Analysing Thai Talk Paddy's Thai - How to Speak Thai Less 'Foreign'
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 พ.ค. 2024
- "I think you need to play more white notes ..." - Asking a native speaker with no understanding of phonology to critique your speaking of their language is akin to asking a non musician to critique your piano playing. Our mother tongue is like a familiar old song it's 'in' you and you feel it emotionally, and we KNOW how to tell the difference between the 'original' version versus a Karaoke knock-off version - ... or when someone's singing 'Ken Lee' when they're trying to sing Mariah Carey's 'Can't Live'.
The advice you finally get from a native speaker however might often be as useful as a non musician suggesting that "I think you need to play more white notes". What does that even mean?
Paddy from Thai Talk with Paddy has been gracious enough to permit me to put this analysis of his Thai out in the spirit of helping other learners of Thai. I was prompted to do it after he recently put a clip out asking Thais to critique his Thai as he was doing Vox Pops on the streets of Sydney with Thais - only to receive responses that were as useful as 'You need to play more white notes' - they weren't really putting their finger on things that would actually help him improve his Thai.
0:00 Introduction
0:24 Paddy Introduction to original Video
1:46 Speaking เหน่อ 'ner' and The stages of 'compliments' for a Thai learner
4:53 Paddy Speaking Thai Montage from Original Clip - Straight
6:35 Understanding Thai Vowels
7:44 Understanding Thai Consonants vs. English Consonants
11:11 Beginning of Analysis going through Paddy's Speech Excerpts
26:48 Recap of key areas addressed in speech analysis
There are a couple of things in there that I missed in the final edit of the clip - I actually did an entirely different analysis, but realised I didn't turn my mic on. I thought I'd included a couple of other important points already but turns out that they were in the original clip.
5:40 Paddy says พูดคล่อง 'speak fluently' - you notice that the glotallisation isn't there at all on the word พูด 'speak' resulting in the ด becoming a fully annunciated, voiced final 'd' which doesn't exist in Thai and runs into the initial of the next word. You can see it clearly in the spectogram.
6:14 He says ไม่ต้องกลัวผิด - 'you don't need to worry about (speaking) incorrectly (making mistakes' - you'd probably say พูดผิด - but the thing to note here is on the word phìt ผิด - his tone is way high (closer to Isaan rendering of a short dead high class).
6:24 He says ได้ยิน dâi yin 'could hear' , but the ด changes into almost a ต 'dt' rendering it a different word. Some basic drills over the span of a day could clear all of this up.
Interactive Indic / Thai Consonant Compass - mindkraft.me/consonant-compass/
Here's Paddy's Original Clip • I Asked Random Thai Pe...
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Thanks so much for this Stu. Some amazing insight here and super beneficial for anyone learning Thai. Self-correction is such an important skill with any language! Look forward to chatting soon 👍
Hey Paddy! Thank you so much for helping this to happen - you're a good man, and I think great inspiration for learners out there. Would love to do some kind of collaboration with you in the future.
Great to see hour humility and willingness to listen to criticism. A lot of these polyglot/language TH-camrs are egomaniacs. This video was really great to learn from, I make lots of the same mistakes as Paddy! More breakdown videos like this would be usefull
Hey Paddy, I'm a Thai native speaker. I'm sure Thais love your speaking Thai, we love the way you are. You're not afraid and you're are very humble. Then It doesn't matter about your Thai pronunciations for us. When Thai said that you speak Thai fluently that's no bull shit, but they think Wow ! you can communicate with us pretty well. Your accent's so cute for us. Believe me ! and you know? Thais don't speak perfectly anyway. When people give up learning Thai because they feel irritated about their Thai pronunciations it's their problem, OK?
Yes - These are very important points, and I think the reason why many Thais - or other native speakers of other languages are reluctant to give any real critiquing of language. It was hard enough for the learner to get to that stage, you never want to say something that could cause them to lose heart. This is why I was super careful to do this - and would only post it if Paddy was up to it - and it's not something that you should have done all the time. Like a doctor's appointment - you go when you want to actually address something, but nobody wants testing apparatus stuck on them 24/7. I think Paddy putting himself out here like this has helped a lot of people who may be facing similar issues that deep down they'd like to address, but people are hesitant to give feedback on.
@@StuartJayRaj The problem for some foreigners learning Thai is some of them getting shy and waiting till they can pronounce Thai perfectly before they will speak or talk to Thai people but Paddy is happy to learn from his tiny mistakes and he can learn so many things about Thais. Anyway, your method is super to some learners that they really want perfectly pronunciation of Thai before they can talk to Thai people.
21:59 ไม่ผิดนะ คนส่วนใหญ่พูดแบบนั้น เพราะถ้าพูด "สองพันห้าร้อยห้าสิบแปด" มันยาวและเป็นทางการไป หรือพูดอีกวิธีก็ได้คือ "ปีห้าแปด"หมายถึงปี 2558 "ปีหกศูนย์" หมายถึงปี2560
Before listening to Stuart Jay Raj=I have mastered Thai
After listening to Stuart Jay Raj=I have just started Thai
I am Thai and speaking for my whole life but to be honest, you are better than me. Thank you for loving our language.
