The Madness of Spelling Thai Words in English
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- čas přidán 9. 06. 2024
- Is it pad thai, phad thai, or phat thai? Larb or laab? Pad Kaprao or Pad Kra pao? Why are there so many ways to spell the same Thai word in English? In this video, I explain why.
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00:00 Introduction
00:51 Why all these Thai words are wrong
02:31 Why there are many ways to spell the same word
04:35 What is with laRb?
06:06 Why is this a problem?
08:30 The officially CORRECT way to spell Thai words in English
13:09 Tips for Travelers to Thailand
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About Pai:
Pailin “Pai” Chongchitnant is the author of the Hot Thai Kitchen cookbook, co-host of a Canadian TV series One World Kitchen on Gusto TV, and creator and host of the CZcams channel Pailin's Kitchen.
Pai was born and raised in southern Thailand where she spent much of her "playtime" in the kitchen. She traveled to Canada to study Nutritional Sciences at the University of British Columbia, and was later trained as a chef at Le Cordon Bleu culinary school in San Francisco.
After working in both Western and Thai professional kitchens, she decided that her passion really lies in educating and empowering others to cook at home via CZcams videos, her cookbook, and cooking classes. She currently lives in Vancouver, and goes to Thailand every year to visit her family. Visit her at hot-thai-kitchen.com - Jak na to + styl
I'm 100% Thai living in Thailand and I found this VDO was really helpful to understand my own language better 😂 hilarious 😂
Same here
The use of “VDO” confirms you’re 100% Thai 5555
@@beep_boop LOL obviously 🤣🤣
what're all those 5s?@@beep_boop
@@beep_boopบอกอายุด้วยนะ อื้มหื้มมมมม! 😅
I didn’t expect a video on Thai phonetics to be so entertaining and insightful. This is excellent content!
Linguist postgrad here. This is genuinely one of the reasons why I love teaching the International Phonetic Alphabet because it was invented for an accurate description of a language’s phonemes, tones, vowels, etc.
Really interesting 👍. May I ask how you would write Tom and Gaeng/Kaeng in IPA showing the tone, vowel and consonants?
Retired language teacher here in France. I taught English (mother-tongue) with CELTA, French, German and Arabic (final two BA degree and in-country work) taught at various levels at an adult education institute, although I only used IPA for myself as the teaching was not higher education.
I've always wondered how IPA would be applied to tonal languages 😊.
don't wanna be bothering here as a comment but thai is not 100% phonetic btw, cluster consonants is small exception plus some pali/sanskript words have inherent a/o vowels that you won't know until someone guides you, the simplest I can give is ถนน plus some months are really hard if you are learning to read them as a beginner but you get used to it
@@mr_wormhole +1 but that's not IPA 👍. Are you saying that the INTERNATIONAL PHONETIC ALPHABET (IPA) is not applicable to Thai? Is it not applicable to any other languages?
When I first went to school in England in 1966, I was taught ITA, even though I could already read. I cook a great Pad Kaprao btw. 🤣❤️
@@andrewrobinson2565 yea it will never be like spanish but script wise it is more consistent than arabic or chinese, or I can easily say it is very close to korean script phonetics(hangul is extra ordinary in terms of reading) but what makes thai extremely easy is its grammar at the expense of some hard to read ancient words and a bit of tone juggling(tones are way easier than chinese due to long sounds)
@@andrewrobinson2565 it is more of IPA only exists for latin people like italian / spanish etc, phonetic languages don't need to be internationally phonetic in latin, latin is just 1 way of writing, thai is phonetic in its script, latin script doesn't resemble all the sounds a language can make. Korean for example is extremely genius in this topic or quranic arabic also. Every vowel or consonant laid out perfectly so the reader can read the same for centuries
As a Chinese American who abhors Wade-Giles romanization and other wild romanization schemes, this video only further solidifies that Pailin is my long lost sister. The struggle to romanize Thai for SEO seems 100x harder, so props to you! Side note, I'm super excited for when you finally hit 2M subs!
I was about to make a similar comment re Wade-GIles vs pinyin. There's also a problem with tonal in that there's 6 (or 9) tones for cantonese vs 4 tones for mandarin. More explained by Wikipedia Tone Number en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_number. In some other languages they use accents or umlats etc to the character.
@@nilnz At least Hanyu Pinyin has the excuse that it was invented primarily for the purpose of teaching Mandarin phonetics to Chinese people.
