ฝรั่งงง

เก็บกระเป๋า

2009-03-09T10:53:00.000-04:00

หมวกกันน็อก

2009-03-06T14:32:00.000-05:00

The Thai word for blog is บล็อก. I have no clue what the อ็ is doing here. I only know of two uses for this mark: replacing the อะ in เอะ (and แอะ, mostly in loanwords) if it's followed by a consonant (เกะ but เก็บ) and in the linking particle ก็, which is pronounced like เก้าะ or ก้อ.

Okay so what is that thing called anyway...

It's called ไม้ไต่คู้.

The wiki entry only lays out the two uses I already mentioned. Interesting it gives น็อก as an example of the อะ replacement rule. This confuses me. น็อก is pronounced with a high tone, where นอก would be falling. อ็ must indicate a shortened vowel (which would raise the tone).

Since it only seems to occur before the vowel ออ, I'm going to assume that อ็ is specially used to shorten this vowel only. A short ออ is normally written as เอาะ, which is a strange mess of characters. If you wrote น็อก using this form, it would be เน็าก, which is very confusing.

My hypothesis is that อ็ is used to shorten the vowel อ in loanwords, simply to avoid confusion. The pronunciation of บล็อก is /bàlɔk/, the 2nd syllable being high, which is consistant with this.

Of course, now I notice that เอาะ is listed in the wikipedia entry as a vowel that อ็ acted upon, and the matching example is น็อก. I'm also noticing that the pronunciation of ก็ I gave was a pretty huge hint as well. Oh well, it's fun to work these things out on my own.

น็อก, by the way, is a borrowing of the English word "nock". While looking all this crap up, I stumbled upon the Thai word for crash-helmet:หมวกกันน็อก. Literally, "knock" hat.

Pali & Planets

2009-03-04T13:53:00.000-05:00

With some googling, I found a complete list of the Pali numbers in Thai.
The first three are very common in ranks, such as in the military, education degrees, and language tones.

The and the rest are also common parts of Pali loanwords in Thai, according to the discussion linked above. Many look familiar to me.

1 = เอก
2 = โท , ทว
3 = ตรี , ไตร
4 = จัตตุ , จตุ , จัตุ
5 = เบญจ
6 = ฉอ , ฉ-
7 = สัตต , สัต
8 = อัฏฐ
9 = นพ
10 = ทศ

The search for these numbers was sparked by the word นพเคราะห์ or "the nine planets". Since ดาวพลูโต (Pluto) was demoted in 2006, this name is out of date. I was just curious what "the eight planets" would look like... and the answer is: อัฏฐเคราะห์. A Google search returns 627 results for this word. (And 498 for the variant spelling อัฐเคราะห์)

This topic came up on the message board of the Thai Astronomical Society.

"นพเคราะห์"ลบ"พลูโต" เรียกว่าอะไร??

"The nine planets" minus Pluto. What do you call that?

หุหุ สงสัยครับ ว่า ถ้าดาวเคราะห์ ที่เมื่อก่อนมี9ดวง เลยเรียกดาว นพเคราะห์นั้น
เมื่อเปลี่ยนเป็น 8 ดวงแล้ว จะเรียกอะไร

เอ่อ หมายความว่า ใครเป็นคนเปลี่ยนคำเรียกนี้ กระทรวงศึกษา สมาคมดาราศาสตร์ กระทรวงวิทย์ หรือนายก???

Haha, I wonder. The planets were previously 9, so they were called นพเคราะห์ (the nine planets) Since they changed to eight planets, what will they be called?

Eh, I mean, who is the person changing the name? Ministry of Education? The Astronomical Society? The Ministry of [?] ???

The rest of the conversation is very interesting, but my curiosity is satisfied for today.

The Life and Times of ฃ

2009-03-03T23:25:00.000-05:00

Wikipedia can be quite the timesink for me. The Thai language version is proving just as bad.

While looking at the pages for various languages, I stumbled upon the one for ฃ, which is one of Thai's obsolete characters. It's wikipedia page is mammoth. While most ตัวอักษรไทย get three lines, ฃ gets its own novella.

I can read some of it, but several sentences in the first paragraph stymied me and it would take me a long while to work through the entire thing.

Here, at least, are the sections:

1. History of the usage of ฃ

1.1.Sukhothai period
1.2. Ayuthaya and Thonburi periods
1.3. Rattanakosin period

2. ฃ in northern dialect (Lassa)
3. ฃ compared with "goot" (क्ष) in Sanskrit
4. The disappearance of ฃ
5. ฃ Today

Oh man the suspense is killing me. What happened to poor ฃ? Will the perps be brought to justice?
Here is section 4, and my attempt at a translation.

นักภาษาศาสตร์ได้ศึกษาประวัติความเป็นมาของพยัญชนะ ฃ และสันนิษฐานว่า ฃ นั้นเดิมมีฐานเสียงที่แตกต่างจากฐานเสียงของ ข โดยมีลักษณะเสียงเป็น พยัญชนะลิ้นไก่อโฆษะ ซึ่งพบได้ในภาษาต่าง ๆ ในกลุ่มภาษาไท และภาษาอื่น ๆ กล่าวอีกอย่างหนึ่งก็คือ เสียง ฃ และ ฅ ในสมัยสุโขทัยนั้นออกเสียงลึกกว่าเสียง ข (ไข่) และ ค (ควาย) เวลาที่ออกเสียง ข (ไข่) และ ค (ควาย) โคนลิ้นแตะที่เพดานอ่อน ส่วน ฃ และ ฅ นั้น โคนลิ้นจะแตะที่ส่วนที่ถัดเพดานอ่อนเข้าไปอีก ซึ่งในปัจจุบันไม่มีเสียงนี้ในภาษาไทยมาตรฐาน นอกจากนี้จากงานค้นคว้าของนักวิชาการ 2 คน คือ Jean Burney กับ ศาสตราจารย์ยอร์ช เซเดส์ ซึ่งเปรียบเทียบกับภาษาลาวและภาษาไทถิ่นต่าง ๆ แล้วสรุปว่า ฃ กับ ฅ เป็นคนละเสียงกับ ข (ไข่) และ ค (ควาย)[11]

Linguists studied the history of ฃ and surmise that ฃ formerly had a (original sound?) different from the sound of ข, by being an unvoiced uvular consonant, which was found in other languages in the Tai family, and other languages. In other words, ฃ and ฅ were pronounced (deeper?) than ข and ค during the Sukhothai era. When pronouncing ข and ค, the base of the tongue touches the (soft palette?) As for ฃ and ฅ, the base of the tongue will touch the (front?) part of the (soft palette?) (repeatedly?). Today, this sound doesn't exist in standard Thai. Except from the research of two scholars, Jean Burney and ยอร์ช เซเดส์, who drew a comparison between Lao and various Tai dialects and summarized that ฃ and ฅ were different sounds from ข and ค.