Paddy is like my grade school teacher. Encourages you to keep trying. Stu is like my piano teacher. Makes me balance a ruler on my wrists. I have much respect for you both. Awesome content
The key is to get a buzz from balancing those rulers on your wrists.... To the point you could juggle them if you wanted to 😁
This is a great analogy for anyone wanting to learn a language. Thanks so much to both of you for a terrific presentation, without "learning Thai" I have learnt so much about learning Thai.
I love Paddy, He is so talented, and so humble.
I'm Thai and grow up speaking Thai in the home and English in school growing up in the US. You are spot on with all your pronunciations its uncanny.
This is the coolest Thai language video I've seen in a while. I love the granular mechanics. You just don't see that very often. Thanks a lot, Stuart!
Thanks.... Dad :) As a parent of a toddler, it's fascinating right now seeing all of the software and hardware drop into place across languages with my daughter.
@@StuartJayRaj I look forward to seeing it with my kid. My partner doesn't speak English so it's all Thai at home, but I'll be speaking English to the little one in the future. I make quite a few of the same mistakes as Paddy, though 555. I have to remind myself that I don't sound silly when I stretch out the vowels and slowly pronounce the tones - it's actually better that way!
@@HeyKidItsDad Yeah - vowel lengths in Thai are critical - and it's not just western language speakers that have issues. One good friend has lived here most of his life - born in Taiwan, as a native Mandarin speaker which has no distinction between long and short vowels (unlike cantonese), he had to retrain how he spoke to get the distinction there. Made a huge difference.
Protect this man at all costs. These videos are worth their weight in gold.
THANK YOU
THANK YOU
THANK YOU
I've been trying to learn Thai for almost 40 years.....and will until I die.
This video has explained at least a dozen mistakes I have been making.
You sir are AWESOME.
That's made my day hearing that! I'm glad it helped.
ผมว่า ถ้าคนต่างภาษา(ต่างชาติ) พูดไทยกลางเสียงวรรณยุกต์ไม่ตรง เราเรียกว่าพูดเพี้ยน ไม่ได้เรียกพูดเหน่อ ถ้าเรียกเหน่อน่าจะหมายถึง สำเนียงโบราณของภาคกลางที่ไม่ใช่สำเนียงกรุงเทพ Instantly thinking of สำเนียงสุพรรณ ซึ่งมีpattern ของวรรณยุกต์ที่แน่นอน ( มีบางคนบอกว่า สำเนียงกรุงเทพ จริงๆคือเหน่อต่างจากที่อื่น เพราะได้อิทธิพลจากคนจีนที่พูดแต้จิ๋วซึ่งมีเยอะในกรุงเทพ)
ไม่ได้ดูคุณJay นานแล้วช่วงหลัง
แต่เราคิดว่าสำเนียงโบราณน่าจะสำเนียงอ่างทองลพบุรี ทางลพบุรีชอบใช้คำโบราณด้วย
@@yingyam4090 ภาคกลางทั้งหมดแหละครับ แต่พอแยกจังหวัดแล้ว มีต่างกันบ้าง เพชรบุรีก็เหน่ออีกแบบ
I agree with you.
Totally agree
My 2 language mentors! Stu is a language genius...Paddy has the greatest attitude and enthusiasm when learning. Both Stu and Paddy motivate me to keep pushing, learning and evolving no matter what and to remember to always have fun and never give up!
Paddy is responsible for a lot of good when it comes to inspiration to learn. Very grateful he was up to doing this.
Every now and then i come back to watch this gold video - love your work Stu!
I found this very helpful. Thanks Paddy for helping us learn.
Very professional analysis, cool!
Highly detailed and effective video, great work!
I was absolutely mesmerized by this - such a good cultural understanding of the use of language. Impressive and inspiring
thank you very much to both of you (Stu and Pad) you are of great help to us trying to learn Thai. The humility of Pads boosts our eagerness to try to speak out and commit mistakes and learn from it as well. Salute to you Paddy. Thank you Stu. your a great teacher.
This is so awesome! A really in-depth look into the Thai language spoken by a farang and the characteristics of spoken Thai as well
I am learning so much from this! Got my Thai wife to listen in and she loves it as well! Amazing stuff right here!
The way you taught in this video is very detailed and practical. I wish someone had taught me english the same way!
Wonderful deep dive! Thanks to you both!
Thanks christopher. Just did another one on De Niro - actually some good stuff in there.
Man your videos are amazing, so much detail on the the different throat/mouth/tongue positions and shapes. No one else’s does this and it’s so helpful, thank you thank you 🙏🏻
Thai is such a beautiful language especially in the sound transitions from strong to soft and vice versa. Thanks for the sound lessons friend. 👍🏽🙏🏼❤️
I never found any youtube channel like this channel. This is EXCEPTIONAL !!!
