Spelling Bee

[Mav]

What is the correct way to spell that word we luv to hear:

Which is it ?

Thirak ?
Tellac ?
Teerak ?
Tiillac ?................plus the 47 other ways l have seen it spelt

[IRISH JONNY]

IT USUALLY BEGINS WITH T AND ENDS WITH K.....THEN YOU HAVE SOME Es,Ls,Rs ,As IN BETWEEN...........AS YOU SAID
.LOTS OF DIFFERENT SPELLINGS BUT THE SAME MEANING........JONNY

[Mik72]

Originally Posted by Mav

Which is it ?

Up to you

[Nicke]

The problem with Thai is that can be written in many different ways.

But the most standard way of writing this would be like
tirak
narak

I asked a Thai translator before I registered tirak.net domain name.

[LivinLOS]

Thai translitered way = Tirak
Phonetic to English = Tilak

I tend to use the phonetic spelling but Thais invert thier L's and R's somehow...

[Schmeen]

Depends on who....a properly educated person who can form their 'r' and doesn't submit to laziness would correctly pronounce it with an 'r'

Watch the news...always perfectly formed 'r's on there

[plahgat]

If you translate the thai-letters correctly, it should be: Teerak, because thai wovels can be either long or short. In this word it is a long ee- sound ,short one written as a I, like in Italy. Some thais can't pronounce the R-sound, they substitute it with an L-sound.

[Mav]

Hmmmm........getting a few different answers here

[mikegb]

Originally Posted by Mav

Hmmmm........getting a few different answers here

Hi,

You have answered your own question.

Unless you can read the thai alphabet properly, then it is a waste of time. It is total bollocks to change thai into english phonetics. It DOESNT work, EVER.

You can get by with a few words that are close. Trying to go a bit deeper and you waste your time.

[Mav]

Thanx Mike, yes l am slowly starting to understand that !

[LivinLOS]

DM, has said it.. The English language cannot correctly represent the full range of sounds that are used in Asian languages (we think its tough to have 5 'tones' high / middle / low / rising / falling, I read recently that Khamer dialects use 7 tones so you have to be able to differentiate between things like high and mid high !!!! Very hard initially for the western ear to pick up the nuances of a tonal language as we are simply not wired to listen to that).. Just ask you woman to tell you the wors for near and far and then try not to scream at the insanity of opposite words sounding like that

Transliteration is 'the best guess' system for example the question word (mai) is a rising sound and is transliterated as above as in general a westerner will create a rising sound from an ai and a falling tone (or at lest a low) from a 'my'... My Thai is still crap but I was atounded when a contact of mine who has done the language course two seasons and still was struggling took a reading and writing course.. He claimed in 2 weeks to be able to read most Thai (even if he could not understand the words he read) and his spoken Thai just jumped a whole league ahead.. If you have the time combining learning the script seems to have a real advanatge for those that want to get ahead in really speaking this fairly tough language..

[Schmeen]

There is actually a very precise waty of transliterating Thai as laid out by Phrabat Somdet Phra Chulachomklaochaoyuhua. It is used for examples on road signes etc, though you'll still see variations of it.

There are some main rules that are worth remembering

a 'h' after the initial consenant has the opposite effect that it does in English....it hardens the sound rather than softens it....eg Phuket

a 'k' without a h is a g sound, there is no words starting with 'g' in official transliteration (now prove that one wrong, but I cannot think of any when done correctly)

there are some other good rules to remember I'll add them as I think of them and have more time.

and yes - the insanity of near and far...even now i have a problem...i know the difference in the pronounciation, but for the life of me I can never remember which is which, as a result I always leave the conversation, when forced to use them, as fast as possible

[Schmeen]

In addition I must say following 'correct' transliteration is far easier when you know the Thai spelling, hence putting in the equivelant letter required, which again leads to the wise words in the second paragraph above.

[Mav]

Good to see we have some educated BM's here, and we are not all just drunks and fanny merchants !

[LivinLOS]

Hey, I resemble that remark !!!!



