Monday, October 13, 2008

Learning Thai Language


Learning Thai language is not easy. Well, not that learning any language is easy, but Thai in particular is difficult in terms of pronunciations. I have been living in Bangkok for more than 3 months, but I have yet to speak a full sentence. I started learning by learning vocabulary. Thank goodness that I can speak Mandarin, and other Chinese dialects and that helps a little in terms of pronunciations. Let me share with you some similarities between Thai and chinese languages.

(orange words are Thai pronunciation)

numbers:
3 – sam (sounds like chinese number 3)
4 - si (also sounds like chinese number 4)
8 – paet (slightly similar to chinese number 8)
9 – gao (sounds like hokkien number 9)
10 – sip (sounds like hakka number 10)
11 – sip et (also sounds like hakka number 11)

objects:
table – tok (sounds like hokkien for table)
chair – gao ee (sounds like hokkien for chair)
chicken – gai (sounds like hakka for chicken)
noodle (in general) – kuey teow (sounds exactly like hokkien for kuey teow)
yellow noodle (wantan noodle) – bak mee (sounds like hokkien for ‘meat noodle’)
dog – ma (sounds like horse in mandarin)
cat – meaao (well, sounds like cat meow )
turtle – tao (as in ‘island’ in Mandarin)
elephant – chang (like ‘long’ in Mandarin)
jambu – champu (very similar to malay language)
durian – turian (very similar to malay language)
no - mai (like 'don't want' in hokkien)

There you have it for some basic Thai language  Hope I am able to speak like a Thai in no time.

6 comments:

Ken said...

Yeah...got free Thai language class. Can't wait for the next lesson...hehehe

Wei Khean said...

no lah... (blush)... i'm not qualified to teach... just to share with you what i know so far... that is only the tip of the iceberg :)

Ken said...

No worries the time will come :) it's a matter of time.

Marika Mush said...

i have started to learn japanese language!

1-ichi
2-ni
3-san
4-yon
5-go
6-roku
7-nana
8-hachi
9-kyu
10-ju
11-ju ichi

a bit same like chinese way...

Unknown said...

waaaa nice - free Thai & Japanese lessons..... its interesting there are so much similarities btw Thai & Chinese.....

Wei Khean said...

Lee, yeah... that's why it is slightly easier for chinese speaker to learn Thai. We do have an advantage because chinese language and dialects also have different intonations like Thai.