This is really useful. I think I may have to come back to this a couple of times. Tons of tips and lessons for Thai learners. Thank you both for this video!
This Man is a supremely gifted teacher I'm glad to have come across his channel 👍
This is incredibly helpful and clear. Thank you both, super critical for improvement. All the best.
Glad it can be of help Klaus.
What a great video Sturat! Thank you!
Thanks Jean-Raphael. I hope you're well.
I saw Paddy for the first time a few days ago. I don't really intend on ever learning Thai but I have so much respect for people who take the time to learn that language, not to mention to get to a conversational / fluent level in it. Love how both of you are humble too!
สงสารแพ็ดดี้เลย
จริงๆ สำหรับภาษาที่ 2 สื่อสารได้ขนาดนี้ ก็เก่งมากๆๆๆ แล้วครับ
Amazing insights! Got a lot for myself from just this one video. Thank you so much for your work. Finally, I found a farang who speak Thai so damn clear for my liking. Subscribed!
Amazing! Very helpful! Thanks!
Love your content. Very amazing. :)
Wow I did hear the D sound. Thank you Stuart for this critique! This video was very helpful!
This is probably one of my best discovered videos in youtube. Thank you so much!
thanks! Are you Thai or learning Thai?
@@StuartJayRaj I'm learning Thai. I'm actually just on my second week of learning. I'm from the Philippines, and coming from a country with over 120 languages, I can totally relate to what you are saying here.
คุณ Stuart Jay Raj คุณเป็นที่สุดของ linguist การที่คนเราไม่ได้พูดภาษาไทยมาตั้งแต่เกิดแต่คุณสามารถพูดได้ชัดที่สุดขนาดนี้ แสดงถึงความสามารถ พิเศษที่คุณสามารถ เลียนเสียง ได้ในระยะสั้นได้ดี และเก่งที่สุดที่ผมเคยเห็นมา
ฝรั่งอีกคนที่ผมคิดว่าเก่งคือ อาจาร อดัมส์ ผมอยากให้คุณเอาวิดิโอ อีกท่านมา วิเคราะห์ เจาะสำเนียง อีก และผมคิดว่า อาจาร อดัมส์เป็นหนึ่งใน ฝรั่งอีกคนที่พูดชัดที่สุดในไทย
First thank you Paddy for letting Stu analyze your Thai speech. Second, thank you Stu for doing the analysis. As one who is highly motivated and has had the exact experience Stu mentions: ("I said something in Thai correctly, I'm sure of it!" But the person I was speaking to, just didn't want to understand.). And yet feeling like, I will never reach the level that Paddy is at currently, I mean I often feel discouraged - Well this has again helped me regain my courage.
And for what it is worth, I've subscribed to Stu's material, read all his books, and was actually the second person to cr4ck his puzzle in "Cracking Thai Fundamentals".
Stu, next year I will retire and move to Thailand with my husband - who is Thai, I so hope to attend one of your seminars!
Thank you very much for this! Super insightful, but also discouraging because i suck so bad at Thai already & this just made me realize how much more work I need to do🤣🙏🏽🇹🇭❤️
I hope this will help learners nip some bad habits in the bud.
Thank you both - this is extremely helpful and I recognise similar issues present in my pronunciation of Thai. You’ve short-circuited potential bad habit formation early on in my ภาษาไทย journey - thank you!
That's fantastic. Out of curiosity - what areas in particular did you find happening with your own Thai?
@@StuartJayRaj For me the issues were/are running sounds together between words - especially a word final ก when followed by word initial ค e.g. มากครับ - and truncating longer vowels to try to increase my speech rate. Lastly, overlaying English tonality - I often catch myself inserting a rising tone when using a question word at the end of a sentence e.g: อะไร.
Thank you so much for this, Paddy is all in all a GREAT speaker of Thai, but by correcting his vowels length or tones, it really has helped me analyze where I go wrong when using the language in my daily life.
I have found though that, even with my Thai being not so clear and tones not so spot on all the time, I have NEVER once had an issue with being understood...that's just me though
Truly fascinating!
This is such an useful video for me. I love Paddy’s videos cos they are so entertaining and I always pick up tips and vocabularies just by watching his videos.
I have been learning Thai on my own for several years and my fluency is nowhere near that of Paddy’s. But I can tell that there is this farang accent present. I tried speaking Thai with my Thai friends but they were always too polite to correct my Thai and always gave me the fake impression that I was speaking well. I realised that when I have problems communicating with strangers on the street.
The most powerful coaches are out own ears - they just need to be tuned in.
Wow I'm really amazed by your prononciation expertise!
I'm ethnic Chinese and I've attended Thai language classes with students from all nationalities so I am qualified to judge.I will break this down into four categories of students learning Thai language from easiest to most difficult.
