Silent Orange

I don't have a checked bag so I can't buy chocolate or wine elsewhere... I can only get their airside.

transpac

SBIA/BKK Expansion Plans Video

The completion date is slated for November 2019.

Silent Orange

I understood "Suvarnabhumi". How come the "i" is silent? I understand that the spelling is phonetic when using the English alphabet, and that adding random h's and interchangeably using p's and b's make sense, but why the silent i?

dsquared37

There are a number of words that contain silent consonants at the end, not as many that have silent vowels. For the former there is a particular symbol above the letter, for the silent vowel you just need to know the word.

There are some rather odd twists in written Thai. Words like 'Chiang' are written 'a-chi-yng' เชียง and the pattern becomes quickly recognizable.

The consonant 'Y', ย, starts a number of words, but there are something like 10 or 12 that have a vowel (sound 'aw', อ) placed in front of the word and not pronounced. This is one group of words that school kids are tested on and must know each incident of.

At the beginning of a word, the presence of ฑร, which individually are T R, are pronounced as S. In another scenario รร, basically R R, becomes a vowel and can, in some circumstances even represent 'AAN'.

There are a number of abnormalities and you get used to them.

The 'H's are not random but represent instances where the letter is pronounced aspirated rather than crisply. Some sounds have 5 or 6 letters and which one is used depends upon the tone (there are 5 tones and 3 classes of consonants, the class affecting the tone as well as tonal symbols above the vowels). An H in front of a consonant at the front of the word is not pronounced and only changes the tone that would otherwise be present, one such instance is the hill tribe Hmong.

There are only a handful of consonant sounds at the end of a word so many consonants are actually pronounced differently at the end of the word (L is prounced N etc).

Ps and Bs should not be used interchangeably but they are at times becasue there's really no set transliteration guidelines. I do like English words transliterated into Thai though, they can be humorous.

Silent Orange

I was being facetious but thank you for the explanation... two questions though

1. Regarding H: what do you mean when you say "the letter is pronounced aspirated"? Can you give an example?

2. If there are, at times, no literal transliteration guidelines, why is it wrong to say Ps and Bs are used interchangeably?

dsquared37

Listen to the difference when you speak 'Thailand' vs 'torrent'. The former is aspirated, there's a release of breath concurrent with the pronunciation, and the latter is a crisper sound.

It's wrong to mix up Ps and Bs because there are 2 Ps, 1 B and another letter pronounced as a hard sounding hybrid. (There are also aspirated Ps such as you'll find in Phuket.) Is it ok to interchange Bs and Ds in English? They can sound similar. Now if the letter is at the end of the word, where you might indeed find the B representation บ, it would be pronounced as P, not B.

Take the word ลาบ, laap, the tasty meat salad. Quite often you'll find it transliterated as 'larb, even through there's no 'R' in the word. The middle letter is the long vowel 'ah', which some represent as 'aa' and others as 'ar'. Also the final letter is B but at the end of the word it's pronounced as P.

Actually this simple word represents a lot of what is wrong with the current transliterations. Those who write 'larb' literally transcribe the final letter but oddly represent, IMO, the vowel. Then there's 'laap' which accurately represents the pronunciation of the final letter, but not it's written style.

Sisyphus1carus

Parents (not too old and slow !) are looking for a place to spend an evening between landing at DMK at about 6pm and leaving again at about 11am. Is the Amari Don Muang actually connected to the airport ? And is it just a 5 minute walk or so ?

Cheers.

Tchiowa

My understanding is that it is a bit more complicated than that. Thai words start with consonants. In the case where the first sound is actually a vowel sound then อ appears in front of it to serve as a consonant and then not spoken.

Any attempt to learn Thai writing in the same mindset as English is going to fail. Thai is written left to right but it is not pronounced left to right by letter. Syllables are left to right but the vowels within a syllable are not left to right. Vowels can appear before, above, after, below or just about any combination of those. So you have to learn vowel combinations.

"b" and "p" are not the same but they sound the same to Western ears. Remember that the phonetic spelling you see is primarily based on British pronunciation. So what an American would write as "lah" you'll see in Thai transliteration as "lar". The "r" is no pronounced. Why they use silent letters in phonetic transliteration is beyond me.

On top of that, Thai tend to elide the last consonant in a word or syllable. That's why a word ending in "l" sounds like it ends in "n".

Back to the OP's original question about Suvarnabhumi, many words in Thai came from India and many of those have silent "i" at the end. Also note that there is no "v" sound in Thai. It's more like a "w" sound. So with that and the silent "r", you'll hear Suvarnabhumi spoken as "Suwanapoom".

YVR Cockroach

I've noted the walkway in the past but haven't been looking out for it (only flew out of DMK in February). Presumably it is still there and the hotel web site and Google aerial map seem to indicate so.

transpac

For those going to DMK, maybe give yourself some extra time. This is sure to impact traffic.

Drivers warned of congestion during flyover closure

Motorists and commuters who use Ratchadaphisek Road and Phahon Yothin Road are being urged to plan their journeys as the Ratchayothin intersection flyover will be closed ahead of its demolition to make way for construction of the Green Line railway extension.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/gene...lyover-closure

seanthepilot

Tollway should avoid all that, right?

Also, to note that the taxi queues were back again at DMK yesterday. I haven't noticed long lines for a few months.

rojaan

I have a 6 hour layover at BKK ( flying in from Chiang Mai - flying out to Aust ) and I want to use some of the time having a manicure/pedicure. I have looked at the BKK aiport website but can only find a massage/spa, with no mention of manicures. We are flying Thai First but the Royal Orchid Spa only mentions massages as well.

Does anyone know of a place that does manicures and pedicures ?

1786771

You're can try to find that one.
https://m.facebook.com/pages/Apple-Nail-Suvarnabhumi-Airport/152949791511237

Otherwise check with the novotel airport hotel if they offer this service

tide

In case it is of help for recent timings.

I recently traveled to DMK. I had no bags.

This was in the middle of a work week and peak rush hour (6:45pm)
Summary: 6:45pm @ Sukhumvit MRT. Arrived DMK at 8pm. Can't see how you'd do this with big bags. Rollaboard possible - I saw couples with strollers board the MRT/bus.

Sukhumvit MRT-Chatuchak Park
-6:45pm at platform. Long lines meant missing 3 trains
-with 2-3 mins headway per train, got on train at 6:55pm

20 minutes to Chatuchak Park. Volume thins out after Param9

7:15pm- At Chatuchak Park. Take exit 2. At exit, you will see a bus stop. Stand in the middle of bus stop. Bus A1/2 will stop right here after it makes u-turn from the opposite side.

7:20pm bus arrives. Again super crowded. Big bags close to impossible. Several had rollaboards. 2 people could not board bus because it was full.

Traffic was crawling at Phahonyothin Rd until the Expressway, then it became better (but still heavy traffic)

Arrived DMK at 8pm

LAXlocal

are there any express buses / minibuses using the expressway from BKK to DMK

cost ?

Thanks for the info