Thai language - which syllable is stressed?

[ponder]

Could somebody tell me what the rule is for determining which syllable is stressed in a word?

[djaidee]

Hi Ponder !
The Rule is that every syllable is stressed by itself according to the Tonal Rules. For example if a word has only one syllable it is stressed by the Tonal Rule. If a word has two or more syllables every syllable must be stressed according to the Rules.

1. คน = Khon (Normal Tone) = Person

2. อากาศ = Aa - Kaat (Normal Tone - Low Tone) = Air; Climate ...

There are some exceptions: if a word has more syllables and there are Hidden Vocals between the Consonants, the first Consonant transfers its Class to the next Consonant and this syllable is stressed according to the new Rule, for example:

1. ถนน = Ta - Non (Low Tone - Rising Tone) = Street
the syllable นน is spoken like it would have a ห in front of it (หนน) but ห is silent,
because ถ is a High Class Consonant and makes น (Mid Class Consonant) also to a
High Class Consonant.

2. ตลาด = Ta - Laad = (Low Tone - Low Tone) = Market

Hope that helps.

[djaidee]

Hi there !
A little correction:

น is of course a Low Class Consonant.

[ponder]

Hi Djaidee.

Thanks for that. I think I understand most (not all yet!&#33 of the tone rules now. However, I am not sure if your reply answers my question or not.

Are you saying that all syllables are stressed equally irrespective of their position in a word?

For example, take the word for "fat" (อ้วน) : I always put the stress on the first (falling tone) syllable, maybe because I am concentrating on making it sound like a falling tone. However, my impression from listening to a Thai friend correcting my pronunciation is that the second syllable of this word takes the stress, in the same way that the first syllable of the English word "market" or the third syllable of the English word "economics" do.

Any comments?

Thanks again for your help.

[El Jenzo]

Djaidee, as he says there is a difference between tones and stresses. In English we can pronounce words in any tone, but we can still stress them differently. The stressing of a word is where the most pressure is put when pronouncing it.
If you were to read out the last sentence, you'd stress the word "pressure" on its first syllable but "pronouncing" on its second. I hope you understand what I mean.

[canaoa]

Note that อ้วน (uan) is a single syllable. And there is no fixed stress in Thai words. Only tones or pitch accent, not the stress accent as English has. Of course there are stresses on words and intonation in Thai for expressing feelings etc. but in a different way.

[pichai]

ไม่ใช่ ครับ!
mai chai krup!
(Sorry to say) no!

เราไม่ใช้ 'stresses' แต่เราใช้ 'tones'
rao mai chai 'stresses', but rao chai 'tones'
We never use stresses, but we use tones.

Sorry to add more confusing words, ใช่ and ใช้.

[son of small face]

Yeah, it's something I've examined a lot (being as I taught it before) - the use of stress in the english language. It really clashes with thai. It makes it hadr for thai's to sound natural when speaking english but much more than that it makes most farang have terrible thai pronunciation. In english we stress (with a falling tone) the word we feel important to express - as a result almost everyone I know says สบายดี้ or something like ไม่ไช่อันเล็ก อันไหญ้

[ponder]

Son of Small Face :

Yes, I know what you mean. I do exactly what you say in your post! Also I find myself asking questions in Thai in the same way as I would in English i.e. by turning the last syllable into a rising tone instead of using the question words. Even if I do remember to add on the interrogative, I still find it hard not to change the tone to a rising one.

I have only recently started to attempt to speak Thai (I have been studying it from books and tapes for 18 months) so I am not TOO worried but it something that I am aware of. Are you a native Thai speaker or native English speaker?

One day I would like to meet somebody who speaks perfect (or near perfect) Thai after learning it as a foreign language. I think they could explain things so much better than native Thai speakers as they would have experienced all the same problems that I am having right now.

[northern_soul]

Reading Thai and speaking Thai are two different things when it comes to stressing certain words.

As was pointed out above, the tone rules, which are essential and phonematic to Thai, dictate that the stress can not and should not be expressed by changing the tone too much.

However, there *is* definitely some tone fluctuations in spoken everyday Thai. Some purist Thai teachers try to refute this fact, but it does not make it less true.

Ponder for example when a Thai person answers a question and the asker does not catch the answer and says 'arai na khrap/kha'. The following repetition of the statement often carries some intonational emphasis - i.e. the utterance's tone curves and pitch are altered compared to the last time. This is especially true of the mid tone words. I think some Thais do not hear this, because the tone fluctuation does not change the tone so much that the tone becomes another phonematic tone within the Thai context - but there is nevertheless a shape change.

This is not something to emulate for foreign learners of Thai though, it is rather much better to try to speak under the assumption that NO intonational stress actually occurs. The safest way to stress words in Thai is to emphasize the tone on the relevant word. If you have a low tone, you make it extra-low. If you have a high tone, you make it extra high, etc.

I have noticed that native speakers of English tend to have a stronger "intonational" accent than many other farang who speak passable Thai. The examples you point out are very common among the English-speaking expat community in Thailand, but do not occur to such a large extent with Northern Europeans (I know Germans, Dutch, Swedes, Danes and Finns who speak decent Thai. Their problems normally fall within other areas such as unclear vowel distinctions and confusion between aspirated and unaspirated sounds).