1.Asian tonal group - The students who can speak Thai to near native level are the ones whose native tongue is tonal like southern Chinese, Vietnamese, Burmese, Lao. Thai phonology is very similar to southern Chinese phonology if we omit the trilled 'r' sound which is actually imported from Khmer and not native Tai.
2. The other Asian group - Korean, Malay, Indonesian, Cambodians, Filipinos all have trouble pronouncing tones but they still get most of the sounds correct like the 'ng' initial consonant and ending consonants. Cambodians can pronounce the trill 'r' very well because Thai imported it from them. Filipinos and Indonesians can also pronounce the trill 'r' well.
3. The Indo-European speakers - have the most trouble in speaking Thai because their languages are so different from Thai. They use English grammar when speaking Thai, the tones are all wrong and also the unaspirated voiceless consonants are usually pronounced as voiced. They also have trouble with most of the vowels not present in European languages.
4. I don't know where to place Japanese speakers... at the same level as Indo-European speakers or more difficult than European speakers because Japanese speakers have trouble pronouncing tones, ending consonants and many Thai vowels. Japanese language has only monophthong vowels, toneless with just one ending consonant.
Other than just being a student in a class room that is multi cultural, what real qualifications do you have to back up your statement that you are qualified to make these statements.
@@glenloader639 I'm a language teacher just like Stuart Jay Raj. I'm also a polyglot.
I think the number one test to see if someone can master pronunciation in another language is whether they have the ability to do impressions of celebrities or different regional accents in their L1. If you've just heard Leonardo DiCaprio speak his line, you should be able to repeat it back in the same accent he did. Im pretty sure this is an innate ability that we all have, yet a lot of people layer their ears with memory of sounds from their L1 and are closed off to hearing newly introduced sounds in their L2.
Yet none of this accounts for the individual........
As a beginner, I love Paddy's channel and most of this goes WAY over my head. I have been teaching Japanese for years and I see some of the same conceptual grammar elements in Thai that Japanese has. Thanks to both of you!
I’m currently learning the Thai language and your videos are really useful. I can speak both English and Chinese so I understand why pronunciation in Thai language is so important because pronouncing a word wrongly can give a different meaning (just like in Chinese).
You are wonderful.
I feel like "เหน่อ" has a little longer vowel.
Normally I don't think we use the word by itself, we either use the word with some other words like:
" พูดเหน่อ" --"พูดเหน่อมาก"
" สำเนียงเหน่อ"
" เสียงเหน่อ"
** Confirm this with other Thais again**
-----
Your Thai is so excellent and perfect! What you teach is a very hard part of speaking Thai.
พูดเหน่อเอาไว้เรียกสำเนียงไทยกลางรอบกรุงเทพเท่านั้น ถ้าคนภาษาอื่นพูดเสียงไม่ตรงเรียกพูดเพี้ยน ไม่ว่าฝรั่ง หรือ คนเหนือ คนอีสาน คนใต้ พูดกลางไม่ชัด ก็ไม่เรียกเหน่อ
Analyze my Thai next haha! Love it, and love Paddy’s attitude where he accepts correction. :) When I meet new people here in Thailand I tell them to feel free to correct me! :) really cool video.!
We do this kind of stuff on my Mindkraft discord channel. Feel free to swing by.
Great Video. Been following your channel for years now. Thanks for sharing your tips with the Thai learning community!
Very powerful stuff and an interesting approach to understanding the mechanics of how people speak and can improve the way they speak
Oh hey this is super useful. I'm subscribed to Paddy and he shared this, and I've learnt so much from this that the books just couldn't convey, especially the glottal stop stuff. You even helped me understand my own glottalisations in British English better. The tongue positions coupled with knowing what I should be hearing is a game changer. Subscribed! What software is producing that magical spectrograph?
Brilliant. I've worked with several Brits lately and I here early glottalisation as a key pain point especially for some UK dialects. In Thai, it's all about timing... glottalisation and 'collision' of whatever's making the sound in the mouth happens at the same time. Too early and you'll sound Burmese, too late and you'll sound American. Nobody wants that. The software I use is Adobe audition
Thank you Jay and Paddy for doing what you do. When language learners reach a certain level we speak faster to sound more fluent. It's better to slow down and get the pronunciation correct. In running we talk about fast twitch and slow twitch muscles. Maybe the tongue and throat, work in the same way. We need to train them with repetiton to move faster, if we want to move them faster. I must of said ตอ and งอ over and over, a million times, trying to perfect those sounds.
Agree. I just thought if Paddy just spoke slower he would speak so much more clearly and correctly.
I have no idea what you’re talking about, but I feel smarter watching your videos and analyses. Thank you 🙏🏼😂
Good information. I'll have to watch this a few more times :)
I just added a couple of extra points that I'd missed in the final edit up in the description section
@@StuartJayRaj Thanks for the heads up
Great analysis, thanks
Thanks Adrian.
As a Thai person who grew up in Canada (so I do not speak it all the time but I do watch alot of Lakorns) I must say that your pronounciation is absolutely amazing & on point! I am learning so much from you! Keep up the good work!
