Forgive me if this sound like a stupid question.

All of my friends in the USA and England pronunce it Tailand (the H being silent) where as most of Asia pronunces it Thai (with the H)

Whats up with that? Who is right?

Once and for all please put an end to this for me! :confused:

It is pronounced basically as if the H were not there. When the Thai language gets transliterated into English, H's show up everywhere but they are often silent, mere accent marks to soften a sound but not change it fundamentally. Thus Phuket is roughly Poo-ket, not Foo-ket. Same for Thai: pronounce it like the H isn't there but make an effort to soften the T. It's most like the first T in "tooth" and not at all like the TH in "tooth."

It is pronounced basically as if the H were not there. When the Thai language gets transliterated into English, H's show up everywhere but they are often silent, mere accent marks to soften a sound but not change it fundamentally. Thus Phuket is roughly Poo-ket, not Foo-ket. Same for Thai: pronounce it like the H isn't there but make an effort to soften the T. It's most like the first T in "tooth" and not at all like the TH in "tooth."

Makes sense... thanks..

But then how come the Thai people pronunce it with the H?

But then how come the Thai people pronunce it with the H?
They don't. Thais aspirate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspiration) the sound, pronouncing it with a puff of air that you hear as an "H". It's entirely different from the rather unusual dental fricatives (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pronunciation_of_English_th) spelled "th" in English.

I thought it was Ptie.

Forgive me if this sound like a stupid question.

All of my friends in the USA and England pronunce it Tailand (the H being silent) where as most of Asia pronunces it Thai (with the H)

Whats up with that? Who is right?

Once and for all please put an end to this for me! :confused:

This is a very good question.

The Thai people originated from Yunnan Province in China. They were know as the Tai or Dai people. People in Thailand today call them Tai Yai. This all happened starting around 1450 years ago.

The earliest written record from a Thai Kingdom dates back to the late 13th century. A slate from Sukho-thai dated 1292 AD bears the earliest known inscription in the Thai language.

At that time the Siamese written word for the Tai people who migrated to Siam was Dtai. When the name Siam was changes to Thailand in the late 1940's they had to figure a way to spell it as there is no English for the dt in Dtai so for English they changed it to th, which is now Thailand.

Many signs today if you see the Thai character "Dor Dtao", which is the dt, in English is written with th as a replacement. To make it even more confusing dt or "Dor Dao" is not used in the Thai spelling of Thailand, go figure.

Hope that makes sense,
Randy and Ning

This is a very good question.

The Thai people originated from Yunnan Province in China. They were know as the Tai or Dai people. People in Thailand today call them Tai Yai. This all happened starting around 1450 years ago.

The earliest written record from a Thai Kingdom dates back to the late 13th century. A slate from Sukho-thai dated 1292 AD bears the earliest known inscription in the Thai language.

At that time the Siamese written word for the Tai people who migrated to Siam was Dtai. When the name Siam was changes to Thailand in the late 1940's they had to figure a way to spell it as there is no English for the dt in Dtai so for English they changed it to th, which is now Thailand.

Many signs today if you see the Thai character "Dor Dtao", which is the dt, in English is written with th as a replacement. To make it even more confusing dt or "Dor Dao" is not used in the Thai spelling of Thailand, go figure.

Hope that makes sense,
Randy and Ning


I think so..... ;) Thanks.

All transliterations of Thai names or words are nothing more than imperfect approximations of how they should be pronounced. The definitive spelling is the one in Thai characters. As others have said, the "h" after a consonant only indicates that the consonant should be aspirated. T-ai, not D(t)-ai, P-ooket, not B(p)-ooket. In no case does the "h" combine with the consonant to form English-style "th, " or "ph" sounds.

Similar question: Which is correct: Koh or Kho (as in Koh or Kho Samui)? I've seen it both ways.
And given that response, how does the placement of the "h" affect the pronunciation?

Pronounced like the English word "tie". This has been my experience during 4 trips to Thailand, and also in talking with our grandson's Thai wife and many of her relatives who now live in the US.

#9, to my ear, the Thai word for "island" transliterated as Koh sounds more like "Gkaw." In any case, the "oh" is not like the English "oh" (as in "Oh Susanna") but a shorter sound. And the "k" is not a hard aspirated k like "king." "Kho" is a mispelling, since the "h" would indicated the k IS aspirated. Koh or Ko are correct.

The Thai people originated from Yunnan Province in China.

Isn't the official Thai (or Tai) government position that the Thais did not come in any way from China and that Thailand has zero historical population relationship to China?

Since we are the pronunciation topic, how is Pattaya pronounced?
I always thought it was Pad-Tie-uh (like Phad Thai with an "uh" appended), but recently saw a video interview with a local author who pronounced it as Paa-tea--uh. Like the western name Patty said fast and then an "uh" appended.