ฐานเสียง- Just one of many linguistic terms I can't possibly translate at this point.
ลิ้นไก่ Uvula, literally "Chicken tongue"
กล่าวอีกอย่างหนึ่ง In other words

This is going well.

เป็นที่น่าสังเกตว่า ฃ มีใช้ในตำแหน่งที่เป็นพยัญชนะต้น ไม่ปรากฏในตำแหน่งตัวสะกดเลย นอกจากนี้ยังมีข้อที่น่าสังเกตว่าคำว่า "ขวด" ซึ่งเป็นชื่อของพยัญชนะตัวนี้ ก็ไม่เคยเขียนเป็น "ฃวด" มาก่อนเลย[35]

It is notable that ฃ is ranked as an upper-class consonant. It is never seen as a final consonant. Besides this, a notable point is that the word ขวด, which is the name of the consonant, was never written as ฃวด before.

ฃ และ ฅ เริ่มจะหายไปจากภาษาปัจจุบันนั้น เกิดจากลักษณะธรรมชาติของภาษาที่ว่าเสียงใดเป็นเสียงโดดเดี่ยว ไม่มีความสัมพันธ์กับพยัญชนะใดเป็นพิเศษจะเปลี่ยนแปลงเสียง หรือสูญเสียเสียงได้เร็วกว่าพยัญชนะที่มีความสัมพันธ์กันอย่างแน่นแฟ้น ยกตัวอย่าง เช่น ป ต จ ก อ มีความสัมพันธ์กันอย่างแน่นแฟ้น เพราะเป็นเสียงก้อง ไม่มีลม เนื่องจาก ฃ และ ฅ เป็นเสียงโดดเดี่ยว เมื่อเวลาผ่านไป ฐานที่เกิดขึ้นจาก ฃ และ ฅ จะเขยิบขึ้นมากลายเป็น ข และ ค ตามลำดับ[36]

(This paragraph has a lot of jargon and I've put words I don't fully understand in quotes.)
ฃ and ฅ began to disappear from the contemporary language. Due to the natural characteristic of language that any sound is a "single sound", there is no "relationship" between any "special" consonants that can change or lose sounds faster than consonants that have a "secure" "relationship". Examples like ป ต จ ก อ have a secure "relationship" because they are "loud" and unaspirated (lit. "have no breath"). Because ฃ and ฅ are single "sounds", as time passed, the "base" that came from ฃ and ฅ shifted to resemble ข and ค, respectively.

ส่วนสาเหตุที่ทำให้เลิกใช้ ฃ (ขวด) และ ฅ (คน) ไปอย่างสิ้นเชิงทีเดียวเลยนั้น คงเนื่องมาจากเครื่องพิมพ์ดีดภาษาไทยยุคแรกในปี พ.ศ. 2434 (สมัยรัชกาลที่ 5) นายเอ็ดวิน ฮันเตอร์ แมคฟาร์แลนด์ ได้ดัดแปลงเครื่องพิมพ์ดีดมาจากแบบของโรงงานสมิทพรีเมียร์ แต่มีแป้นพิมพ์ตัวอักษรไม่เพียงพอ และให้เหตุผลอีกว่า "เป็นพยัญชนะที่ไม่ค่อยได้ใช้ และสามารถทดแทนด้วยพยัญชนะตัวอื่นได้"[37] จึงต้องตัดพยัญชนะออก 2 ตัว คือ ฃ และ ฅ[25] ซึ่งศาสตราจารย์ยอร์ช เซเดส์ได้เขียนเล่าไว้ในหนังสือ "ตำนานอักษรไทย"[38]

As for the reason for the absolute ceased usage of ฃ and ฅ; It may be due to the Thai-language typewriter, which appeared in 1891. Mr. Edwin Hunter McFarland modified a Smith-Premiere typewriter, but the keyboard was not adequate, and he gave explained that "they are characters which are not often used and which can be replaced with other characters." So he had to remove two, ฃ and ฅ, which (some professor dude) wrote about in the book "History of the Thai Alphabet."

So. Mystery solved. It was Edwin Hunter McFarland. In the conservatory. With a typewriter.

การอพยพ

2009-03-02T18:51:00.000-05:00

Okay, it looks like I'm going to move this blog over to Wordpress.

That was surprisingly easy.

วีดีโอฆ่าดาราวีทยุ

2009-03-02T13:32:00.000-05:00

I was having trouble finding streaming Thai radio that worked well in Linux. (I use Ubuntu.)

Then I found the Nation Radio Network. Still can't get streaming to work, but it has a very handy archive of recent programs stacked on the lefthand side.

I should figure out what they are...

เก็บตกจากเนชั่น
"Get your information from Nesoon"
ชีพจรโลก
"Pulse of the World"
เงินทองต้องรู้
"Money (you?) must know"
คู่หู คู่ข่าว
Hmm. Overly literally, it's "Pair of ears, pair of news" But คู่หู means "intimate" or "trusted", so it's probably some sort of pun. "Trusted Pair in News"?
ออโต้ เซอร์วิส
Since the first bit would mean "Throng of buffets", I bet this is someone's name.
คลีนิค คนรักบ้าน
"Home Lover's 'Clinic'"
ก้าวทันเทคโนฯ
"Progress in Technology" (not confident on this)
ทันสถานการณ์
"Catch up with the situation" (that's overly literal)
ลับคมธุรกิจ
"Smart Secrets in Business"
ฮอตไลน์ สายสีรุ้ง
"Rainbow 'Hotline'" (Sounds gay.)
SME Thailand
Inside Line
เวที วิถีไทย
I can't even hazard a guess on this one.
แนะแนว แนะน้อง
"Advice (from?) Nae Nong" Nong is a kin term.
สุขกาย สบายใจ
"Healthy and Happy"
ถอดรหัสชีวิต
"Deciphering Life"
ตำนานเพลง
Either "Historical Songs" or "A History of Songs".

