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DeDanan

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I was always told "Upto you" was "Ali ga die"

"Arai gaw dai" (my take on the phonetics) can be used as well - but it means more than just "up to you", whereas "laeo tae khun" is a more exact translation.

arai - what, any, anything, something (depending on context)

gaw - conjunction

dai (which Wolf romanized as "die") - can, get (and a few other functions depending on sentence position)

arai gaw dai

anything conj. can, get, possible

For example, if you ask for what type of present to bring to a party, the answer can also be "arai go dai" - "anything is ok" (which also, in this case implicitly means "it's up to you").

As cutethaigirl says, "taam jai" is a bit more like "suit yourself" (implicitly "up to you - it's not my problem anymore")

but for all of these expressions, be careful to study the body language, eyes and general feeling of the utterance as well, as this also indicates the person's real message.

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I was always told "Upto you" was "Ali ga die"

"Arai gaw dai" (my take on the phonetics)

The Thai spelling would be more accurate phonetically! The pronunciation of long words can almost always be shown by respelling syllable by syllable (separating the syllables by hyphens). Problems only arise with Thai respelling when (1) vowel shortness and tone cannot both be shown or (2) a preposed vowel is followed by 2 or 3 consonants. The latter case can be resolved by "phinthu" (a.k.a. bindu) (Unicode U0E3A in the Thai Plane of Unicode and present on Thai keyboards) on the first consonant of a cluster

Whereas "dai" has a potential 5-way ambiguity (I think Meadish_Sweetball would avoid the 10-way ambiguity, i.e. would write the long diphthong differently), "gaw" has an 8-way ambiguity!

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"gaw" has an 8-way ambiguity!

Having just seen more of his system, "gaw" is down to 3-way ambiguity, and the percentage guess gives the correct tone. I don't know if the system would be improved by an apostrophe for the usually elided final glottal stop.

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Can someone explain "thuk" for me please. One spelling is: taaw tung, sara uu, gaw gai. Another spelling is: taa tahan, sara u, gaw gai.

I know thuk means "every" (spelled w/taw tahan etc) but what is thuk w/ taw tung?

I'm also looking for a Thai Font program to work with Windows XP. The thread that addresses fonts isn't working.

Thanks for any help!

Boon Mee

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I know thuk means "every" (spelled w/taw tahan etc) but what is thuk w/ taw tung?

I think the common thread to its meanings was 'bang on target'. Its meanings include 'right, cheap, hit', it's used to form the (unpleasant) passive, and of course ถูกต้อง means 'right and proper'.

If you managed to set up your computer so you can type Thai, there's an on-line dictionary of Lexitron. (You don't need Thai for it to do English to Thai translations.)

If you haven't, there is the archived version of thai-language.com - scroll down to the alphabet on the left of the screen and start from there. After the first archived page, you will need to scroll right to reach the index to the portions of the alphabetic lists. It's a bit patchy; it doesn't work for ถูก. (Amazingly, my far from complete salvage area does work for this word. I'm still very slowly processing what I have salvaged.)

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The Thai spelling would be more accurate phonetically! The pronunciation of long words can almost always be shown by respelling syllable by syllable (separating the syllables by hyphens). Problems only arise with Thai respelling when (1) vowel shortness and tone cannot both be shown or (2) a preposed vowel is followed by 2 or 3 consonants. The latter case can be resolved by "phinthu" (a.k.a. bindu) (Unicode U0E3A in the Thai Plane of Unicode and present on Thai keyboards) on the first consonant of a cluster

I don't think I've ever see that one used..? Or is it something specifically used when learning Thai, such as in Thai language books for school children?

And what would be an example of a word that you couldn't spell by chopping it up in Thai phonetics? It would seem to me that if you can pronounce it, you can also write it in separated Thai syllables with hyphens in between?

Cheers,

Chanchao

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The Thai spelling would be more accurate phonetically!  The pronunciation of long words can almost always be shown by respelling syllable by syllable (separating the syllables by hyphens).  Problems only arise with Thai respelling when (1) vowel shortness and tone cannot both be shown or (2) a preposed vowel is followed by 2 or 3 consonants.  The latter case can be resolved by "phinthu" (a.k.a. bindu) (Unicode U0E3A in the Thai Plane of Unicode and present on Thai keyboards) on the first consonant of a cluster

I don't think I've ever see that one used..? Or is it something specifically used when learning Thai, such as in Thai language books for school children?

I've only seen it in dictionaries written for Thais. My pocket dictionary (a genuine pocket dictionary - it fits in my tee-shirt pocket) occasionally uses it in the phonetic spelling of English words when it isn't obvious from the pronunciation as given in Thai where the vowel should go.

The RID on-line dictionary consistently uses for the first consonant in an initial cluster in its phonetic spelling. For example, if you look up ครุฑ 'garuda' it gives the pronunciation ('เสียง', line 3) as คฺรุด. If you look hard, you'll see the phinthu under the first consonant of the pronunciation.

And what would be an example of a word that you couldn't spell by chopping it up in Thai phonetics?  It would seem to me that if you can pronounce it, you can also write it in separated Thai syllables with hyphens in between?

The spellings of เล่น 'play' and ก๊อก 'tap' give no indication of vowel length. The tone mark is necessary to show the tone, and it is not possible to have both a tonemark and the short sign (maithaikhu) on the same consonant. The rule for spelling such cases seems to be that showing the tone is more important than showing the vowel length.

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Ah, now I get it!!! Yes I can definitely think of some Thai words where you'd be unsure where the vowel goes. Or even what vowel it is.... Like " àÁÍ " which is of course pronounced /Sa'moe+/, not /Se+mo-/

> The spellings of àÅè¹ 'play' and ¡êÍ¡ 'tap' give no indication of vowel

> length. The tone mark is necessary to show the tone, and it is not

> possible to have both a tonemark and the short sign (maithaikhu)

> on the same consonant. The rule for spelling such cases seems to

> be that showing the tone is more important than showing the vowel

> length.

Right.. although I always took it that the maithaikhu wouldn't be needed here anyway as the tone-marks already shorten the sound just by themselves. I don't think there are cases of falling-tone words with mai-ek that are NOT short? If whoever set the rules for the Thai script really wanted to they could have decided to double up a maithaikhu with a mai ek on top; I mean they already do this for the vowels that go above a consonant anyway, the mai ek (or other tone markers) just go up one level which looked like crap on mechanical type writers.. They must have decided the maithaikhu just isn't necessary because the mai ek already shortens the word effectively.

(In a way I suppose the maithaikhu acts as a 'tone marker' as well, like " àÁç´ " without it would sound completely different (falling tone instead of high)...

Cheers,

Chanchao

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I know thuk means "every" (spelled w/taw tahan etc) but what is thuk w/ taw tung?

I think the common thread to its meanings was 'bang on target'. Its meanings include 'right, cheap, hit', it's used to form the (unpleasant) passive, and of course ถูกต้อง means 'right and proper'.

If you managed to set up your computer so you can type Thai, there's an on-line dictionary of Lexitron. (You don't need Thai for it to do English to Thai translations.)

If you haven't, there is the archived version of thai-language.com - scroll down to the alphabet on the left of the screen and start from there. After the first archived page, you will need to scroll right to reach the index to the portions of the alphabetic lists. It's a bit patchy; it doesn't work for ถูก. (Amazingly, my far from complete salvage area does work for this word. I'm still very slowly processing what I have salvaged.)

Thank you, Richard. I haven't set up this new machine I just got w/Thai fonts. My project for today.

Cheers,

Boon Mee

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  • 19 years later...

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