Sarah DDS: The latter is closer to correct. It's more like Puh-tea-ah, like Putty with "ah" slapped on the back, only the "puh" is spoken faster and the "tea" is spoke slower than in putty. By and large, though, don't worry about it. Thais are good at deciphering what foreigners are trying to say when mangling the language (as I do). Thais appreciate the effort and probably won't even bother correcting a person who makes a mistake.

Within the Thai language, there is only one way to pronounce a word or set of letters. Unlike english where a word can have multiple pronunciations (poe-taye-toes and poe-tah-toes).

As well, each of their vowels have 2 distinct pronunciation lengths. Best described by a 1/2 length and a double long sound. (A and O, being 2 of the vowels) ((When being misunderstood that I went to Hat Yai, I learned to use the double length vowel 'Ah' to make it Haaat Yai and it was instantly understandable.)) They also have what I call assumed vowels. You have to know a sound (that we associate with vowels) will link the 2 consonants together. These have a normal length vowel sound. That gives us 3 lenghts. 1/2, normal, and double length sounds for vowels.

Thai - ไทย - sounds like 'Tai' (no H or th sound)

Koh, in Koh Samui - เกาะ สมุย - sounds like an interupted 'KO'.
This is an instance where the 1/2 lenght vowel O is used. For the english speaker to sound it out properly, it is cut off so abruptly that the word/sylable sounds unfinnished.
The symbol used here is actually a spoken 'G' and should really be written 'Goh' (but the english would then say Go, as in Stop and Go, which is incorrect).

Pattaya - พัทยา -'Put (or pat) taie Yaah' (2 normal lenth vowels, followed by the double length final vowel)

It's nearly impossible to explain Thai sounds with English characters. I'm sure other Thai speakers will chime in. This is my interpretation for the moment.

Within the Thai language, there is only one way to pronounce a word or set of letters. Unlike english where a word can have multiple pronunciations (poe-taye-toes and poe-tah-toes).

As well, each of their vowels have 2 distinct pronunciation lengths. Best described by a 1/2 length and a double long sound. (A and O, being 2 of the vowels) ((When being misunderstood that I went to Hat Yai, I learned to use the double length vowel 'Ah' to make it Haaat Yai and it was instantly understandable.)) They also have what I call assumed vowels. You have to know a sound (that we associate with vowels) will link the 2 consonants together. These have a normal length vowel sound. That gives us 3 lenghts. 1/2, normal, and double length sounds for vowels.

Thai - ไทย - sounds like 'Tai' (no H or th sound)

Koh, in Koh Samui - เกาะ สมุย - sounds like an interupted 'KO'.
This is an instance where the 1/2 lenght vowel O is used. For the english speaker to sound it out properly, it is cut off so abruptly that the word/sylable sounds unfinnished.
The symbol used here is actually a spoken 'G' and should really be written 'Goh' (but the english would then say Go, as in Stop and Go, which is incorrect).

Pattaya - พัทยา -'Put (or pat) taie Yaah' (2 normal lenth vowels, followed by the double length final vowel)

It's nearly impossible to explain Thai sounds with English characters. I'm sure other Thai speakers will chime in. This is my interpretation for the moment.
Is there any general rule for where the emphasized syllable is for, say, a 3 or 4 syllable word, or proper noun?

When trying to get a taxi to the Manhattan hotel in Bangkok I pronounced Manhattan as I would when describing the area of New York (man HAT tin). After repeating myself a few times the driver caught onto my mispronounciation and said what sounded like "man ha TON", emphasizing the 3rd syllable. Also, the 3rd syllable was not pronounced like our word "ton", but more like "ON" w/ a "T" in front of it, if that makes sense.

To my ear, the Thai pronunciation of Pattaya comes closest to PAH-tah-yaah, with the 1st syllable regular length and emphasized, the second so short it almosts sounds like an aspirated "t" (hence the occasional spelling as Patthaya), and the third syllable elongated. Many foreigners seem to pronounce it puh-TAI-uh, including some of the english language announcers on the Pattaya news channels, but I can't recall ever hearing a Thai pronounce it that way.

To my ear, the Thai pronunciation of Pattaya comes closest to PAH-tah-yaah, with the 1st syllable regular length and emphasized, the second so short it almosts sounds like an aspirated "t" (hence the occasional spelling as Patthaya), and the third syllable elongated.

I agree 100%, definitely sounds better with the shortshort middle syllable.

You can hear the pronunciation of "Pattaya" here (http://www.learningthai.com/p_central.html). (Requires Flash.) And "Ko" as well, as in "Ko Chang."

They don't. Thais aspirate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspiration) the sound, pronouncing it with a puff of air that you hear as an "H". It's entirely different from the rather unusual dental fricatives (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pronunciation_of_English_th) spelled "th" in English.

It's the aspiration that can change the consonant to what is best described by Th. In Indian alphabets, the origin of Thai alphabets unaspirated and aspirated consonants alternante such as k, kh; g,gh (westernes cannot make that sound without training), b, bh;t,th etc.