First, I must apologize

[rawvegan]

To say, "First, I must apologize", I have been saying ¡è͹Í×è¹ ¼Áµéͧ¢ÍÍÀѤÃѺ

¡è͹ Í×è¹ ¼Á µéͧ ¢ÍÍÀÑ ¤ÃѺ
Gaan eeun pom dtang korapai krap

Please tell me if this sounds fine or if I need to work on this sentence. I want my sentence to be common and flowing so I am understood. I do not want to use sentence that is not recognizable to thai people.

[AomaH]

Well, it's actually fine.

But for me, I would've said ¡è͹Í×è¹¼Áµéͧ¢ÍÍÀѹФÃѺ (Gaan eeun pom dtang korapai na krap

It sounds nicer, with nicer flow. IT also sounds more polite. Other than that, it's fine.

[nam phyyng]

Isn't µéͧ pronounced "dtong", instead of "dtang"? (or perhaps you really mean dtang?).

[rawvegan]

Isn't µéͧ pronounced "dtong", instead of "dtang"? (or perhaps you really mean dtang?).

nam phyyng, it is just transliteration. I would not worry too much about it. Each person has their own version when it comes to transliteration. There is no official transliterated spelling of µéͧ. The main thing is that it is spelled µéͧ in thai script.

[nam phyyng]

Nevertheless the sound is "oh" not "ah" and thats just a fact - nothing to do with transliteration.

[aanon]

Nevertheless the sound is "oh" not "ah" and thats just a fact - nothing to do with transliteration.

what if some speakers of english read 'oh' as ÍÍ and some read 'ah' as ÍÍ?

personally i think 'oh' might be good for âÍ or âÍÐ but not for ÍÍ.

all the best.

[Benesato]

I agree with aanon regarding the phonetic equivalent. I transliterate µéͧ as Dtorng, and if I were to de-transliterate* "dtong" it would become µ§.

Whilst there is - from what I've read - I think in the "Bua Luang What You See is What You Say Thai Phrasebook" (with a name to rival ¡Ãا෾ for length) - there is actually an 'official' standardised transliteration system that was approved by the government long ago. But I think that's irrelevant these days.

We all choose our systems based on the books we started learning from, what we want the transliteration to do (be easy, be phonetically accurate, be conventional, etc). And a transliteration system that may be very accurate for an English-speaker from one country certainly won't be accurate for all other English-speaking countries. Transliteration that is phonetically accurate for Americans is certainly not accurate for Australians, and vice-versa.

Transliteration is a personal choice - it is not a matter of fact or science. So I think it's prudent to avoid disputes over transliteration unless the thread is specifically about transliteration.

Benesato.

* If de-transliterate isn't a word, I've got dibs on the Copyright claim!

[nam phyyng]

I am slowly coming round to agreeing with you, and what made me realise it is that when Yanks visit our biggest city Auckland (pronounced "orkland" without the "r") they call it "Arkland". So I see that if your'e American the "oh" sound can actually become the "ah" sound. None of this would be a problem if Americans spoke English, which they dont.

So now I accept that, but I still have some difficulty in accepting the almost universal condemnation of "transliteration" on this website. The reason is that I learnt to speak Thai using the Mary Haas system of transliteration in which all Thai sounds and tones can be written so that new speakers can reproduce them accurately. It cannot be done on a keyboard (which we didnt have in 1967) but it can be hand-written and I am convinced that one day it will be done on a computer. When that happens, learning Thai will take a giant leap forward, especially for beginners!

[rawvegan]

After doing more research, I have decided on this sentence for now => ¡è͹Í×è¹ ¼Áµéͧ¢Íâ·É¤ÃѺ gaawn euun pom dtaawng khaaw thoht

However, I am still open to suggestions. I just decided khaaw apai was to formal and when talking at the street level, I think it is just going to sound odd. I mean when you are talking to someone at the vegetable market and they approach you and say "watdee kap", it is not exactly an open invitation for formal conversation.

[AomaH]

If it was informal, you wouldn't say ¡è͹Í×è¹ anyways, because saying ¡è͹Í×è¹ IS already formal.