Transliteration - When will they get it even close?

[HHTel]

Transliteration from Thai to English has always been a problem as there are so many systems in use. None of them seem to come close to the pronunciation of a Thai word.
Thai 'English Teachers' are becoming so arrogant in that they know English and spellings better than the English. I'm constantly correcting my daughter's Thai English Teacher's corrections to her homework. Luckily she also has Farang teachers. The latest comedy of errors came when the Thai teacher told my daughter that she's spelling her name wrong. Crossed it out and wrote it 'correctly' in red ink.
My daughter's name is VICTORIA CORNEY. Wrong says the teacher. The correct spelling is VIKTHORIA KONEE. "and don't get it wrong again young lady". It beggars belief!
Ok, I can understand how the teacher came to transliterate her name from Thai to that but she should accept that the English probably know how to spell in English better than she does.
Transliteration is used so that a person using the roman alphabet can at least get close to a word from a scripted language. It works for China and Japan among others, but fails miserably in Thai.
How can any Thai letter transliterate to a 'V' or a 'TH' or 'SH' etc when they don't have such sounds. It doesn't work the other way either.

A prime example recently is 'Suvarnabhumi' pronounced 'Suwarnaboom'. So, although lots of Thai sounds cannot be accurately transliterated, why not at least get close. Maybe there are some Thai teachers on the forum who teach English. Maybe you could give your comments. I do hope that you don't teach the kids (as my daughter's teacher did) the use of the contracted version of 'These are' and 'Those are' becoming "These're" and "Those're".

Of course the only real way to pronounce Thai is to learn Thai script but for those who can't, transliteration should at least help. With the systems in use, it doesn't.

[buksida]

[Terry]

Good topic this one

The best examples that I miss terribly are the old style flight announcements at Don Muang or Suvarnabhumi, when a real person used to do the talking and not a pre-recorded machine.

Fright Number............Oooyessss

Ls Rs & Ns are a particular problem for Asians and Thais in particular.

I often get called Telly or Tree (amongst other things): and as for my family name - it's impossible.

Also - anything that follows an 'S' seems to get an obligatory 'A' inserted

Sachool, Sanooker, Sapoon, Satudy, etc...............

I know at least 4 Sateves who suffer this.

My youngest son Ricky, often gets called Licky.............

And can someone please tell me why Saraburi is spelled so and pronounced Saratbulli, likewise Pechaburi is pronounced Petbulli........

Just asking!
_________________
Terry Theobald
Hua Hin Fishing Lodge
Tel:- 081-927-1271 (Eng / Thai)
089-837-4079 (Eng)

Come on over - you might get hooked.

www.huahinfishing.com
www.huahinfishingtours.com

[buksida]

Hey Telly,
These issues are more to do with Thai pronunciation of English words rather than transliteration.

The additional A following the S is due to the fact that there is no sound in Thai for "SP", "ST", "SN", etc, two consonants and no vowel, they simply insert a vowel so its easier to pronounce!

Many of the town names are abbreviated as we do in English so Petchaburi becomes Petburi or even shorter just Pet. In the southern dialect they have abbreviated Samui to just "Mui".
_________________
Named must your fear be before banish it you can.

[Terry]

Buksi

I guess this has a lot to do with genetic raziness eh?

_________________
Terry Theobald
Hua Hin Fishing Lodge
Tel:- 081-927-1271 (Eng / Thai)
089-837-4079 (Eng)

Come on over - you might get hooked.

www.huahinfishing.com
www.huahinfishingtours.com

[Bamboo Grove]

Now folks, study these ones and we can start writing properly.

http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/IPA/ipachart.html

nau stadi thiiz wans aend wii kaen staat raiting propoeli
_________________
知彼知己, 胜乃不殆; 知天知地, 胜乃可全
www.bamboogrove.fi

[HHTel]

Talking about spelling. Try this on a non-English speaker:


I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdgnieg

The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at

Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer inwaht oredr the ltteers in a

wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be

in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed

it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed

ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and

tehy awlyas tlel us slpeling is ipmorantt!

Aren't we the clever ones!!

[HHTel]

By the way, Terry. The spelling for the old airport changed recently to Don Mueang. Of course that makes an illegal use of grouped vowels but what the hell.

[BaaBaa.]

That is surprisingly easy to read.

[BaaBaa.]

Kairng or Gairng, Kai or Gai.

All language books spell them differently, but the spoken sound is more a mixture of the two.

B and P also. Mai BPen rai. The sound is a mixture of the two.