The names of radio programs are bound to be riddled with slang, so I don't have a lot of confidence in most of these translations.

จีซัม โครว

2009-02-27T19:12:00.004-05:00

มลรัฐเวอร์มอนต์ (Vermont) เป็นมลรัฐในสหรัฐอเมริกาตั้งอยู่ทางตะวันออกของประเทศ อยู่ในเขตนิวอิงแลนด์ ในอดีตรัฐเวอร์มอนต์เป็นที่อยู่อาศัยของอินเดียนแดงเผ่าอิโรควอยส์ เผ่าอัลกอนเควียน และเผ่าอเบนากิ โดยทางฝรั่งเศส*ได้ยึดครองมาในช่วงตั้งรกรากในสหรัฐอเมริกา และได้เสีย*ให้กับอังกฤษในช่วงสงครามในเวลาต่อมา

รัฐเวอร์มอนต์มีชื่อเสียงในด้านของวิวทิวทัศน์ที่สวยงาม และเป็นแหล่งท่องเที่ยวที่สำคัญแห่งหนึ่งรวมถึง*** สกีรีสอร์ตที่สำคัญหลายแห่ง**** เวอร์มอนต์ยังคงมีชื่อเสียงในด้านผลิตภัณฑ์จากวัวและเมเปิลไซรัป เมืองหลวงของรัฐคือ มอนต์เพเลียร์ และเมืองที่ใหญ่ที่สุดในรัฐคือ เบอร์ลิงตัน

ในปี 2550 เวอร์มอนต์มีประชากร 621,254 คน^[1]

Things I learned from the Thai wikipedia page on Vermont:

Native Americans are called Red "Indian"s, อินเดียนแดง.
I can read short Thai wikipedia pages without much difficulty! Holy shit!

Seriously, there were only a (large) handful of words I didn't get:

อดีต -former, previous
ยึดครอง -occupy, take possession of forcefully.
รกราก -residence
ดั้งรกราก -settle down, take up residence
ได้เสีย -gain and lose (interesting combination of two common words)
(วืว)ทิวทัศน์ -scenery
แหล่งท่องเที่ยว -Tourist location
รวมถึง -include
ผลิตภัณฑ์ -product/merchandise

Here is a stab at translating the entry. This is no doubt riddled with errors.

Vermont is a state in the United States, in the northeast part of the country. It's in the region of New England. In the past Vermont was home to the Native American tribes Iroquois, Algonquin, and Abenaki. France* occupied it during the establishment of the United States and lost it** to the English during the war afterwards.
Vermont is famous for its beautiful scenery and one important tourist location*** is the many ski resorts.**** Vermont remains famous for its dairy products* and "maple syrup". The capital of the state is Montpelier and the largest city is Burlington.
In the year 2007 Vermont had a population of 621,254.

*I'm not quite sure how to parse โดยทาง. I know the words, but the structure confuses me. I'm going to assume it basically means "by"- I think it says "By France it was occupied" but there's no passive marker.

**While ได้เสีย has the interesting "lose and gain" translation, on second look I'm assuming that ได้ is marking aspect, to match the previous clause's ได้ยึดครอง.

*** First time around I neglected to realize that แห่ง was a classifier (for locations).

**** This sentence took me a while to crack. (If I even have.)

* Literally "products from cows." A similar word is ผลิตภัณฑ์นม, "products from milk". I have no clue what difference in meaning they have.

Friday Vocab #1 (n=25)

2009-02-27T13:38:00.003-05:00

Well I plan on using this blog to facilitate my language study, so I should probably do that thing that I planned on doing.

I'm going to start a weekly vocab regimen.

I am going to enter them in to a Study Stack, which I will try to review daily over the course of the week. I'm going to start with 25 words, and adjust it upwards based on how well I do.

I will be doing Vietnamese words as well, of course, but I haven't quite figured out how to type in Vietnamese. It's surprisingly quite a pain in the ass.

Here are this weeks words!

ขยาย enlarge, magnify
ลงมือ start
ปกป้อง protect, keep safe
สมควร appropriate
ชัก to pull
ขุด to dig
ปลูก to plant
สดชื่น fresh/joyful
พิลึก strange
ซึม gloomy, unhappy
พันธ์ obligation
ล้าหลัง old fashioned
พวกพอ้ง friends
ครอง to rule
โหดร้าย heartless/ruthless
ดูดาย indifferent
ด่วน urgent, pressing
ร่าเริง happy, cheerfull
กลาย change/become
ตกใจ frightened
นำมือ skill
เกื้อกูล help, assist
ทึกทัก presume, assume
พรวดพราด quickly, abruptly
ลำบาก difficult, tough

Study Stack for Week 1

Biete Seele Such Gott!

2009-02-26T20:55:00.003-05:00

The Friendly Atheist has got his book translated in to German.

The English title is "I Sold My Soul on Ebay". The German is "Biete Seele Such Gott!"
From the comments:

It is an odd title indeed. It’s two imperatives: “Offer (your) soul; Seek God!”

“What an atheist experienced in Christian Communities.”

Is that really what you want to have as the initial impression for people who pick up this book in the store?

The conversation is rather interesting. I don't know a lick of German, unfortunately.

Thai vs Vietnamese: Round One

2009-02-26T13:53:00.001-05:00

I have taken the first tentative steps in to Vietnamese.

Hoo boy.