Lao woman from Chiangmai here. I’ve had someone in America try to explain to me that pad ka pao, holy basil stir fry, means stir fry PURSE… and I had to explain to them that they’re confusing gapao (purse) with ka pao (holy basil). Of course, they still didn’t believe me lol, smh
Sounds like a mansplaining white American Man, no surprise to that
I love it when Pai comes out with a linguistic video. It’s not often so it makes it all the more valuable for me. Thank you for this fascinating content.
One thing that is important to add here: This is how you transliterate from Thai-script into Latin script. Latin scripted is used to write English, but not exclusively. Most languages spoken in the western world utilize Latin Script, so this is not really done with any particular regard for English specifically. The fact that is read by English speakers as the dental fricative has little relevance. The is needed to denote aspiration, which is phonemic in Thai, and therefore an important distinction within the language. Most other European languages that utilize latin script, do not utilize to denote a dental fricative, so this works, but gives a little quirk in English spelling.
Thanks for this remark. The "H" addition is indeed essential for the non-English speaking world. Aspriated or not aspirated. There is a huge difference between Koh Kai (K) and Khoh Khai (KH). The H is perfect for indicating the aspiration.
That's probably why she specifies "in English" in the video.
@carlcouture1023 Yes but when for example she did she say that for example Thong Lo should be spelled Tong Law. However in other European languages that would sound weird. So in this case I understand why this area was spelled this way. Anyway you can see how many accents and such had to be added to Vietnamese to be able to write it in a Latin script. The same issues exist also in neighbouring countries. For example Laos has a silent s and Vientiane is more pronounced like Wen-Chan. This is the French colonial spelling creating issues.
I really love your RANT. It was both informative and entertaining. But I also got to know your other side as a linguist which is new to me. I can really understand your frustration because I also care for correctness in spelling and pronunciation in Thai which is often neglected. However, I was also corrected once by one of your subscribers because I spelled Padgaprao wrong in a comment. Thank you so much for this video, and I’d like to say to you: ใจเย็นๆนะครับคุณไพลิน😉
One thing that really helped me getting Thai tones right was realizing that we have corresponding tonal conventions in English too, namely: mid = yeah: low = nah : falling =wow! : high = what? : rising = really?………… so I would memorize a sentence as ‘2 yeahs, a wow? a nah and a really?’….🙏
That's really clever, I'm gonna try to remember that
@@zer0luv I sure found it helpful….so, sawatdee khrap is yeah-nah-yeah-what?………🙏
And ‘not correct’, may chay is wow!-wow!
Yes I once heard a Thai language teacher point out to English speakers who say they can't do tones that English also HAS tones, it's just not prescripted and changes with context. Your formula is brilliant!!
@@PailinsKitchen khray khaay khay kay…. yeah really! nah nah…..555. 🙏
I'm learning Thai script right now and this was actually very useful! Explained better than some books and websites I've seen lol
OMG. Finally, someone spoke my life pain as a Thai editor and food journalist out loud! You just got it, Khun Pailin. Every. Point. THANK YOU KA.
#goPADKAPROW
Omg this was amazing!! 😂😂 as someone who loves both Thai food and linguistics, this video brought me joy immensely. And just the other day I went to a Thai restaurant by my place after watching your latest video on Pad KA PRAO to order it, I noticed on the menu it was spelled Pad KRA PAO and I was really confused. Thought to myself “didn’t Pailin spell and say it differently??” I’m so glad you made this video. Thank you so much!!
This is a very very eloquent rant and a very well edited and produced video. Very impressive
Have traveled to over 55 countries. Can order a beer and ask for the check in probably 40 languages. Have found Thai and Burmese to be the most difficult to menu/street sign read. This explains a lot of it. In Thailand have simply memorized a hundred or so written words; foods, place names, ... Use point and shoot at restaurants, rather than try to mispronounce it.
lived there a decade, can speak street *wong lao* thai quite well and i can confirm this is the smart way to go about it 555
I love this video. I'm half Laotian, my mom was from a small village near Nakhon Phanom & I was raised in saying "Thom Som" for papaya salad... & it took me YEARS to say "Som Tom" (whatever is the English spelling is) when ordering. Heck, I've been to Thai restaurants that didn't know what Nam Pla Prik was.. fish sauce with chilies.
Seems like lao gets it right more then thai 😅
Hi! northern Thai here and in our dialect we also called Thom Som too!
