรม   อินทรี   อินทรีย์   นนทรี   ทรัพย์   มัทรี

There are many online English dictionaries with "speakers".  

"wordweb" (English-English dictionary for Windows) is "free" to download for use "offline".

Please note that words may sound different in UK, US and other countries.

[วอญ่า-ผู้เฒ่า-natachoei--]

แม้แต่อักษร ยังควบแท้ควบเทียม

เรื่องอื่นๆในชีวิตจึงมีการทับซ้อนให้เห็น..

การเมืองทับซ้อนการเมือง

อำนาจทับซ้อนอำนาจ

[sr]

Hi http://www.gotoknow.org/profiles/users/vorya9451 วอญ่า-ผู้เฒ่า-natachoei--

You are indeed an early bird and a sharp one.

If I get up too early, I don't see things clearly. I stumble to make coffee, mumble to bring my memory up and my brain to speed. I have to shake my Alzheimer's symptoms off a few times, ...

Ahhh, the joy of being alive and kicking ;-)

Back home already?

[ป.]

Yesterday, I got rare chance to speak with a foreigner patient at my workplace.

Too bad,I realized that my tongue stated rigid after 2 months. :)

...

I remember one word "Basil".

Many Thai restaurant named " Thai Basil".

British english speaker like Indian pronounce "บาไซล์"

While american english speaker pronouce "เบซิล"

Thai pronouce "เบซินนนน" :)

[คนถางทาง]

ใน usa เองยังเถียงกันเลยครับว่า tomato ออกเสียงว่า เม หรือ มา

มีทฤษฎีว่า ภาษาทุกภาษาในโลกนี้ "ยาก" เท่าเทียมกันหมด

[คนถางทาง]

หมอป. ครับ คำว่า มายองเนซ ที่คนไทยชอบออกเสียงกัน (รวมทั้ง ดร. จบนอกหลายคน) ฝรั่ง สรอ. มักออกเสียว่า เมเน่ ครับ (ประมาณนี้)

[sr]

Doctor ป.

I share your feeling.

It is frustrating, when we know what it is all about but we are unable to come up with the right words to say.

In AUS, basil sounds like บ๊าส เซิล (strong BAS and very soft mumble 'il')

Dr คนถางทาง,

I watched primary students performed at a school fair.

Many 8-9 years old came to speak on the stage in front of 200+ parents and hundreds more students.

Some made speeches about the issue they were interested in (town parks, road rubbish, environment, ...).

some recited poems they wrote themselves.

They all used a language (English) "confidently" and expressed their thoughts without fear or censorship.

I came away understanding the aim of learning a language. It is all about learning to use a tool (of trade):

to help them tell other people what they are/do/want and to listen to others doing the same.

What is culture? In a simple way, culture is an expression of knowledge, view of life, and language in adaptation to prevailing environment. When environment changes, culture also changes (language included). To maintain a language, we have to develop an adaptation strategy that promotes use of a language to express the changing culture. Thai (language) is falling behind in expressing technologies (for the mass). More new "Thai" words need to be created, methods for making up new words, and media to promote new words, ...

It is am exciting time for ครูภาษาไทย to move Thai language into the 21st century too. Living and speaking Thai (as in "perfect" history) do not appeal to the current generations of Thais. ;-)

Anyone have problems logging in to Gotoknow? I did. I tried 4 times and I thought I had enough to day ;-)

[sr]

Hello again Dr คนถางทาง

Thai and English are too extreme languages. Both are difficult.

Thai is much more regular in symbolic representation --we can write what we can say easy - no matter what our emotion may be at the time--.

English is more regular in grammar (rules) and coverage of "essential information"(time, number, gender, and 'mood') but due to extensive "borrowing" of words from many parts or the world over time, not regular to read or write.

Thai gives fun and sensations of being in close encounter or intimate.

English gives us more (peripheral) information including time, number, ... whether we like to know or not. In this way, learning English is learning to think or form a habit to capture more little details or context of information.

We all learn of the Who-Does-What-When-Where-Why-and-how, English re-enforces this style of enquiry. Thai expresses less concerns for time, number, ... but not in the style above.

Here we talk above "habit"-forming languages. How difficult is a language (to learn) may be related to how difficult to change/adapt to new requirements/environment and (maybe) how to make a living.

We can talk more about culture: [knowledge, language, life/livelihood] ;-) 

[วอญ่า-ผู้เฒ่า-natachoei--]

กาแฟอเมซอน ก็อ่านเป็น เอมาซอน

[คนถางทาง]

ภาษาอังกฤษมีกาล tense ...ที่ยุ่งยาก ที่เหลือเป็นแบบ ตรงๆ (direct)

ภาษาไทยไม่มีกาล แต่มีสถานะแห่งภาษา ที่ต้องใช้ให้ถูก เทศะ

ฝรั่งเน้น กาละ ไทยเน้น เทศะ

มันต่างกันดังนี้แล....ผมว่า

[sr]

ครับ ท่าน วอญ่า-ผู้เฒ่า-natachoei--

English words are very much like Thai words too. They sound different in different places. I expect to hear Southern English, Isan English, Northern English, and many other dialects of English soon.

It is really about 'culture' and languages are used to express our culture. ;-)

[sr]

It is so, คนถางทาง Thai language is a deep contextual (perhaps, 'situationally automatic') language. Thai speakers are aware of their social status and other people's social statuses and must choose their words to reflect the differences in statuses. So much effort is spent there, other aspects/information become implicit (due to processing time in the brain). There are Thai speakers who master information delivery with colourful/sensational arrangement of simple words [I wish I could be a fraction as good ;-) ]. What they say, people listen.

ไปไหนมา is a classical phrase that shows how implicit Thai language can be. "Go where come" in English would be "Where have you gone, before you have come (here just now)?". 'You' is omitted on understanding that question is directed to the listener. The tense or time of the question is omitted on understanding that 'going places' has aready become a perfect present (or past) before the listener can be here. Again, 'to have come here' is a perfect present other the lsitener would not be present here to be asked the question.

We don't do analysis like this in Thai. English speakers, trained to be aware of time/tense, also have problems placing events into a correct time zone. Especially in 'Twilight zones': if ... then ... perhaps ... else ...; had this happened, then that might have happened ...

Perhaps, it is time to put 'more information analysis' of Thai language into school and raise linguistic imagination level or information processing speed a bit ;-)