The tones are interesting. There are six (in the Hanoi dialect), compared to Thai's five. Three of them seem to roughly match Thai's mid, rising, and falling tones. The other three, however, include glottal stops! Very interesting.
The tones are quite easy to write. Thai has a very elegant and insane method to mark tones, involving three classes of consonants, live and dead syllables, long and short vowels, and tone markers. Vietnamese does it much more simply: Each tone has a diacritic, and it is placed over (or in one case, under) the vowel of the syllable.

I'm not sure how to approach the writing system. Tiếng Việt is written in a modified Latin alphabet (like English), and it's very difficult to scan without subconsciously pronouncing it as I do English. I haven't had this problem since Latin class in high school. I do have a vague understanding of the differing orthography of some European languages- but this comes from familiarity with loan words. Vietnamese's phonology is unlike any European language's (or, apparently, Thai's.) So it being written in a Latin script is almost the opposite of helpful.

I need to somehow suppress my instincts until I am comfortable with the spoken language. I should probably seek out an audio-only course of some sort. Teach Yourself Vietnamese has a nice exposition of tones and phonetics, but it's a lot to take in.

Last time I started studying a new language (Arabic), I quickly realized how much Thai I actually already knew, and decided to put my effort in to that language. I hope I don't do that this time, but starting from scratch is honestly a bit daunting.

tiếng Việt

2009-02-25T14:04:00.001-05:00

I have decided to start learning Vietnamese.

This is mainly for pragmatic reasons. My study of Thai was precipitated by a visit to Thailand. I continued studying basically for the hell of it- I enjoyed it. But Vermont is a long ways from Thailand, and I don't currently have the means to return there. Basically, my Thai is useless for the time being. After a long period of consideration, I've decided to take a stab at Vietnamese. I like Vermont, and Vietnamese is spoken in my area by a considerable minority. It's simply more practical in the short term than Thai. If I have to "force" myself to study a 2nd language, it is the obvious choice. There will be more opportunity in learning it and more opportunity for using it. Also, it's geographically close to Thai, and shares many traits, like being tonal and analytic/isolating. I should have some familiarity with most of the grammatical concepts, although they are used differently.

I'm going to try and approach Vietnamese differently from Thai. Perhaps I can learn from my mistakes? I'm going to try and emphasize the spoken language. With Thai, my reading far outstrips my listening. I don't want to repeat this imbalance. I also will look in to formal instruction, and adopt a more structured (and more social) study regimen.

I plan to continue my Thai study as a serious hobby (this blog will still be titled ฝรั่งงง) but I'm going to attempt, for the time being, to put the majority of my effort into tiếng Việt.

Well, hello there.

2009-02-24T14:11:00.003-05:00

After some dabbling, I've decided to "launch" this silly blog. I'm going to shoot for the modest goal of three posts per week. Topics will include: me babbling about Thai; me babbling about Vietnamese; and maybe me babbling about other language-related stuff. I have no authority or qualifications, and will not be attempting to "teach" anything. The focus will be on the process and progress of my personal language study, and anything interesting that comes out of it.

Coming up, I plan on doing some contrasting and comparing between the Thai and Vietnamese languages, as I take my first steps into the later.

In search of 一番

2009-02-23T18:54:00.000-05:00

I am rather ashamed to admit I bought a shirt at a thrift store which had a "Chinese character" blazed across the front. I first felt guilty for not knowing the meaning of the character, but then I became worried it was just fake. How does one go about looking up Chinese characters? Or could it be Kanji? I have very little knowledge of either Chinese or Japanese. I only know the basics of the structure in Chinese- each character is (usually? always?) one morpheme and one syllable. I also know that characters are broken down in to "radicals" for collation purposes.

Searching with the radical 由 plus 5-7 strokes, I found 番. The definition given is "take turns, repeat." A Kanji search gives ばん as the Hiragana form. It means "many". But wait- this character, 番, isn't correct- my shirt has a horizontal line above it.

Breakthrough! The character for "one" is a horizontal line (in both Chinese and Japanese, apparently.) If stacked vertically, 一番 is my character. In Japanese, it means "first, top, best", written in Hiragana as いちばん and pronounced "ichiban". The same two characters don't seem to form a word or phrase in Chinese. (Perhaps it just means "one turn"- but that's a wild guess.)

So in conclusion, my shirt apparently says "Number One" in Japanese on it. Also: logographic writing systems are scary, but apparently not impossible to figure out.

For the record, "first" in Thai is ที่หนื่ง or แรก.

ภาษาดางๆ

2009-02-21T18:42:00.004-05:00

I find these mystery language quizzes very amusing.
Reminds me of House.

Translations of "My Hovercraft is full of eels."

The Thai version is:
โฮเวอร์คราฟท์ของผมเต็มไปด้วยปลาไหล
It uses the masculine pronoun ผม, a female discussing her hovercraft infestation would say:
โฮเวอร์คราฟท์ของฉันเต็มไปด้วยปลาไหล

I assume that you could use เรา to be non-gender-specific. เรา can represent both 1st and 2nd person, singular and plural. I don't really know which way it would be interpreted in a hypothetical sentence with no context.

Also I have to note that the transliteration given for ไหล is "lhai". This is an over-literal transliteration. The ห [h] is silent; It only lends the syllable its inherent rising tone. Which is normally transliterated with a diacritic. (This youtube video has a great explanation of ห.)

This is why I generally avoid transliteration. I know I should use it on this site, to make it more accessible. But it's simply much easier for me to use อักษรไทย.

เก้าสิบสองคำ

2009-02-20T16:10:00.003-05:00

I'm so crap with vocab, but I did some work recently.
As I read the 2nd to last story in my comic, I jotted down every word I had to look up (something that obviously I should always do, but until recently it would have been a slog). There were "only" ~92, which worked out to 4.5 per page. Which is a meaningless number without the numbers of words to a page, but I don't even know how you'd go about counting words in Thai. Is ใจจดใจจ่อ four words, or one? Or two?

The definitions are taken from my SE-ED pocket dictionary, (I was offline at the time.) I tried to write down the applicable definitions, and only the applicable definitions. One of my rules is to not attempt to memorize words I don't have a context for.

