Dee Kun Na

[Guest]

The link to SCT transcription is http://www.faqs.org/faqs/thai/language/section-1.html.

[Guest]

> The SCT script is the script used in the Newsgroup of

 

> Soc.culture.thai.

 

 

 

Correct. And thanks to MadMax for giving the URL:

 

http://www.faqs.org/faqs/thai/language/section-1.html

 

 

 

> It is hardly worth the effort of learning since only a handful

 

> of people are using it.

 

> So what is the use of being the best system if noone is

 

> using it?

 

 

 

I am :-)

 

And since you seem to know SCT, you will have noticed that all posters who are really knowledgeable about the Thai language do use it as well.

 

 

 

Compare this: even if only a small minority of people are able to read mathematical formulae, all who are willing to really learn and to communicate with each other about mathematical problems, have agreed to use one particular system (notation).

 

 

 

The same is true for discussion of Thai in other languages: those who really have something to say and who are eager to learn, use SCT script or IPA. The people who write "dee" instead of "dii", "choke" instead of "chook", "mark" instead of "maak" (etc) have by this very fact already disqualified themselves of being serious about learning the Thai language...

 

 

 

chook dii na,

 

JS2

 

 

[Pescator]

>....you will have noticed that all posters who are really knowledgeable about the Thai language do use it as well<

 

 

 

I have noticed that some posters (I would say a minority) knowledgeable about the Thai language use it whileas others use thai script.

 

 

 

I don`t think that your mathematical example is comparable to using SCT script vs. thai script.

 

But using different transliterations systems to write thai certainly is a constant source of confusion.

 

 

 

My point was that I think very few people in here use or even know SCT script and thus it will be of very little use.

 

As you will have noticed there are quite a few posters here who post in thai script.

 

 

 

You could try to start a poll to see how many actually know and use sct script before you start posting using that.

 

 

 

Regards

 

Hua Nguu

 

 

[Guest]

"The people who write "dee" instead of "dii", "choke" instead of "chook", "mark" instead of "maak" (etc) have by this very fact already disqualified themselves of being serious about learning the Thai language... "

 

 

 

Rubbish. Writing romanised Thai for the majority of readers, it makes sense to keep it as phonetic as possible. 'mark' seems much more sensible for getting the sound of the word across phonetically rather than 'maak'.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Those who really have something to say and who are eager to learn, use SCT script or IPA."

 

 

 

Rubbish again. Those who are serious about learning and who are eager to learn will forget all this stuff and learn the language as the Thais themselves learn it, in the Thai alphabet. It all makes no sense to me. Why bother learning these sometimes complex phonetical systems when you have a Thai alphabet which is really no more difficult? One can only imagine the advantages!!!

 

 

 

FF

[Guest]

Fully agree with friendlyfiend on this. I've learned Thai straight from Thai script and never bothered with romanizing it. However, when I do I try to be as close to the pronounciation as I think it should be, but not being from an english speaking country this may differ form other.

 

Never even heard of this SCT or IPA script, but consider it quite useless, as the only way to speak thai properly is by learnig thai script, not some substitute.

 

 

 

Is JS2 earger to learn?????

[Guest]

> 'mark' seems much more sensible for getting the sound of

 

> the word across phonetically rather than 'maak'.

 

 

 

Only if you speak English. Most people in this world have another language as mother tongue, you know.

 

 

 

> Those who are serious about learning and who are eager to

 

> learn will forget all this stuff and learn the language as the

 

> Thais themselves learn it, in the Thai alphabet.

 

 

 

On this I fully agree of course. I read and write Thai, having the learned the language with its own script from the very start. But for meta-communication a good transcription system is still useful. Not everyone has Thai fonts and a keyboard switcher installed (even I don't have Thai on every PC I use). Besides, we know full well that the vast majority of farangs don't want to learn Thai script and when explaining language issues to them we do need transcription too...

 

 

 

And could you please try to be a little friendlier? I have no quarrel with you and it is not because we disagree on the choice of a transcription system that you should insult me and qualify my postings as "rubbish".

 

 

 

All the best,

 

JS2

 

 

 

 

[Guest]

> ...never bothered with romanizing it. However, when I do I

 

> try to be as close to the pronounciation as I think it should

 

> be, but not being from an english speaking country this

 

> may differ form other.

 

 

 

This is exactly my point. Many transcription systems make sense only when read as if it were English (dee for dii, mark for maak) etc. It is important that native speakers of English realise that their pronunciation of the letters of the roman alfabet and their combinations is very abnormal (different from what other languages do with that script).

 

 

 

If you ask people from 50 different languages that use the roman script to read out loud "dii", it will come out like the Thai word "good". Only the English speakers will hesitate. Give them "dee" to read and most people with say something like the English word "day", and only the English speakers will get it right.

 

 

 

Assignment: try to find more examples yourself :-)

 

 

 

So it seems very inefficient to use English as a model for a transcription system, doesn't it?

 

 

 

For the rest, see also my reply to friendlyfiend.

 

 

 

Kind regards,

 

JS2

 

 

[Pescator]

Hi,

 

 

 

>> 'mark' seems much more sensible for getting the sound of

 

>> the word across phonetically rather than 'maak'.

 

 

 

>Only if you speak English. Most people in this world have >another language as mother tongue, you know.

 

 

 

 

 

That is correct. However, we are posting on a board using english, right? So it would be fair to assume that posters in here know how to speak and even pronounce english properly.

 

It is my impression that most contributors to this board who are not native english speakers generally are rather good at english.

 

But I cannot disagree with you when you say that SCT script probably is the best in situations where you cannot use thai script.

 

The only problem I have with it and the reason why I`ve never bothered to learn it (besides from being lazy) is that so very few knows it and uses it. So I see really no point in learning it. Besides in the forums where I post I can post in thai script, so I`ll just stick to that.

 

SCT Script is kind of like Esperanto. It is supposed to be very logic and easy to learn, incorporating words from a number of different languages, and I believe it was constructed in order to be *the* new international language.

 

However, it apparently never caught on.

 

 

 

 

 

Regards

 

Hua Nguu

 

 

[Guest]

Hi,

 

 

 

Sorry that the friendlyfiend was sounding slightly more fiendish than friendly. But please don't take it personally, I was just disagreeing with some of your statements. And if I did sound a bit blunt it may have been because of the way I'd read your post. I thought I'd sensed a bit of arrogance there with you coming in and stating that only people who know and use SCT are knowledgable about Thai and those who don't aren't serious about learning the language. This to me sounded ridiculous. You'd failed to mention the Thai script at all, let alone the fact that you yourself use it..

 

Hope we are friends again now .

 

 

 

By the way, I still stand by what I said, and (as pointed out) given that this is an English language message board, I think that English written phonetically is the best way to give the majority of board members an idea of the correct pronunciation of Thai.

 

 

 

Cheers,

 

FF

[Guest]

I agree with you that the pronounciation of phonetically written Thai depends often on the mother tongue.

 

 

 

Not knowing the SCT script, can you explain if a person reading it will get the tones right, as that part is THE MAJOR obstacle for most farang to speak Thai properly.

 

I have seen many farang that actually do speak quite good Thai, have a decent vocabulary, but are terrible when it comes to the tones.

 

 

 

By the way, I'm not a native english speaker, but will still try to use that as a basis. Problem is ofeten when someone askes on this board what a Thai word means and spells it phonetically (or in SCT for that matter I guess), there may be several possiblities, unless the words is shown in its contest.

 

 

 

When ordering Thai food, do you do it reading the english transliteration or the thai language underneath. I never know what Thai dish to expect if the menu is in roman caracters only.