ตำส้ม สำหรับคนเหนือ คนอีสานเรียกตำบักหุง คนภาคกลางนั่นแหละที่เรียกส้มตำ ว่าแต่คนลาวไม่รู้จักน้ำปลาพริกจริงดิ?
ลาวอย่ามั่ว
8th time in Thailand, finally all my questions about spelling has been answered!
I'm in Bangkok, next time I need to go to the airport I'm gonna use the proper airport name :D xoxo
learn the tones too :D
This! Is! So! Useful! Really grateful for all the ways you lay out where English speakers go wrong when presented with the transliterations, thank you. Thai is a beautiful language to hear and a daunting one to learn; this is a such a great primer on these linguistic pitfalls.
Best explanation I've seen of Thai. So what did you I learn? Pailan is a great cook and host, pretty smart too. Well done.
I laughed so hard when you said the travelers want to go to something "Humi-humi". Because that was exactly how one of my friends called this airport. 😂
I loved this episode. I am a Australian with italian heritage . I my husband and I lived in Chiang Mai for 7 happy years.I studied the Thai language for 5 years. It was the most difficult thing I have ever experienced. 1 I’m not a linguist by any means .i am tone deaf so every morning at6 am .i would practice my tones and my ma ma ma .would just get loader not rise in tone. I was truely enthusiastic but failed . I did have enough to be able to communicate with the locals and the food and people and culture are amazing. Hence watching you brings great memories of my time there.
Finally!!!! Hi Pailin - thank you so much for that video 🙏🙏🙏
A very good description to pronounce all that Thai dishes the best possible way. ♥️
I needed this video before I spent 3 years in Thailand. I tried for 3 years to learn Thai and only got blank stares from the locals. We even had a Thai language teacher but she was more interested in office gossip than teaching language. Plus I was older when there and could not hear tones. It was very frustrating (impossible) trying to converse.
I had always thought that since the French explorers arrived in Thailand before the English did, all the funky spellings with Roman letters were the 'fault' of the French. Haha. Thank you for the more correct version of the story. I still like to blame the French though! Great video. And the fact that "Suvarnabhumi Airport" is the first thing you see on a sign when you arrive, it should really serve to notify all new arrivals that the romanized spelling and the Thai pronunciation often are unrelated.
I always enjoy your videos. Your clear explanations and demonstrations have helped me immensely in trying to recreate flavors found in Thailand. The food there was wonderful, but the best thing about Thailand to me was the goodness of the people I got to meet, smiles and laughter everywhere. I loved this rant. You represent your heritage beautifully. Thank you!
Pailin, I'm still a fan. I love Thai food. I love your channel and I love your honesty and artistry. I trust you and hope you are eating.
Love this video! Love that you're explaining all about Thai food and not just about the cooking!
WOW! This video answered so many of my questions about spelling. Extremely informative and entertaining. Thank you so much!
I loved this, especially the tips at the end. Thank you for the valuable insights on pronunciation!
This was amazing and goes so much deeper than I expected. Thank you.
Good rant, Pai! Paying attention to this kind of detail matters to a lot of us. ❤
That was one great video! Funny, well produced, great content, just amazing!
Love this 100%!! Thank you so much. Will be watching a few more times to try and memorize pronunciations. Please do more of this when you can.
This was such an entertaining video for me. And yes I always wondered which spelling is correct on "Thai" menus. I had a great laugh! Thank you Ms Pailin!!
Fab video! You’re a teacher through and through.
This is so helpful! I had guessed at some of these rules/guidelines but it was super helpful to have them laid out! Tones are fascinating to me but can be so hard to hear as someone who grew up only really hearing English and romance languages.
I know you're not a linguist but it would be super interesting to hear you say the Thai alphabet/words with tone examples. I studied a Tibetan language for a bit but none of the vocal examples I could find helped me differentiate the tones. I could hear the tones you described better than other examples I've listened to. Thanks for explaining all of this!
Absolutely wonderful video, so informative and helpful!! Thank you!
I’ve been following you since the beginning. I live for Thai food. But this is hands down your best video ever.
What an informative and well produced video!!!
I just LOVED this VDO!! Pailin, you´re awsome!!
Thank you for this video, you answered many of my questions! Stay safe and healthy 🙏
This was so fascinating! Thank you for sharing this.
These are the answers I needed! Thank you!!
Thanks for sharing this. It was interesting, informative, and helpful 😊❤
This satisfied the language geek itch in my brain. I have always wondered why Thai romanization is so weird! I tried to learn Thai in the past, by starting with the alphabet and OH BOY was it a struggle.. the sheer amount of it (consonants AND vowels) plus the number of rules and the tones (!) was so overwhelming but mesmerizing, you know? Kudos for the upload!