Woww your Thai accent is so great and you can explain Thai accent is so clear. Such an amazing.👍👏
This is so good for Paddy. This is so clear and amazing. Even I'm Thai, I can't ecxplain like this. Btw, I wouldn't say "nuh" to any Thais or foreigners except those from some certain provinces like Supanburi or Ratchaburi.
I agree with this comment. To me personally (I'm native Thai), the word nuh (เหน่อ) has a connotation of speaking with rising tone where it should be falling tone (if you use the central dialect as the standard). So normally, I'd associate the word 'nuh' with people who come from Supanburi which is known to be the origin of that speaking style. Often, Thai people would just mark foreigner's speaking with the word 'unclear' or พูดไม่ชัด.
Speaking เหน่อ (Nuh/Noe) is synonymous with Central dialect of Suphanburi and nearby Angthong/Kanchanaburi etc... districts. Nothing to do with migrant workers. I lived and spoke เหน่อ for ten years. The accent is similar to where I live now in Ubon on the Lao border. This geezer is an academic who hasn't actually lived and digested Thai or its dialects.
This video just might drag me back to try Thai one more time because they're not obsessed with Tones but are yet addressing well delivered Thai and structure. Thanks guys
I love Paddy's attitude to going out and just using the language, then these specimens that go out there can help accelerate becoming more and more natural in the language as you can address language issues in big chunks and quickly tweak one or two things that make a world of difference
Amazing feedback
lots of learning
Thank you very much
ขอบคุฌมากครับ
Excellent analysis!
ขอบคุณครับ
Great video, thank you to both of you.
I am pleased I leaned to read and write Thai before really starting to speak and listen. It's been extremely beneficial.
My problem is that we live in a tiny rural village in Ubon Ratchathani, so I've managed to learn this weird hybrid of both Thai and Isaan.
I really need more work on my vocabulary and grammar. The thing I find most difficult is that my hearing is not great. That makes the nuances and tones even more of a minefield for me.
Patience and practice. I'll keep trying.
Yeah - the beautiful thing about all Thai dialects is that they all run on the same engine. As long as you know how to spell something, then there is a 1 to 1 shift of tones, vowels etc that you can do to switch back and forth - and it's pretty accurate.
your Thai pronunciation is in the next level. I'm very impressed.
Just found this nice video. You provided great analysis and clear explanation on how foreigners and natives differ in their pronunciation.
Just wanna add on 21:58 where Paddy is talking about year. It's not totally 'wrong' to read year just like that (2558 = two-five-five-eight). Normally, many Thai people say them like that but it's more common in informal/casual settings.
Bonus tip for anyone who want to sound more native. When saying number 21-29, it's normally Yii-Sib (twenty) + unit place number. You can shorten Yii-Sib into Yiib. For example 22, instead of Yii-Sib-Song, it's Yiib-Song. Many Thais proounce like that when counting really fast or squeeze in many numbers in a quick sentence.
Yes, I taught basic Thai to my foreign friends and they have 2 problems; The end consonant is cut short, especially they have huge trouble with pronounce ng "ง งู". second is the hurries in each word that it makes every syllable same length, defeating all the long vowel in the process.
thanks for this Amazing presentation. From thailand
I been speaking Thai for 7 years now and still learning more all the time I did find learning to read and write Thai helped alot because you learn all the sounds
Sweet! Just what I was looking for at around 1 a.m. 555!! My native tongue is American English and I can speak Laotian and somewhat Thai but more so Thai Essan so this was a great big help! Thank you for providing such useful information on how to sound more ta-ma-saad 😆
I really want to do one on Local language's sound influences on standard Thai - Lao is a big one.
@@StuartJayRajOh please do, that would be of great help! Any different dialect or a language similar to Thai would be just the icy on the cake! 555
@@StuartJayRaj Or the effects of Karen language, or other hill tribe languages on Thai speakers' pronunciation.
This is really insightful and helpful. Thank you both Stu Jay Raj and Paddy.
I notice you commented on Paddy’s sentence structure being good at one point (อันไหนยากกว่ากัน), I’d be interested to know what else you think Paddy does well? The good parts are also very helpful to learn from.
I think what I find difficult is that these sounds are clearly different to my ears. (That took a good year or so!)
When I pronounce one or two words alone (e.g ภาษาไทย) I think I can pronounce them clearly, and maintain the right vowel length - but it’s once I start speaking full sentences (whilst reading or during conversation) - this can get lost. I’m not sure how to balance pushing my conversation/fluency whilst maintaining good pronunciation 🤔 word drills? Alphabet drills? If I try to speak slowly and maintain good pronunciation - will the speed come eventually one day?
Either way, the journey is great fun. Thanks guys for some great helpful content!
