As you may already know, Thai is a tonal language (and yet, I suck at music). There are five tones altogether;
mid (สามัญ)
low (เอก)
falling (โท)
high (ตรี)
rising (จัตวา)
Although each tone, excluding mid-tone, is named after the tone marks ( ่, ้, ๊, and ๋), they are not necessarily pronounced according to the tone mark used. For instance, the word "ม้า" is pronounced with a high tone (เสียงตรี), but is written with the falling tone mark (ไม้โท ้). This is because the consonant class, and the vowel affect the tone. //Please don't give up yet
Let’s stick with the basic one. Take ก which makes the /g/ sound, and let’s use สระ อา. Together, that’s 'กา'
กา ก่า ก้า ก๊า ก๋า
gaa · gàa · gâa · gáa · găa
yassss, you did it!
You may wonder, "Will I still be understood if I pronounce them incorrectly?" The answer is: Yes, if context helps, and No, if there are no clues for us, or if it's ambiguous, for instance, this shirt vs this tiger.
เสือ sĕuua = tiger
เสื้อ sêuua = shirt
both tiger and shirt use the same classifier (We'll talk about this later on). So, to say "I like this shirt", you'll say:
ฉัน/ผมชอบเสื้อตัวนี้
chăn/pŏm chôp sêuua dtuua née
I / like/ shirt /classifier/this
and to say "I like this tiger", you'll say:
ฉัน/ผมชอบเสือตัวนี้
chăn/pŏm chôp sĕuua dtuua née
I / like/ tiger /classifier/this
Suppose we're at the zoo, taking pictures of a cute tiger, and you saw a really cute shirt nearby. If you messed up the tone, I couldn't possibly figure out if you were talking about the tiger or the shirt. I mean, they're both cute!
>> This is Pi wondering why no one has come to rescue him yet after having said, "มีเสื้ออยู่บนเรือ mee sêuua yòo bon reuua"
Another solid example is: near vs far
ใกล้ glâi = near
ไกล glai = far
Imagine you're asking a stranger if the hotel was near, and they said 'ไกล glai'. You thought they said ใกล้ glâi and decided to walk all the way there, but after an hour's walk you still didn't see your hotel. Getting the tones right could have saved you a lot of time and energy!
This is just a brief introduction to Thai tones. I hope you're more familiar with them now. We'll talk about how to read the tones in my next post. Stay put!!!
For the time being, check out my >> free Anki deck for 'Confusing Words: Tones Edition'.
láew jer gan ka! 🌻
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