Yeah, it’s quite frustrating. Luckily if you’re finding Thai difficult, you can always go get some Szechuan/Sichuan food, order some Kung Pow/Gongbao Chicken and wash it down with an ice cold Tsingtao/Qingdao beer. Unfortunately we’d have to go to a different restaurant for Peking/Beijing duck though.
Or, alternatively, we could go grab some Canton/Guangzhou/Gwongzau food I guess?
You've found the solution. Always include version1/version2/....version 9 with everything we say and everyone will be happy.
My mother in law from the Isan region from a village near Laos pronounces it Laap. She also makes the best version of it and Beef Salad that I ever had.
Pai, you are so delightful! And entertaining and educational. Thank you for your content!
You are definitely my only-go-to for anything, everything Thai. ❤ Yeah will check out that 3 vids
BEST clip! You are also getting it off my chest too. Thanks Pai!
This video is very informative, thank you!
So helpful! Thank you so much
This was equally fascinating, informative, and entertaining.
Great show thank you for sharing it. Have a wonderful day.
Genuinely interesting, thanks for this!
Thank you, that cleared up a whole bunch of things for me. And your tips are great - my most used is #8 as I use it in every country I visit!
Thank you for sharing your Thai Romanization Rant. As a ‘farang’ whose effort to learn Thai began more than fifty years ago in 1971, I have often had to hold my tongue when mis-pronunciations of Thai words made my ears metaphorically bleed. On the other hand, after half a century’s worth of learning Thai, my own pronunciation still falls short of perfect. I try to be tolerant with folks whose exposure to Thai came even later in life, and to appreciate their efforts.
There is a young man, formerly a restaurateur in China, who, for a couple of years, has been making videos in Thailand about the history and complexity of Thai cuisine. In spite of his sometimes risible pronunciations of the Thai names of Thai dishes, his research and analysis does make his work worthwhile.
Could I ask you who that restaurateur is? Is he on youtube?
@@tsurugi5 He is on CZcams. The channel is called OTR Food & History. I greatly admire the detailed work that he and his team are doing on the history of Thai and Southeast Asian Cuisines.
The OTR channel?
@@tsurugi5 He is on CZcams. The channel is called OTR Food & History. I greatly admire the detailed work that he and his team are doing on the history of Thai and Southeast Asian Cuisines.
Brilliant video! Incredibly informative.
Well, that clears up a lot. Thank you!
One of the best videos, ever. I have always wondered about the inconsistencies.
Thanks for this Pailin 😍 this was sooooo helpful
This is mind-blowing! It answered my question about the menu at all the Thai restaurants I’ve been to!
Love this, thank you for sharing your knowledge with us ❤
I came to the US in 1970 as a child. Whomever did the paperwork at the time totally made my simple name more complicated that not one American can say it correctly. Great video. You are my go to for all my thai cooking. When people ask for my recipe I send them a link to your videos. ❤ keep up the excellent work. 👏
Excellent, excellent video!! A really great introduction to the Thai language and phonetic languages in general! Thank you!
Oops, I think I meant tonal, not phonetic!
Incredibly helpful, thank you for making this.
Thank you very much. That was really helpful.
Such a timely video. I’ve been cooking a lot of Thai dishes lately and wondering which spellings and pronunciations are correct… or even if the two spellings are referring to two different dishes. Thank you!
Thank you!!! I'm learning writen Thai and this video is everything.
So helpful! Thank you Pai! 🙏🙏🙏
Just spent six weeks in Chiang Mai & Pai, (I can't believe I ever left!) and this explains so much! 🙏🙏🙏
Wow. What great information! A great chef and a linguist to boot 👍
You've made this so terribly hilarious. Both educational and incredibly funny. Thanks for the laughs!
THANK YOU, Pailin!!!!!!! I could NOT for the life of me figure out why the same things were spelled so differently! This make SO much sense. Thanks again!
Not to mention Thai tones.
If you order Thai noodle soup "Sen Lek(low tone)" you'll get "steel rod" instead of "thin noodle". 😅😁🤭
If learners can pronounce this Thai sentence "ใครขายไข่ไก่ krai kaai kai gai (means Who sell the egg?)" understandably to Thai ppl your Thai tones and pronunciation are 👍👍👍.
