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.