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Inking out Thai transciption? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Lessons in Polyglottery |  | |
| fredomirek Tetraglot Senior Member Poland Joined 6907 days ago 265 posts - 264 votes  Speaks: Polish*, EnglishC1, Italian, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Japanese | Message 1 of 8 18 November 2007 at 4:48am | IP Logged | ||
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I have taken up Thai recently and I just devote to it as much time as possible although it's not a huge amount. I have read in a thread concerning Korean advice about colouring the transcription with a black marker. My question is, should I ink out all the transcripion from the book Thai for Beginners? It's the book I use almost exclusively for now.
Do you think it's a good idea (hoping it would better my command of the Thai script)? What about the tones which I cannot figure out from a single word written in Thai script yet? I will be grateful for any kind of advice. Piotrek Edited by fredomirek on 18 November 2007 at 9:27am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6551 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 2 of 8 18 November 2007 at 7:35am | IP Logged | ||
What's more important to you - learning reading/writing, or speaking/listening? If your goal is to learn reading/writing as fast as possible, at the cost of seriously slowing down your speaking/listening, what you're suggesting may be the right thing to do. Of course, you'd have to pick apart the whole book (or learn the script from another source) to get all the information needed to actually read everything. For me, in the case of a tonal language with a difficult script, I believe it's best to get a handle on speaking/listening first, but to each his own. Most people just complete the first book as is. It takes all ten lessons to ease you into the writing system. The second book removes all the romanization, except in the vocab lists, so that's when you are expected to take the leap. I believe the third book is reading only. I think it's a good plan myself, but again, to each his own. I don't understand your tone question. Are you saying you can't read a word in Thai script, and figure out the tone? Or do you mean you can't pronounce the correct tone, given romanization? Elaborate, and I'd be glad to help you. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| fredomirek Tetraglot Senior Member Poland Joined 6907 days ago 265 posts - 264 votes Speaks: Polish*, EnglishC1, Italian, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Japanese | Message 3 of 8 18 November 2007 at 9:24am | IP Logged | ||
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Thank you for your advice! For me, listening/speaking is as important as reading/writing. As for my problem, I can't properly pronounce a word when I encounter it in Thai script. The romanization contains everything (including the right tone) and it's ok, but I want to avoid it as much as possible. With all the silent vowels in Thai and different tone rules (which I haven't mastered yet) it's very difficult for me to read any new word in Thai script. And if I want to put some words on flashcards I doubt I'll remember exactly how I should pronounce each word before actually memorizing this word (and then the flashcards won't be necessary).
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| ProfArguelles Moderator United States foreignlanguageexper Joined 7257 days ago 609 posts - 2102 votes | Message 4 of 8 18 November 2007 at 5:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have never studied Thai so I am really in no position to advise you what to do. I believe that Thai has an alphabet, but your question makes it seem as if the tones are not indicated. If this is the case, then it would make sense to me to find – or invent – and use a pedagogically graphic system for indicating these tones over the native letters, rather than resorting to potentially distorting transcriptions.
I wrote what I did about Korean because it has a simple and phonetic alphabet that was designed just for it and whose code can be cracked by an hour’s concentration. Korean also contains many sounds that do not exist in European languages. Thus, Romanizing Korean for foreign learners is both utterly unnecessary and inherently misleading. It is not helpful at all, and in fact it is truly harmful and actually impedes the learning process because the student’s eyes will naturally and normally absorb the familiar script while forming the habit of glossing over the new letters. I have noticed a trend in recent decades towards transcribing even Cyrillic or Greek into Latin letters, which makes no sense at all to me, and which can only be explained by the overall dumbing-down process of our contemporary age. As a general rule, I would say that one should avoid transcriptions for any language that has its own alphabet, and if they are present in a learning manual, then yes I would ink them out. On the other hand, they can indeed be quite helpful for beginners in Japanese and Chinese. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6551 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 5 of 8 19 November 2007 at 7:01am | IP Logged | ||
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Professor, I understand what you're saying, and it makes a lot of sense. I don't use romaji for Japanese for example, as the kana are available. Thai script is much more difficult, however. It takes many hours just to master the basics. While learning it, it's nice to have some way to check one's work. One could rely on audio only, but this would probably be pretty hard for a beginner.
fredomirek, Thai for Beginners is a wonderful program IMO. Work your way through all 3 books, and you will have a very good base in the written language. It also gives you a good start in spoken, but I advise spending a few hours specifically on tones, vowel lengths and general pronunciation early on. Later, converse with native speakers as much as possible. This is the nature of tonal languages; you need to work hard on pronunciation and listening to hold a decent conversation. The pronuciation problems you mentioned should work themselves out as you progress through the books. PM me if you want an excel file that has the vocab and sentences for the first book. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Scott Horne Newbie Canada Joined 6226 days ago 34 posts - 38 votes | Message 6 of 8 21 November 2007 at 9:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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The tones are indicated in Thai script, but they depend on several factors, namely the class of the initial consonant, the length of the vowel, the coda of the syllable, and the type of tone mark (if any). It's a lot for a beginner to manage.
I encourage you to learn to speak the language properly, using tones, and to build up a solid vocabulary. Learn the spelling of each new word along with the pronunciation. Eventually you will develop an intuitive knowledge of how the tones are spelt in different contexts. Trying to juggle all the rules every time you see a syllable will only hold you back. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| fredomirek Tetraglot Senior Member Poland Joined 6907 days ago 265 posts - 264 votes Speaks: Polish*, EnglishC1, Italian, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Japanese | Message 7 of 8 22 November 2007 at 2:19pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thank you Professor for your advice, and thanks to the others too. I really appreciate your comments. I believe I'll leave the romanization but try not to use it at all.
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| simon43 Newbie Thailand Joined 6210 days ago 3 posts - 10 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Thai, Laotian, Burmese, Arabic (Gulf) | Message 8 of 8 25 November 2007 at 2:06am | IP Logged | ||
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My advice is that you try to start reading the Thai script as soon as possible, rather than relying on the Romanisation/trabs-literation. That's because even the 'official' transliteration system has many errors which can be confusing to a begineer. (Eg - The hard sound of 'p' in Thai is officially translated as 'ph', which for a native English speaker would be pronouced with a soft p, such as 'phone'. That's why many learners see the transliterated word for the island of 'Phuket' (pronounced with a hard p), but they erronously pronounce it with a soft p = fuket (which sounds rather rude...)
Thai script and the rules of pronounciation are not too difficult to learn. Can you find a good 1-to-1 teacher who can help you over this initial hurdle? Good luck Simon 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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