Or try "ไม้ใหม่ไหม้มั้ย?" which is pronounced "mai mai mai mai" and it means "Did the new wood burn?"
@@anansak517
😁😅👍
@anansak517
👍👍👍😅🇹🇭
I feel you sister. We have a wacky romanization for Burmese too and there are several different systems that people mix and match. I have to admit that we kind of bastardize Thai words when writing in Burmese too 😅
This video was sooooo helpful! You have answered the question that I'm sure everyone has asked themselves before :-)
Very helpful! I really want to learn the Thai language. I'm Filipino and I always feel that Thai people are our twin brothers even though we're more closely related to the Malays and Indonesians.
Wowww this is very interesting! Thank you for teaching us.
I’ve followed you for a couple of years and love you. Thanks so much! Go ahead and “rant”. I feel your pain and learned a lot.
Fascinating! Before I retired, I had several Thai graduate students and yet I was completely unaware of this. Thank you for sharing.
The person doing the Romanization guidelines probably had a classical education background. In ancient Greek, there wasn't an "h" sound. It actually indicates an aspiration mark. ("H" as part of a consanont cluster, "kh" or "rh," indicates a separate letter.
more language lessons!!! yes!!!! Thank you!!! i love thai food but i just rarely hear the names of dishes said correctly. this is awesome
I like your rant. I also rant about those type of things but I just do it when I'm on my own. Nobody pronounces my last name correctly either but I'm used to it after 30+ years.
I wish your channel existed when I was going out to Thailand regularly on Holiday... I had met a Thai girl when travelling, and her nickname was the Thai word for Apple... I never did pin down how to spell or pronounce it, as she always answered "Yes" if I said is that a "P" or ask is that a "B" at the beginning!!
But I had been learning languages by listening since I was young, my family lived in a number of countries as I was growing up... my "good morning" or "thank you" always brought a delighted compliment on how closely I said the words to how a Thai person would pronounce them, even switching from Proper Thai (putting the R in Krap, for instance) or leaving it out, depending whom I was talking with (formal as opposed to familiar) I love watching your videos, I love Thai food... and it always brings back memories of when I had been out there... ขอบคุณมาก!
The issue is English spelling and its relative irregularity. Many other languages that use the Latin script have a more uniform spelling system where the official Thai transliteration guide makes much more sense and produces more accurate pronunciation results.
Thank you for expanding my knowledge on Thai language.
please do more videos like this! this is awesome!
Wow! Thanks for shedding some light on this, explains my zero understanding of the Thai language. This was informative, frustrating and hilarious all at once. I feel better now but realize I know even less now. If I ever even get english figured out (my language) I may try to understand Thai. LOL Just keep the recipes coming and I will be fine, THANKS!
The most fascinating thing to me is how your family has the same last name but chose different English spellings and how you can trace the lineage that way. You're united by name, but each family has its own unique twist
I listen to speakers of the language and try to replicate the sonance of the words. When I ask for Nam Pla(pardon my spelling) I'm usually greeted with a look of surprise and appreciation. It's only when there are western servers in Thai restaurants that I have to explain what it is.
Absolutely fascinating, and very, very helpful.
Very interesting video!
I so love this video on so many levels. I get your sensibility and thus your rant. I appreciate the fantastic and well-presented explanation of these apparent discrepancies on spelling. Why Ph in Phuket is pronounced that way rather than the "English" way, you approached this indirectly BTW with Phat Thai. I'm getting the sense that maybe you have a background in science as well with how you rank fish sauce and curry pastes. Thanks for addressing this because the discrepancies were driving me crazy, too. Can't wait for what's next!
Fantastic! Thank you!
Love it Pailin! You are spot on! Also been confused/annoyed w the roman spelling.🙂
Thank you. As a language learner, professional cook, and English teacher I appreciate the video. Most people don't think about the correct pronunciation of foreign food. I live in South America, and it drives me crazy to hear an English speaker say "ha la peeno" for "Jalapeno".
This is amazing, thank you! So helpful. I'm just barely starting to learn a few Thai words, so this was awesome. I'm hoping to go to Thailand in 2025, so will definitely be learning more, but watching your linked videos first. (and hitting up patreon as well finally)
This dish looks so delicious & appetizing. Thank you so much for sharing this wonderful video😊👌👍
Thank you so much for sharing this video ❤❤❤❤😊
Pai is genuinely such an awesome woman.
Thanks for teaching us how to say your name. It's always been a curiosity for me.