นพเคราะห็ The 9 planets (they'll have to change this- นพ means nine)
จักรวาล universe
ลดลง decrease
ขยาย enlarge, magnify
ปกคลุม cover, spread
กอง pile/crowd (class.?)
ทันที promptly
ลงมือ start
จัดการ take care of
สมควร appropriate
ห้อมล้อม surround
เด็ด pick (fruit)
ชัก pull
อ่อน soft/young
แสงแดด sunlight
ปลูก to plant
สาร substance
พืช plant
อิสระ freely
สดชื่น fresh/joyful
ผสม mix
พลัง power
จำ remember, memorize
พิลึก strange
สมกับ worthy of, suitable for
ซึม gloomy/unhappy
บัง hide/block view
ใจจดใจจ่อ determined
เดิมที at first/formerly
อดสู ashamed
พฤกษ plant, flora
กล่าว speak/declare
พันธ็ to bind, obligation
วัวฒนากาน evolution
ล้าหลัง old fashioned
พ้อง the same, alike
พวกพ้อง friends
ประสบ meet, encounter
ครอง to rule
โค่น to fell, topple
แย่ง(ชิง) snatch, grab
แถม additionally
สกปรก dirty, obscene
ขืน force, insist
สญสิ้น lost, used up
โหดร้าย heartless, ruthless
ดูดาย indifferent
ช่วยเหลือ help/aid
ด่วน urgent, pressing
หายใจ breath
อาบ bathe
ร่าเริง happy, cheerful
กลาย change/become
ตกใจ frightened
คืน return/bring back
แผนกาน plot/scheme (n)
ขน move, transport
โล้น bald/bare
สิ่ง thing
อำเภอใจ freedom, permission
ขอร้อง ask/beg/plead
อีกไม่นาน soon
นำมือ own hands/skill
ฝ่าย side/faction
โปรด to favor, to like
กรุณา mercy
ชิง snatch
ปกป้อง protect, keep safe
ศัตรู enemy, foe
เกื้อกูล help, assist
ดำรงชีวิต live, subsist
เติบโต grow, flourish
ขนถ่าย transmit
ดูด suck in, absorb
รายงาน report
อารยธรรม civilization
เจริญ grow, prosper
ทึกทัก presume/assume
คัดค้าน oppose/object
กระแส stream, current
จืต mind (n)
พรวดพราด quickly, abruptly
ถอนตัว withdraw from
อวกาศ space
รู่งเรือง brilliant/prosperous
ลำบาก difficult/tough
ปลอดภัย safe, secure
มัว gloomy, dim/engaged
เถลไถล stroll, dilly-dally
ป่านนี้ now, the present
หวุดหวิด nearly, by inches
วอดวาย ruined, destroyed

Rosetta Stone

2008-12-30T14:45:00.004-05:00

My dad bought me the Rosetta Stone ไทย Level 1 program for Christmas. I'd heard about Rosetta Stone, of course, but didn't know much about it; I heard it was overpriced but that's all. It's pretty interesting. No English is used, and no romanization. It simply gives you lines of Thai (spoken and written) with corresponding pictures (or vice versa.) It does it in a clever order that lets you infer the meaning of words, and it slowly builds in complexity. The first few lessons are elementary to me, but the structured repetition is just what I need to drill things in to my brain. I think it will help enormously with remembering simple sentence structure (I get confused on placement of กัน, for instance), classifiers, and pronunciation... and no doubt a lot of other things.

While I appreciate the lack of romanization, the program conveys absolutely no phonetic infomation. Since Thai is a tonal language with a complicated orthography and no spaces between words, I think the program would be pretty difficult for someone starting from scratch. Similarly, all the grammar is learned from inference- nothing is explicetly "taught". This is a different approach from what I'm used to- I'm interested to see how I do with it.

RS comes with a headset, which can supposedly be used to record your voice. It shows the waveform and pitch of both the speaker's example and your attempts. Supposedly. I haven't really gotten it to work well.

Verdict? Looks like a great study tool. ขอบคุณพ่อ

คุณผู้ฟังที่รัก

2008-12-13T14:56:00.004-05:00

Thai music came. I really love DOObaDOO. Modern Dog is more standard alt-rock but it's defiently listenable.

I obviously can't understand much of the lyrics; it sounds like a babble of vaguely familiar words. The only phrases I've gleamed on early listens is กี่วันกี่คืน ("How many days? How many nights?") and the ubiquitous ฉันรักเทอ ("I love you"). More will come...

เกาะ

2008-11-29T14:32:00.005-05:00

Quick update:

Still working through Thai for Advanced Readers. Just finished 1st go at the last reading; now it's on to newspaper articles, translations not included. It's been going pretty well; the vocabulary is difficult but I've been able to grasp most of it. Once in a while there's a sentence I can't grok even after checking the translation, but it's really just once in a while.

As for listening: currently watching Rak Nee Hua Jai Rao Jong; the two characters are stranded on a desert island. Wacky hijinks ensue. Still only grasping words here and there.

Bought two CDs from eThaiCD.com. Doobadoo and Modern Dog. Putting some Thai music in my iPod rotation should help things.

ทามโบย

2008-11-04T17:02:00.006-05:00

I'm on the 5th episode of a Thai "lakorn" (prime-time soap opera mini-series?) called หัวใจ (heart of) Chocolate. Started watching to improve my "ear" for the spoken language and it's helped a lot. But I've also honestly gotten sucked in to the story. The destied couple is kind of boring but I like the tomboy and the "wacky" guy that talks fast.

I mostly read the subtitles and try to anticipate what will be said. They're fan-made and sort of overly literal, which is actually a bonus. I can now "hear" common phrases pretty consistantly,. (Noticing a lot of english loanwords peppered in- "tomboy" being one!) Any sentence longer than a few words and I can only catch bits and pieces. Which is to be expected, obviously. My vocab is scant and even if I know every word in a sentence, that doesn't mean I can parse the grammar quickly enough. ANOTHER problem is the frequent use of names as pronouns, so you have to remember each character's name. Which are usually short and mistakable for words. But getting tuned to the sounds is making my reading faster and that's helping the other areas. Still should do some vocab drills though! Half-assed and haphazard is right.

