Thai or Vietnamese ? (Specific Languages) Language Learning Forum

Thai or Vietnamese ?
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Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages

41 messages over 6 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 Next >>

icing_death
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5862 days ago
296 posts - 302 votes

Speaks: English*

Message 25 of 41

01 April 2009 at 9:06pm | IP Logged

Thanks Fat-tony - that clears up a lot of inconsistencies. But wow, what a complicated rule. Anyway, sorry for the nit but:

Fat-tony wrote:

Gaps are not used at the end of sentences.

thai-language.com wrote:

Add one space when you finish a phrase, clause or sentence, and wish to start a new idea

1 person has voted this message useful

Suriya
Tetraglot
Newbie
Thailand
Joined 5791 days ago
34 posts - 38 votes
Speaks: Thai*, Laotian, English, Japanese
Studies: Spanish, French, Welsh

Message 26 of 41

02 April 2009 at 4:55am | IP Logged

icing_death wrote:

If you pronounce everything else right, and by usually you mean more than 50% of the time, I agree.

Maybe I'm too positive about my tongue. I've never been in that situation so perhaps you know more than I do.

icing_death wrote:

But Laotian has eliminated some consonants, right? Does isaan use the reduced alphabet too? Just curious.

Fat-tony wrote:

Lao underwent a spelling reform to base spelling on phonetics rather than etymology.This has resulted in many of the rarer Thai consonants being eliminated, although they seem to still be in use for names. Also all the "silent" consonants have been dropped. However, they didn't reform the tone rules, which are still very similar to Thai. Isaan isn't often written. The closest you'll come is seeing ร (ror reua) being replaced by ฮ (hor nokhook) to represent Isaan pronunciation (it's not a 100% replacement). My wife (from Nong Khai) said that you won't find any books written in Isaan, only transcribed speech and music lyrics.

I think Fat-tony has answered it quite well already. ຣ Ror Rot(Vehicle) was replaced by either ລ Lor Ling(Money) or ຮ Hor Huean(House) (though still unofficially used to represent the 'r' sound from foreign words but pronounced 'l'), and the spelling has become more or less 99% phonetic, all unnecessary letters were removed. However, Thai and Lao+Isaan tone systems have always been different. For example in Thai: กิน [Mid-class consonant + Short vowel + 'live' final consonant + no tone markers] would produce 'flat tone', but in Lao ກິນ would produce 'low tone' instead although with the same factors.

Fat-tony wrote:

Gaps are not used at the end of sentences.

Um, they are, because I've been using them to end sentences for 25 years of my life :) Gaps are used as both commas and full-stops. See this Thai classic Joke:

“ยานี้กินแล้วแข็งแรง ไม่มีโรคภัยเบียดเบีย น” “ยานี้กินแล้วแข็ง แรงไม่มี โรคภัยเบียดเบียน”
*for some bizarre reasons i can't seem to fix the gap between ย and น in the first sentence, so please pretend it it's not there!

They're written exactly the same, but depending on ending gaps the meanings are the opposite! (First being 'This medicine makes you strong and free from deceases', and the latter being 'This medicine puts you in shock, paralyses you and you'll be full of deceases').

Edited by Suriya on 02 April 2009 at 6:48am
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Suriya
Tetraglot
Newbie
Thailand
Joined 5791 days ago
34 posts - 38 votes
Speaks: Thai*, Laotian, English, Japanese
Studies: Spanish, French, Welsh

Message 27 of 41

02 April 2009 at 6:44am | IP Logged

[edited: double-posting]

Edited by Suriya on 02 April 2009 at 6:45am
1 person has voted this message useful

SlickAs
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 5878 days ago
185 posts - 287 votes

Speaks: English*, Spanish, French, Swedish
Studies: Thai, Vietnamese

Message 28 of 41

02 April 2009 at 4:56pm | IP Logged

icing_death wrote:

Well done with the Pimsleur. I recommend getting language partners and talking at least an hour per week ASAP. You can never begin too early with a tonal language.

Per my friend who has reviewed just about every learning Thai book there is, and who I've discovered really knows what he's talking about, Thai Reference Grammar is much better than "Thai: An Essential Grammar". I have it, and it is quite excellent.

I don't remember what he said about "Teach Your Self", but it wasn't nearly as good as other stuff.