Yes there are specific rules to transliteration but I think they (IMHO) work in one way only.. Eg there are rules to convert the 44 (or 46 ?) Thai letters into English letters but the range of English letters simply fail to correctly indicate tonal shifts, hence the (correctly ruled) transliterated Thai can still be missread.

I would have suggested that along with transliteration getting the word correct there could be additional characters added in the same way as umlouts etc to indicate

Low = line under a letter
mid or continue previous tone = nothing
High = Line above letter
Rising = a small / above letter
Falling = a small \ below letter

This would create words that any novice would look at and could read and the added dashes could give the tone.. Perhaps thats just too logical..

The mai mai mai mai mai sentance then would include all the additional data required to correctly pronounce the words..

[mikegb]

Originally Posted by LivinLOS

Hey, I resemble that remark !!!!



Yes there are specific rules to transliteration but I think they (IMHO) work in one way only.. Eg there are rules to convert the 44 (or 46 ?) Thai letters into English letters but the range of English letters simply fail to correctly indicate tonal shifts, hence the (correctly ruled) transliterated Thai can still be missread.

I would have suggested that along with transliteration getting the word correct there could be additional characters added in the same way as umlouts etc to indicate

Low = line under a letter
mid or continue previous tone = nothing
High = Line above letter
Rising = a small / above letter
Falling = a small \ below letter

This would create words that any novice would look at and could read and the added dashes could give the tone.. Perhaps thats just too logical..

The mai mai mai mai mai sentance then would include all the additional data required to correctly pronounce the words..

Hi LL,

I actually have a Thai phrasebook which uses roughly the system that you have just described. I started to look at the phrasebook a bit 'deeper' to try and understand their way of representing Thai, but then I thought to myself
"Am I daft? Bollocks to learning a way of representing Thai in English. Why dont I just learn the Thai symbols and sounds they make in the first place"

I have to be honest and say I havent bothered my ar.se very much at all over the past year, but in all honesty. it probably took me about 1 month, just doing about 20 minutes a day to become 'ok' at reading and writing Thai.

(still havent got a clue what the fcuk it all means though )

[Schmeen]

LL

I agree, and there are several courses that use that system....one is the Linguaphone cousre, a popular and very expensive course from the UK, I think their system is the best and simplest I have ever seen. The second course I have is the US Military's course, which was given to me by one of their Linguistics experts many moons ago. This guy was incredible....fluent in Thai, Vietnamese and Khmer..I suspect he was actually CIA, but unlike some of the supposed CIA guys I have met over the years, he never said he was, which is a good clue to the genuine article. Anyway, their course is very different to the other described and I found it difficult to get off the ground with, it was also written in the 60's and had an old feel to it, sort of overcomplicated and long winded. I think it's in an attic in London somewhere now.

The truth as people have said, is bypass the transliteration and go straight to the Thai script.

One more footnote, transliteration has another failing. People of different languages put together different sounds with different letters. English is not my first language, and I know that if I transliterated something myself I would sometimes use different letters than an English speaking person. hence why i try to stick to what is the 'official' menthod.

[Scooter]

Originally Posted by Mav

What is the correct way to spell that word we luv to hear:

Which is it ?

Thirak ?
Tellac ?
Teerak ?
Tiillac ?................plus the 47 other ways l have seen it spelt

Hello I am new here, but do have what is believed to be the correct spelling,
as my wife is Thai and very strict on spelling and pronunciation.
(têe-rák ที่รัก)

[ThatGuy2]

Gotta ask....what does tilak(?) mean in Engrish?


Dubs

[dawsey]

Originally Posted by Dubs

Gotta ask....what does tilak(?) mean in Engrish?


Dubs

If you look around its all here
http://www.phuket-info.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4731

[ThatGuy2]

thanx Dawsey,

on other forums i would ave been given..UTFSE!!

Dubs

[LivinLOS]

Yeah seeing this thread again reminds me that I asked this of a translator / linguist who agreed with Scooter.. Its also spelt this way on the Western Union banner ads that rotate on Thaivisa.com..

Teerak seems to be the correct spelling for the really precise.