Also argh I learned ร as a trilled [r], knowing it sometimes was pronounced [l], but it seems [l] is more common so I need to adjust for this. The dropping of the 2nd consonants in consonant clusters also vexes me. But OH WELL that's the way language works, there's no "standard."

Been reading on linguistics recently. I'll try to write some posts connecting the things I'm learning to Thai. Some of it is esoteric and more interesting than useful to me, but some of it really helps snap things into focus. Obviously you can learn a language while knowing nonce about how it works: all children aquire spoken language automatically. But as busy adults, I'm starting to think a passing knowledge in linguistics really helps.

The aspects of Aspect

2008-10-28T19:10:00.004-04:00

Aspect!
In English, tense and aspect are usually conflated. Thai doesn't grammatically mark tense at all, but it has an "extremely rich" system for marking aspect. ARGT outlines 19 "aspectual auxiliaries."

This is an exercise identical to the one I did on pragmatic particles- I've hunted for "real" examples of usage from my Doraemon manga. My standard disclaimer of "I don't know what I'm doing" applies to both my translations and interpretations of my reference grammar's explanations.

I've bolded the auxileries and bolded the words they translate to, when applicable. Often it's just not possible.

Perfective:
1. _แล้ว
This shouldn't be confused with the perfect/anterior usage of แล้ว (see below @ 11.) It "shouldn't", but honestly, I'm finding the distinction difficult to understand in certain contexts. I may have this example backwards.
Anyway, in this form, it indicates a completed event. Sometimes translated in ARGT with "after".

อ๋อ...! นายกินโกหก 800 เข้าไป... แล้วพูดว่าฉันคงไม่ได้กลับมาแล้วใช่มั้ยล่ะ
"Oh! You drank the Liar 800... and said that I wouldn't return, right?"

Notice the 2nd use of แล้ว, which I believe is the #11 usage. I'm probably overthinking this, because I do seem to grasp the meaning in either use. It doesn't really matter that I can't discern the precise linguistic difference.

Imperfective:
2. _อยู่
This is "used post-verbally for all types of continuous aspect". Other pre-verbal auxiliaries can be used in conjunction- ARGT details กำลัง, ยัง, นั่ง, and คอย.

อยู่ can be used on it's own.

ทำไมนอนซีมอยู่ล่ะ
"Why is it sleeping?"

กำลัง _ (อยู่)
"Emphasises a continuous situation"

ฉันกำลังคิดอยู่เหมือนกัน!
"I'm thinking the same way!"

ยัง _ (อยู่)
"Indicates no change in a situation."

เปโรก็จะยังมีชีวิตอยู่
"Then Perro will still be alive."

3. นั่ง _ (อยู่)
This is used with either stative or "low-energy" verbs and must have a human subject.

นั่งเหม่อลอยทุกวันเลย
"You're absentminded every day."

(This is a bad example, as นั่ง also means "sit" and can be interpreted as a serial verb- this is more probably "You sit here absentminded every day." ARGT notes the ambiguity.)

4. คอย (อยู่)

คอย also means "wait" but I couldn't find any example of it being used aspectually.

5. _ไป
ไป is a very common verb, but here it's used as a "continuative" auxilery which implies more deliberate continuation than the regular progressive aspect.

ดูไปสิ
"Keep watching!"

(There is another usage of ไป, (see #13) but the contexts are so different you can't confuse them.)

8. กำลังจะ _ อยู่
Inceptive. "refers to the phase which leads to, or may lead to, an event."

กำลังจะไปโรงเรียนต่างหาก
"You're about to go to school on your own."

9. จวนจะ _
This is similar but "can be used for a less intentional event with inanimate subjects."

10. _ จบ, _ เสร็จ
Terminative- "finish doing". จบ focuses on "completion", while เสร็จ focuses on "the ending of an activity, not necessarily the completion."

พองานเสร็จแล้วจะเอาลงให้นะครับ
"When our task is done, we'll take you down."

(I don't see how this differs from just being a resultative sequential verb but oh well.)

Perfect/Anterior

11. _ แล้ว
This is what ARGT says: "Perfect/anterior aspect concerns the 'relevance' of a particular situation with respect to the current situation." It translates the examples with the word "have", as in "I have eaten" vs "I ate."

ลูกสัญญาไว้กับโดราจังแล้วนี่นา
"You had promised Doraemon this."

With stative verbs (adjectives), it "indicates that the critical point has been reached".

คราวนี้จะเอาจริงแล้ว
"Now I'm serious."

รู้แล้ว
"I know!" ("Eureka!")

12. มา
Similar to the previously mentioned แล้ว but doesn't fall at the end of the sentence. In some cases emphasizes the fact that a situation has been continuing up to the reference time."

ฉันเลี้งมาตั้งแต่เป็นไข่เชียวนะ
"I raised it since it was an egg."

13. _ ไป
When used with "destruction or disappearance" verbs, this emphasizes the destruction or disappearance.

ช้างหายไปแล้ว
"The elephant is gone!"

14. _ (ไป)เสีย
"Indicates that an event has taken place completely with an irreversible result."

ไม่ได้พบลูกเสียนาน
"I couldn't find you for the longest time."

This is another swiss-army word, so I'm not 100% on this one.

15. _ ไว้
"Indicates a completed event which is considered beneficial in the future."

ปีที่แล้วสัญญาไว้แล้วนี่
"Last year you promised!"

16. เพิ่ง(จะ) _
An action that has just happened- "immediate perfect/anterior"

ก็เพิ่งได้รับอิสระครั้งแรกนี่จ๊ะ
"He's just recieved freedom for the first time."

17. เคย_
"have an experience of doing". Basically "ever."

เราเคยมีความสุขกันแบบนี้
"We once were happy (had happiness) like this."

Inchoactive

18. ได้ _
When ได้ is pre-verbal, it basically means "get to do" (the more common post-verbal usage conveys ability.)