Before I even watch this I know that this video will be great; two of the best Thai youtubers!
haha - I hope it doesn't disappoint
I really appreciate this video! Thai language is indeed not difficult, but it is impossible to use the language naturally unless you're a native or in the Thai environment long enough (at least 5-10 years, I am still struggling with my Mandarin). I can tell my Thai-American friends using Thai in the English nature even though their pronunciation is nearly perfect. I personally do not care how foreigners speak Thai unless it comes to academic usage. Paddy's Thai is pretty decent, I wouldn't lie.
Yet, finding this video, watching to an end, and realising how cultured and sophisticated a foreigner is to the Thai language is really appreciative. I feel more appreciative towards my own language as well (a little bit of shame as there is something I didn't know before about my language until I watched this video, hahaha). Thank you! And thanks youtube for the recommendation.
Thank you 👍😎
When you're clarifying the differences between similar sounding words, it would be really helpful to see the Thai script, and probably the IPA too. The various Aussie "o" and "aw" sounds already don't match American English or dictionary IPA so well so learning Thai "o" sounds from written comparisons with "English" sounds is really tricky.
Good idea - and sorry I didn't include it in this one. I had it in the back of my mind that he had Thai script subtitles, but I realise now that when he speaks thai, the subs are English .
This is really helpful. I wonder if some of the things Paddy has picked up is because he mainly learned from hearing people around him. It helps a lot to look at the Thai letters and think about what sound it is supposed to make. And didn’t he live near Myanmar? Some of those cut off or choppy words may have come from this? I notice when I am nervous I tend to speak faster and also revert to more English tones in language out of comfort I think. My Thai teacher says most Thais are very gracious and if I slow down and think more about the sounds they will a lot of times be patient and I will communicate better.
this is wild i have been learning thai for 9 years and this is a great breakdown
สุดยอดเลยครับ อาจารย์รู้ลึกถึงแก่นของภาษาจริงๆ
有り難うございます！
Thank you!!
I'm a Thai native speaker, and I actually listen to your channel to improve my English. I used suggestions and mistakes you pointed out in your videos in reversed to improve my English pronunciation as I tend to use Thai pronunciation in English a lot. This is really helpful.
Thank you so much
Thanks K'Wee - That's great to hear. Are you still living in Thailand or somewhere else?
@@StuartJayRaj I've been living in Australia for almost 5 years now 😃
Linguist with 26 years of Thai language experience here. I also really hyper focus over the little phonological details and that is how I got to be able to access more native like levels of Thai phonology, much like yourself. Someone like Paddy has made a good basic start but perhaps needed to understand just how many levels there are to this (maybe he knows, to be fair to him) I think you have shown him that in a really open and fair way but also constructively with a good road map forward from here. Not to be mean, but to me Paddy sounds really quite low level and still in the ‘farang on a long, two or three year working holiday’ kind of mode. I remember I was like that myself after a couple of years, so fair enough. You are the only foreigner on you tube ( who did not grow up in Thailand) I have seen so far that has a truly solid level of very high end Thai phonology . I’m so happy to find this channel as the other farang Thai language channels are so far off the mark that I find them hard to watch and listen to. Cringey at times. The problem is there’s no real definition of the word ‘fluent’ in linguistics and so lots of foreigners award themselves this title like a fake black belt that they think matches a Thai skill level they do not actually have. If Thais are still telling you that your Thai is good, then you have a long way to go. That’s lower level Thai still for a foreigner. It’s when your level of Thai isn’t even really discussed much anymore and you just function seamlessly with Thais on a similar sociolinguistic level without miscommunication that indicates true progress. When you ring up a shop to enquire after an item in advance and take the name of the person you spoke to, arrive there to purchase it an hour later telling them you were the person they spoke to and their face shows genuine surprise… that is when you’re really getting up there. BTW, the term for the final consonant sound of a previous word carrying over to the first sound of the next word is usually called ‘catenation’. Keep up this excellent work. Impressive!
I dont know, I don't really think his level of Thai is what one would call "Low", if he can communicate and people can understand him, I think he is well on his way...
@@Ned88Man It’s all relative. He’s ‘low’ to natives or near native speakers. On his way? I wouldn’t disagree
I apreciate your help and I want to share my feelings.I had to fight with at least 7 languages in my life...one of the things that make learning Thai or any other language unfare is that no one native speaker in no one language speaks the same or matches the (theorical) national correct phonetics, not even at university....further more, all languages are in a urgent need for revision or the world will end up communicating by hand gestures and face expressions, writing in modern gerogliphical manner like emoji and emoticons.(I actually think it would be a big step ahead in deeply understanding each other ) Any one will get in touch with reality if confronted with a cort case or an institutional written contract.
Ner is used only for the Thai people who live in others provinces besides Bkk ,which they have an accent shifting from Bangkokian.But for people in others parts like North,South or North Eastern of Thailand they have another dialects, we didn't say that they speak Ner.
I’m Thai and I find this very fascinating!
ขอขอบคุณมากนะครับ สำหรับการทำวีดีโอนี้ต่อทุกคนที่สนใจครับ
Great reminder to drag out those long vowels. Thanks!