Ive seen Takiap and Takiab.

Very hard to standardise an interpretation of a sound we just dont have in our language.

[HHTel]

Takieb/Takiap is spelt differently on signs yards apart when turning off Petchkasem / Pekasem Road.

The transliteration that Linguaphone uses is quite good. After all they are trying to teach you a language so they have a system that gets the phonetic spelling as near as possible. Where a sound is midway between a d and t they use 'dt'. Same for a p and b = 'pb'. Thet even have ways of using the Roman alphabet for long and short vowels, high, mid, low, rising and falling tones. If the system was adopted officially, it would cut through many problems.

[Guess]

I have only just noticed this while looking for a page with Thai script on it. Is is a good topic. A lot of correct statements made but a few things I can add and correct.

The Rs and Ns situation if often misunderstood. The sound that Farangs and Thais have problems with are ones they have never used in there own language. E.g get a farang to say Gnoo (snake) or Pang Gna (next province to Phuket).

As for Thais not being able to pronounce Rs. Well they can and if you listen to news readers on Thai TV you will found the R (Raw Rua/Law Lua) is pronounced correctly. The thing is it is not identical to the English and other European Rs. The sound comes from down in the throat and is difficult so, like the lazy Londoners who miss the H off the beginning of words, the Lazy Thais either leave out the R (sawasdee cap) or substitute it for an L (sawasdee clap). They also have an L (Law Ling) which is almost identical to the Northern European L.

You don't have to go as far as Thailand to see that the Latin script is not only unsuitable for Thai but unsuitable for English and more so for the Celtic languages and Spanish even though the roots of Spanish are in Latin. E.g porros (hashish) in Spanish is pronounced with a very difficult to pronounce rolling r. Then pronounce LLanelli and Paella.

As for the N sound, it is not used at the end of a word. Thai characters can sound different depending upon class and position in the word. Therefore table become taben, Poolsuk becomes Poonsuk and football becomes footborn.

As for transliteration "when will they get it right", my comment is, not before they get a way of making Latin script suitable for English. The US made an attempt and some of it still exists today (I use US spelling myself as that is what I am used to). However the move came to a halt when it was discovered that it was an impossible task without, at least doubling, the 26 characters that Latin has.

As for standardization there is a standard. It is RTGS (Royal Thai General System). In Thailand rules and laws are flaunted and so is the adoption of standards. You also have the additional problem of people just writing as close to the sound as they can get which is a nightmare for a farang trying to read something written by a Thai who knows Latin but would also differ between a Californian and a Geordie.

The great thing about the Thai script is that it was designed for the Thai language and every sound has a representation in the character set. Tone marks and rules have to be learned so it is a more difficult form of writing. I have seen cases of Thai children who learned the Latin Alphabet which for some reason is a Greek name, before they have mastered Thai.

With Thai what you read is what you speak.

On a final note, there is a transliteration system that covers Thai quite well but it uses a few extra characters. Is is only used for educational purposes and some dictionaries but is is a hundred time better than anything else when you have learned the extra vowel characters and sounds. Computers will never be able the handle this system unless someone took the initiative themselves, though so I think it will die.
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[NOKYAI]

great topic and very interesting!

unfortunately I don't have anything intelligent to say! but I do like being called Kiss (Chris)

[Vital Spark]

I'm currently teaching a course called 'Business with English' the English language side is emphasised and most of the students want to work for an international company.
I fully understand that their long 'given' names are linked to lucky letters and are blessed by monks etc. But as far as their nicknames are concerned, they can be changed quite easily - as they don't appear on any official documents.
I take the opportunity to talk to each student and change their nickname to 'Western style' name. After all, if they all want to work for Western boss, then they need to have a name that's easy to pronounce. I had one female student who spelt her name 'Ruz' - so I pronounced it the way any Westerner would and she corrected me. It sounded almost like Lut. I've now renamed her Lucy, for my class, and she loves her new nickname. The others that I've changed seem happy with their new names - they can call themselves what they like when they're with their friends, but I get fed up with trying to pronounce Aei, Oye, Oil and Oui and getting the tone wrong.

VS

P.S. If you ever employ Lucy in the future, she's a lovely lass.
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'Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana' -Groucho Marx

[lomuamart]

When we went back to the UK last year, my father asked me why I mispronounced my wife's short name.
The thing is that in English it means something totally different. So, I've chosen for the past 4 years to speak it in a different way.
She dosn't seem to mind.
As long as I realise who she is and remember her "proper" name, I seem to be safe - so far
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