When I write about things here in Thailand that have Thai names, I try to include the words written in Thai alongside the transliteration of their pronunciation. I’m sure many readers completely skip over the inclusion of those words and their eyes head straight to the familiar Roman alphabet attempt at how these words sound, and I do not blame them.
These strange lines and loops and tiny plus signs can be pretty impenetrable. During pre-service training, we focused mostly on being able to listen and speak in Thai with a little emphasis on reading, but not much. But now, after 19 months of being surrounded by these strange new symbols, I feel as if I have been transplanted into the shoes of the Kindergartners that I taught in the States who would express utter delight when they could recognize a written word and try so hard to decode the words they couldn’t.
Thai is a Tonal Language
I’ve spoken with a couple of ex-pats who have been here years longer than I have who express utter frustration with the language and complain about how difficult it is. I do not dispute that many aspects of this language are difficult; the mere change of tone can change the word for “two” into the word for “brothel” or “pretty” into “unlucky.”
The Thai language has five tones: mid, high, low, rising and falling. The change in tone can change the meaning of a word entirely. For example:
| มา | maa (mid tone) | come |
| ม้า | maa (high tone) | horse |
| หมา | maa (rising tone) | dog |
Figuring out the tones from the written language can be a bit tricky and there are a number of rules to memorize.
Tone Rules as a Part of the Writing
The tone rules are instilled in the Thai alphabet, which has 44 consonants and 15 vowel symbols, which can be combined for at least 28 vowel sounds.
The consonants are arranged into three categories: mid, high and low. But! Those categories do not correspond to the tones that the words take on, though there are certain rules that govern each category.
There are two categories of vowels: long and short. Though unlike in English, in which the vowel sounds in those categories have completely different sounds, these categories refer to how long you say that sound, for example the difference between aah and aaaaaaaahhh (that’s extremely exaggerated, but you get the point).
There are also four different tone markers that can be placed above a word, changing the tone. But sometimes the same marker means a different tone, depending on the consonant class.
Finally, certain consonants that when placed at the end of the word are voiced while most are not voiced. Your mouth makes the shape of that sound, but you kind of cut yourself off. Depending on the combination of the beginning consonant category, the length of the vowel and the tone marker, the reader is able to discern the tone.
Implementing Tones on English, an Atonal Language
The fact that Thai is a tonal language has a large effect on how many Thais learn and speak English. Just as we transliterate Thai words into Romanized language, Thais do the reverse with English words. However, their transliterations still follow these tone rules. Which can cause some fun, confused conversations in English:
“Would you like to get some pizza?”
*confused look*
“Pizza? There’s a pizza place close by.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Pizza. It’s a kind of flat, circular food, with sauce and cheese and ninja turtles love it.”
“Oooooohhhh! Pee-ZAAAAH! Yes, let’s go eat.”
Learning to Read Thai
I have slowly, slowly learned what letters have the same phonetic sound but are of a different class and the tone rules associated with each. So now, when I’m out in public, you’ll often find me staring intently at a sign, as I move my lips under a furrowed brow.
Some words I can easily recognize, like the names of provinces (I see them a lot at bus stations), but most of the time, long strings of words leave me standing there like a 7-year-old, stumbling through the sounds, until my face lights up in understanding.
What can throw a wrench into things are the different font styles. That letter that looks like an “s”? That one makes an /r/ sound, but sometimes is pronounced with a /l/ sound. How about that one that looks like a “u”? That one makes a /n/ sound. Well then what about the one that looks like an “n”? Oh, that one makes a /t/ sound. It’s just Thailand, keeping you on your toes.
And if you are wondering what aspects of Thai make it easy, well, there are no tenses for verbs (it’s either the inclusion of a new word to make it the future tense or a gerund), there are no articles, you can often drop the subject of a sentence and one of my favorite quirks is that in general speech there is a lack of pronouns and names are often used (meaning speaking in the third-person is rather common).