คร้าาาาาาาาบ
As a Thai who studied phonetics in school and have been following loads of content on accent around the world. This feels like a treat to have super in-depth (and imposed... sorry) analytics of Thai phonology.
One note for you Stuart, at 22:15 for the word ช่อง, there are certain kinds of exception to keep in mind. There are quite a lot of long-voweled words that have gotten shortened overtime but their forms remain as such (no idea what the actual term is, erosion? But in Thai is 'กร่อน' เสียง which is in itself does said quality).
I'm talking about words like ช่อง (channel) / น่อง (thigh) / ม่อง[เท่ง] (to be dead) / ท่าน (a formal pronoun) / [กัด]กร่อน (to erode) all do have long-voweled sound, but have gotten eroded/shrunken overtime (stylewise I suppose, even an 80 year-old person would still pronounce said words as short-voweled). Better yet, ironically, some words (albeit not as rare) with short-vowel form are pronounce long: น้ำ (water) / [ร้อง]ไห้ (to cry).
On a side note, your Thai sounds almost exactly like Hugo's (the singer) I got goosebumps...
Right! - actually there are so many of these that go both ways in Thai. You have long becoming short and short becoming long - these irregularities happen across a lot of tonal languages, especially with common words. E.g.
น้ำ น้ำตา น้ำมัน vs. กินน้ำ ว่ายน้ำ
ไม้ ไม้เอก vs. ต้นไม้
and then you even get vowel shifts for certain common words - e.g.
ให้ and ใบ - ให้ in standard modern Thai has actually moved forward in the mouth - similar to ไม่ and ใหม่
My 2 favourite Thai 🇹🇭 language Dudes
Both so inspirational when ever I’m not giving myself enough time to learn I look @ one of there videos and I’m straight back in there. Going back to Thailand 🇹🇭 in 8 weeks, I better pull my finger out 😃😊
I actually suggest this video idea to Paddy maybe a month or so ago. At the time he said it was a great idea but I think he forgot where the idea came from. But that's fine - he's a busy guy making great videos (-:
Yeah. I like the positive vibe Paddy beings to language learning and think many new learners will come about as a result of his inspiration.
@@StuartJayRaj I personally wish there were a channel just like Paddy's for all the amazing languages I love. There's lost of channels for the major European languages and Japanese, Chinese, and I think now Korean (I better check). And for Vietnamese there's at least Phuc Map. But there's nobody doing Khmer yet or the less-well-known European languages.
It's a tough balance. Some other polyglot channels are a little cringey - As a polyglot, I don't learn languages to count them, or just get 'reactions' from strangers. Imagine if it were the other way round - 'Asian woman orders a Hamburger in PERFECT ENGLISH! - McDonald's staff SHOCKED!' - it would be absurd. As we move more and more towards people from everywhere speaking even the most abstract languages, I hope the sensationalism simmers down and you can get real quality channels popping up where people use those languages speaking human to human - not just doing monkey tricks.
@@StuartJayRaj True. I think the cringey videos are just the obvious ones people think of when they first start - or their friends tell them they think it will be a funny video idea. Both Paddy and Oriental Pearl (who does videos in Mandarin and Japanese) did one or two cringey videos in the beginning, like pretending to be a dumb foreigner in an Asian shop/restaurant, then switch to fluent Asian language; realized how cringey there were, and quickly moved on to better video ideas.
Some polyglot channels pick on Laoshu, who seems to study every language on the planet, because his level is not very advanced in most of them. But he never does anything cringey or disrespectful and is always pretty humble and just does his best.
I'd like to add a few things:
1. เหน่อ describes an accent of Thai speakers from the provinces surrounding Bangkok that deviates from the Thai dialect you hear on TV and, to an extent, the Bangkok dialect, just as you have described in this video; however, halfies don't พูดเหน่อ. They พูดไม่ชัด. Isan people don't พูดเหน่อ either. I'm actually not aware of any specific term that describes their accent. They definitely have one, but I wouldn't say they พูดเหน่อ at all. If anything I would say they nasalize their words or พูดเสียงขึ้นจมูก. As for Southerners, the term is พูดทองแดง.
2. When you're overenunciating your ต เต่า, it sounds like a Romance T to me, like in French or Castilian Spanish. I guess this is more subjective because I'm comparing it to the way I speak.
I agree... The general feel when you hear the word เหน่อ would be in combination with something like เหน่อสุพรรณ, but looking at the strict meaning of เหน่อ it has a general sense of 'off standard' . My kids are native Thai speakers, and didn't speak a word of english until they were about 6 or 7 when they moved to Australia. Now when speaking Thai back here in Thailand, they will often have comments about being เหน่อ ...the time in Australia has influenced their thai
@@StuartJayRaj That's rather interesting. I have honestly never heard of a halfie's accent being referred to as เหน่อ before.