แล้วผมก็ได้อพยพไปที่บ้านนอกพร้อมกับครอบครัว
"And I got to evacuate to the countryside with my family.

It seems more common in the negative, where it "normally refers to the past time frame." IIRC, it often sort of acts like a general past-tense, which is why I'm not translating the following sentence with "get".

แมวไม่ได้พูดจริงๆ
"The cats weren't speaking truthfully."

The translation doesn't really contain any hint of the inchoactive ได้, but its effects is there. If you take ได้ out of the sentence, you get แมวไม่พูดจริงๆ, "The cats aren't speaking truthfully." The inchoactive ได้ defiently alters the aspect, marking the event (the cats lying) as completed.

19. _ ขึ้น & _ ลง
"Change-of-state" verbs that apply to stative verbs (adjectives). The former means "increase" and the later "decrease", although they act differently on some words.

ลมชักแรงขึ้นแล้ว
The wind's strength has increased.

พอสงครามสงบลง
Then, the war ended. (Lit: got quieter (สงบลง).

This text appears over a mushroom cloud. Assuming that สงบ acts the same as it's synonym เงียบ, these auxs have an interesting effect. With ขึ่น it "implies that the degree of silence has increased" while with ลง that "the degree of noise has decreased". Seems an apropos way to describe the effect of an atomic bomb.

Next: Question-word-questions, which are giving me a bit of trouble due to their ability to also be indefinite expressions.

ลึลๆ ในใจ

2008-10-17T10:17:00.004-04:00

This is the first Thai song to get stuck in my head. I found it on eThaiMusic and on first 23 listens I didn't understand anything but the chorus. But yesterday I combed through the lyrics and realized there was only a handful of words I didn't know. Otherwise, after one read-through, I could comprehend the lyrics completely. I think this has been very helpful in connecting the written word to the spoken.

As for the written word: I've gotten to the point where the Doraemon comic book is starting to actually seem like the children's comic book it is. Parts are still challenging, but I'm taking a break from it. I picked up Thai for Advanced Readers for the first time in a while and was surprised to find how much easier it is. I'm confident my reading is good enough to work through it until the end. (I'd made it about halfway before.)

exciting opportunities in rote memorization

2008-10-14T00:25:00.002-04:00

I just discovered Study Stack.

The site is a little clunky, but it's awesome.

It lets you import simple simple data... and generates a bunch of helpful or stupid study aids. It's absolutely *perfect* for studying vocabulary. I've inputed a lot of margin notes.

I have 80+ words in the stack now. I figure I'll weed out words as I learn them (already a few, like หนี, I have down) and add new ones as needed. Also trying to use mnemonics to memorize vocab (never tried this.)

ฟัง

2008-10-13T15:55:00.006-04:00

I've made an effort to include more listening in my studies. I have neglected the spoken language and it is messing things up- it's just not natural to be able to read a language better than you hear it.

I've been going through eThaiMusic's list of songs. I used to have trouble following along; now I'm pretty fluent (with the script, *not* comprehension.) The majority of the songs are bad love songs, but the upshot is they use a simple vocabulary and I am able to comprehend bits without much effort. Mostly though I'm concerned with tuning my ear to the spoken language. When I listen to colloquial Thai it's pretty opaque, which is really annoying.

Also a friend tuned me into Crunchy Roll, which has Thai movies with English subtitles. I'd only seen a few (6ixtynin9, Tears of the Black Tiger) through Netflix's paltry online selection, but they are damn helpful.

Also been trying to reach out and be more active online. I am currently in conversation with a girl from Bangkok, we're going to try some language exchange. I really have no clue how it will work, but it should be fun.

Still at the grammar and reading Doraemon. Read an entire story in one sitting today. But I've been so bad about studying vocab. I'm absorbing a trickle but really I need to get serious and learn some words.

Pragmatic Particles

2008-10-06T18:45:00.009-04:00

I've come up with a productive exercise- summarizing chapters from my reference grammar (A Reference Grammar of Thai, ARGT) by finding examples in my Doraemon manga (which is the only natural text I have which I can read.)

This post regards pragmatic particles, a topic I had previously pretty much ignored. Bad idea- these are intrinsic to the language. Chapter 15 of ARGT details 14 PPs. They are distinct from speech-level (politeness) and question particles

Since I don't use phonetic transcriptions, and they're a pain to type (all the accents), I'm going to stick with Thai, even though there's a lot of pronunciation variability. On some the initial consonant is sometimes dropped, meaning ล่ะ and น่ะ are both sometimes pronounced อ่ะ.

Also the variations listed in the reference grammar aren't exhaustive.
Also a general "I don't know what I'm doing" disclaimer applies to my translations.

General particles.
These work with statements/questions, and commands.

1. น่ะ / นะ / นา
Common ground. This particle is extremely common. When it's directly translated in ARGT, they use phrases like "okay?", "you know?", "isn't it?", "right?"
Apparently, the high tone "tends to solicit a response"; the low tone is more forceful.

หวังว่าคงถูกคนดีๆ มาเก็บไปนะ
"I hope they might be taken by a good person."

นายทำอะไรน่ะ
"What did you do?"

2. สิ / ซิ
"The primary function of this particle is to confirm information with some authority in tone."
This seems to be most common in commands and replies.

มาช่วยกันจับหน่อยซี่
"Come help me grab it."

ดูไปสิ
"Keep watching."

3. เลย
"Emphasizes the excessiveness of the situation as the speaker sees it"
I thought it was just an intensifier (like จัง) but I guess it's more subjective. It can also be used in commands.

นั่งเหม่อลอยทุกวันเลย
"(You) sit around absent-minded every day."

ตรงดิ่งมาเลย
"It's coming directly (at us)."

4. เชียว
Similar to เลย, but also can indicate surprise or suspicion-confirmation.

ฉันเลี้ยงมาตั้งแต่เป็นไข่เชียวนะ
"I've raised it from when it was an egg."

5. ซะ
Derived from/shortened form of เสีย, and acts like an aspect marker... unless it's a command, then it's a "mild encourangement" PP.

ถ้าเจ็บละก็หัดหลอกคนอื่นซะบ้างซี่
"If you're hurt, then practice fooling some other people."