Although I didn't use Everyday Thai for Beginners to begin with, I bought it later because it's so excellent. It's great for clear, organized grammar and essential vocabulary. It doesn't use transliteration, which means you have to know the script. This is a huge plus in my mind, but some find that too difficult.

For an easier route, go through all 3 of the Becker books (Thai for beginners, intermediate and advanced). This is what I used. Work through these, and you'll be ready to study newspapers.

As a side project, I recommend you memorize as much of the
Speak Like a Thai volume 1 as you can. Priceless idiomatic phrases that you'll hear again and again.

I probably overwhelmed you. Feel free to ask questions.

No, you have not overwhelmed me. What I take away is that I need to work through as much of Thai for Beginners, Intermediate, Advanced as I can ... I am flying back to Thailand on May 7 for 6 weeks (and am actually getting married in a traditional Thai (buddhist) ceremony starting early with offerings to monks and finishing late outside Chiang Mai in mid-May to a Quebeqoise). When I arrive I can see where I am at with the language.

Before going back (and we both have a strong relationship with the country ... my fiancee has better Thai than me, but cant read), I also need to improve my reading fluency. I have lived in French, Spanish and Swedish speaking environments with limited language, and found that everything being labelled in shops, as shop signs, etc. grew my vocabulary of common nouns without effort. I need to be able to read Thai to see "Salt" on the shop shelf and pick up the word up through immersion even if I am only there for a short period of time.

Edited by SlickAs on 02 April 2009 at 5:49pm
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icing_death
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5862 days ago
296 posts - 302 votes

Speaks: English*

Message 29 of 41

04 April 2009 at 7:00am | IP Logged

SlickAs wrote:

and am actually getting married in a traditional Thai (buddhist) ceremony starting early with offerings to monks and finishing late outside Chiang Mai in mid-May to a Quebeqoise

Congratulations!

SlickAs wrote:

I need to be able to read Thai to see "Salt" on the shop shelf and pick up the word up through immersion even if I am only there for a short period of time.

Good news is you seem very motivated. And what you want to do is certainly possible. I think you know already that Thai is much harder than the other languages you mentioned, so getting to that point in 4 weeks may take a good effort on your part, depending on where you are right now. You might try to read the first story in the advanced book. If it's not too bad, maybe you can spend more time on the advanced book, since time is limited and reading seems to be your highest priority.
1 person has voted this message useful

Qinshi
Diglot
Senior Member
Australia
Joined 5754 days ago
115 posts - 183 votes

Speaks: Vietnamese*, English
Studies: French, Mandarin, Japanese

Message 30 of 41

16 April 2009 at 6:28pm | IP Logged

I like the sound of both languages. Thai flows better but Vietnamese has a more yinyang feel. Both languages spoken like the standard sound nice.

P.S: Vietnamese is NOT a monosyllabic language as most people often assume. Yes, the written form separates every single syllable but the majority of words are formed by 2 or more syllables. This is why they should reform it so that every word is glued together.

eg. mộtchiếcxe instead of một chiếc xe ̣(one classifier car).
or. mộttráicam instead of một trái cam (one classifier orange).

In the past as recent as the last century, Vietnamese was still written in its Chinese character form. Today less than 100 people are believed to be able to read and write fluently in it.
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audiophile
Groupie
United States
Joined 5117 days ago
44 posts - 81 votes

Studies: French

Message 31 of 41

08 June 2011 at 1:54am | IP Logged

>Today less than 100 people are believed to be able to read and write fluently in it.
một chiếc xe should be 某汽车
một trái cam should be 某橘柑

If Vietnamese could come up a writing system with mixed Chinese (like Japanese does),
then it will be real easy for a Chinese to understand it in writing.
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kyssäkaali
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5554 days ago
203 posts - 376 votes

Speaks: English*, Finnish

Message 32 of 41

08 June 2011 at 4:50am | IP Logged

Qinshi wrote:

I agree that it couldn't hurt to write compound words like lịch sử, từ điển, câu lạc bộ, etc. as one word without the spaces in between. It's not like "lịch" means anything on its own, same goes for "sử", and writing them apart is like spelling calendar as "ca len dar". But why glue numbers and classifiers onto the word? "Xe" is the only noun in the phrase "một chiếc xe" and can stand on its own. It's not like you'd every right "onecar" for "one car" in English. But I do know some languages (Swedish, Maltese) do glue the determiner onto the word, although I'm not exactly sure why, unless the determiner in those cases alters the form of the word it modifies, which is not the case in Vietnamese...

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