@@StuartJayRaj Wil H is correct. เหน่อ mostly is used to describe accents in provinces like Suphanburi, Kanchanaburi, Ratchaburi and others nearby. เหน่อ can also mean when an accent within the same dialect sounds a bit more lyrical/musical. Like in this case, Thai spoken in BKK and in Suphanburi are both considered to be the central Thai dialect but since the one spoken in Suphanburi sounds more lyrical/musical, we call it เหน่อ. I'm originally from Korat and speak Korat dialect growing up. However, there are different accents of Korat dialect within Nakhon Ratchasima too because it's a very big province. My accent (where I'm from is towards the Khon Kaen side) is considered ห้วนๆ but Pak Chong accent is considered เหน่อ for us since it sounds a bit more lyrical in certain words they pronounce. The same goes with the Isaan dialect. If I hear people from Khon Kaen or Yasothon like Mum Jokmok speak Isaan, his accent is also considered ห้วนๆ but the Chaiyaphum accent on the other hand is considered เหน่อ because it sounds more musical. But when Isaan people speak central Thai and they have an accent, we'd just say เค้าพูดติดสำเนียงอีสาน and เหน่อ won't be referred to in this case. I hope this helps.
ผมดีใจมากที่มีคนแบบคุณ มาสอนเกี่ยวกับภาษาไทย ทำให้รู้สึกว่าคุณเป็นบุคคลทีทรงคุณค่าในเรื่องภาษาไทยและอีกหลายภาษาที่คุณสอน
This is some high tech audio analysis.
It's very cool what we can do with technology these days :)
Oh! Very Good!
impressive!
Thanks Stuart - always learn a lot from you. One thing I am confused about is when Thai's say "dai dai dai" (as she does at about 20:16)... I hear this a lot and I've always taken it to mean something like (: yes, for sure, that is okay) -- but when I tried to make use of this once a Thai person instructed me "you shouldn't use that" ,,, so any insights on this? Thanks.
Stephen - after reading your comment on Dai, I included the usage of it in my latest clip on De Niro's Thai
@@StuartJayRaj perfect, will watch now, thanks
I am Thai. I have to say this is unbelievable. You are pretty much native Thai speaker.
I think that one of the most difficult things in speaking Thai is the five vowel sounds and their different meanings, e.g. “ใครขายไข่ไก่” (who sells the chicken egg?) or “ไหมใหม่ไม่ไหม้” (new silk doesn’t burn), etc. Nonetheless, don’t be discouraged to try to learn Thai.
Definitely the hardest part. That is the only thing that makes it so complex trying to extend vocabulary by dialing in tones.
@@nickhaa so true!
They're not vowels. They're tones.
@@minzungopa exactly.. the tonation. Thanks for the correction.
คุณ เก่งมากครับ
Very interesting, but unfortunately could not understand a single thing (from the theory discussed) since my Thai is just 2 years old.
I wish in some 5-10 years I could come to the point of enjoying noticing all those points.
In the meanwhile could you bring the level of explanation to such low level as a normal living human being of average abilities could grasp since I am afraid that such a unbelievable level of expertise could not be attained by me ever -:(
Still thank you for your video!
I understand your frustrations.. honestly, a lot of what I discussed is probably stuff that should be learnt from day one. It's not difficult...it's just that most people never have a grounding in it and don't want to waste time focusing on sound - they just want to jump in and speak from day 0, and form habits along the way. You're welcome to come and join our discord group. There are people of all levels there, all building a new foundation in language.
All about JNDs! (just-noticeable differences) The ability to differentiate between small differences in individual sounds (< fossilised since age 3?) Interesting video, thanks.
Hey Stu, can you hear any Aussie accent in Paddy's Thai? Can you hear Chiang Mai accent? Apparently he learned in a village near there. Can you detect the language background of westerners who speak pretty good Thai from their accent generally? (Still watching the video...)
There are Australian points of articulation all over his Thai - and I think I pointed out one of them in the clip - the อุ 'u' sound. The fact that there is a shift of vowel articulation on the same vowel in Thai depending on how he's speaking and what he's saying is also an indication of phonology from the mother tongue doing its dirty work on the phonology of the 2nd tongue. As for 'Are there sounds of Chiang Mai?' - in general, no. If there WAS one thing, perhaps the consistency of pronouncing long/short dead Middle and High class syllables like บอก with a generally higher pitch (often ranging 3-3 or even 5-5 on tone peg pitch scales where they should be 1-1), could point to that as Chiangmai dialect pronounces these higher, but it's not consistent - even a broken clock is correct twice a day. There would have to be consistency to demonstrate that this was a real influence of Northern Thai. I'm a native Australian English speaker and even I have traces of my Aussie phonology on my Thai. The key is PROSODY - that is, being able to minimise the 'tells' in phonology and combine it with more native like rhythms and structures in HOW you say things that improves how well your Thai is perceived / received.
@@StuartJayRaj Haha yes I was so excited I commented before getting to that part of the video (-: Great stuff - thanks!