Information-oriented particles
These are limited to statements and questions.

6. ล่ะ / เล่า
"Elaboration request," usually used with questions.

ของฝากล่ะครับ
"Presents!" (What'd you bring me?!)

คิดเรื่องโกหกอะไรได้ล่ะ
"What fib could you think up?" (mockingly)

7. และ / แหละ
(This is where this gets confusing.)
This is derived from แล้ว, and when used with a verb/adjective, it has its original perfect/anterior aspectual usage.
But when used after a "verb/adjective phrase or a noun phrase", it indicates that the noun concept it follows is the "focused element" or the "sole alternative."

ถ่าไม้หายก็จะอยู่แบบนี้แหละ
"If he isn't better, then it'll stay this way."

ก็อพยพหนีลูกกระเบิดนั่นแหละ
"So that we could flee those bombs."

8. ล่ะ / ละ / (and หละ ?)
Similar to #7 (and a homonym of #6), but conveys "the speaker's evaluation of the inevitability of an action."

เอาลงไปในรังแล้วหละ
"We need to go down into the nest."

(ARGT notes that while ล่ะ is derived from แล้ว, it has become a distinct word- this is an example of them co-existing.)

9. หรอก
Counter argument; correct assumption. Usually used with a negative statement.

พวกฉันไม่มีเวลาทำแบบนั้นหรอก
"No, we don't have time to do it that way."

10. นี่
Discovery- points out a critical fact just discovered.

โดราเอมอนไม่กลับมาแล้วนี่
"Doraemon hasn't returned yet."

11. ไง
directing attention- to an object or fact

ที่ทำให้เข้มแข็งขึ้นไง
"(something) that will give me more strength."

12. แน่ะ
Similar to #11, but also used to emphasize "notable amounts" when there is a quantity expression.

เพี่อนมาเรียกแน่ะ
"My friends are calling me."

(Since this sentence doesn't contain any quantity, I'm not sure if the "notable amount" meaning applies, but it would fit the context- "my friends are calling me a lot", or something like that.)

13. ล่ะมั้ง / มั้ง
Guesstimation.

กลับมาก่อนแล้วมั้ง
"Maybe he already returned."

Action-oriented particles
These (well, ARGT only mentions one) are only used with commands.

14. ถอะ / เถอะ / เหอะ
Hortative ("lets")

ตัดใจซะเถอะ
"Let it go!"

ไปช่วยกันเถอะ
"Let's go help!"

ARGT further details a common combination, นี่ + น่ะ, which is usually mushed together into:

15. (นี่ + น่ะ =) เนี้ย เนี่ย เงี้ย

อะไรเนี่ย
"What's this!?"

I am now really sick of particles! Next: aspect (which I have mostly finished) and then probably question-word questions.

Translating Doraemon

2008-09-22T19:17:00.006-04:00

"สุนัขจิ้งจอก" is used repeatedly in the Doraemon story I'm working through. It wasn't in my dictionary, and I assumed it meant something like "hallucinating". But apparently it just means "fox". Hah oops.

The first couple pages of the story are difficult- Doraemon produces the "magic leaf", which does the following when you place it on your head: พลังจิตก็จะแผ่ออกมา. I'm pretty sure this a if-then type sentence. If พลังจิต, then แผ่ออกมา. The former means "brain power" and I'm not sure about the second. Something like "spread out" or "emerge"? If I had to guess, I'd say the leaf makes you smarter- expand brainpower, or something. I'm not sure at all, but that's fine. I know I'm going to encounter stuff I just can't make heads or tails of. I'm more worried about building basic vocab at this point.

Anyway, the leaf only works on dogs, and it only works on emo dogs. So they find the most pitiful dog... that's as far as I've gotten.

I'm only positive that สุนัขจิ้งจอก actually refers to a real fox because at one point Doraemon says "สุนัขจิ้งจอกก็เป็นสุนัขประเภทหนี่งน่ะ"- "The sòo-nák jîng-jòk(fox) is just one sort of sòo-nák (~canine). I'm thinking there must be some trickster fox spirit in Japanese folklore?

Doraemon Vocab #1

2008-09-17T15:14:00.004-04:00

need to start drilling myself on vocabulary. I'm going to start with 20 words a week and adjust from there.
These are taken from the Doraemon manga; basically it's a list of the words I had to look up as I read the 2nd story.

อพยพ migrate/evacuate
หนี escape
ใด้ยิน hear
ซาก corpse/debris
ไฟไหม้ fire
เป็นห่วง to worry
สงบ to be quiet
เชื่อง tame/gentle
ลินชัก drawer
ย้อม to return/retrace
คำสั่ง order/instruction
ประหลาด strange
เงียบ silent
กรง cage
ผอม skinny/emaciated
ซีโครง rib
ว้าก (exclamation)
ยาพิษ poison
ปน to mix
ใจร้าย cruel
อาสะวาด disturb/cause trouble

หนังสือ

2008-09-15T19:20:00.002-04:00

As a first post, here is a quick summary of the Thai books I own and have used in my self-study. (Roughly in order of purchase.)

Teach Yourself Thai (with CDs)- David Smyth

This was what I used to get myself off the ground. In terms of reading, I've outgrown it.

Thai: An Essential Grammar- David Smyth

(I never noticed this was written by the same guy.)

โดราเอมอน (Doraemon) Big Book 3: โ อ๊ะโห... สุดจะซึ้ง (purchased in Thailand)

A Thai manga I bought in Thailand. I can read a good percentage. Even though my vocab is horrible, my grammar is solid enough that I can follow the stories without using reference.

SE-ED's Modern Thai-English Dictionary Mini Edition (purchased in Thailand)

My only problem with this is the lack of pronunciation info.

Thai for Advanced Readers- Benjawan Poomsan Becker

I dug into this prematurely, but it really helped me progress. I've worked through maybe half of it so far.

A Reference Grammar of Thai- Shoichi Iwasaki and Preeya Ingkaphirom

This is very linguistics-orientated (and expensive), but it's by far my favorite resource.