MikeS

Ever struggled to teach something and your students just don't seem to be able to get it? Sometimes their first language knowledge of Thai interferes with their L2. The following article helped to clarify my understanding of some of the problems: David Smyth, “Thai Speakers”, from Learner English, Swan & Smith, 2002. Note: These are my notes, so responsibility for any errors is mine.

Thais tend to speak English with a particular accent which is affected by the way they pronounce Thai. For instance, r often becomes l and final consonants may change in pronunciation.

When pronouncing English words with vowel clusters not found in Thai (dr, fr, fl, fj, tw, sl, sm, sw, sp, sk, st) Thais insert a short vowel, so smoke becomes sa-moke, frown becomes fa-rown, screw becomes sa-crew and strike becomes sa-trike.

In Thai, speakers drop the second segment of a two-segment consonant cluster at the beginning of a Thai word, so khray (who) and plaa (fish) become khay and paa. When speaking English, they may do the same, particularly with r, turning brake into bake and free into fee. Fried rice may become fied lice. English final consonant clusters are often shortened, pump becomes pum and perfect becomes perfec.

Thai is tonal and this can affect their pronunciation of English syllables. In Thai the stress is on single syllables while in English the stress is on groups of syllables. One effect is for Thai speakers of English to stress the final syllable in words, for example butter becomes but’ter, coffee becomes cof’fee, and shopping becomes shop’ping.

Thai has a number of intonations which do not appear in English. So when Thai is translated to English it loses the intonations and may become rather staccato.

The mismatch between spelling and pronunciation in English can cause many pronunciation problems for Thais speaking English. Another problem can be that English words can be misspelt in Thai, and then the user has trouble adjusting to the correct spelling.

Thai words are not separated by spaces and Thai also essentially doesn’t have punctuation, except for gaps in letters to indicate pauses, so English punctuation is a whole new field to Thai speakers, who omit punctuation or to have trouble distinguishing sentence breaks.

Thai plurals are generally unmarked from the singular and indicated only by the use of other words. Thai pronouns reflect an extensive series of intimacy and hierarchy. While Thai and English both have the subject+verb+object order, Thai often omits the subject.

In Thai a question is created by adding a question word at the end of a sentence, so in English Thais often put the question word et the end e.g. "You go when?" The question words have no equivalent in English. Thais often use a rising intonation to make a question in English e.g. He go?

Thais often answer “Yes” to English questions which require a “No’ answer e.g. ‘You’re not going, are you.” Double negative questions should be avoided at all costs.

Negatives in Thai are created by adding the word may before the verb. There can be confusion about whether to translate this as no or not e.g. He not go; He no go.
Thai has no inflected verbs, so a single word for go covers English equivalents such as went, was going, has gone, is going, will go, would go. The context in Thai makes the meaning clear. So Thais will tend to use the unmarked base form of an English verb rather than attempt to change it, with results such as, Yesterday we go London, She pay already and I leave him since 10 o’clock. A person using the base verb may actually be having trouble with pronunciation and may fail to pronounce the ed in words such as cooked or arranged.

There are no articles in Thai and Thais have a lot of trouble with English definite and indefinite articles and when to omit or use articles e.g. He very nice man, The buffalos are the important animals in Thailand.

Adjectives or adverbs in Thai occur after the noun they modify, which is the opposite of English e.g. Car red. Adjectives and adverbs also function as the verb to be e.g. Car good can be either the phrase A good car or a sentence The car is good. As a result, Thais often omit the verb from sentences e.g. This car not good.

In Thai there is no distinction between adjective/adverb pairs as in English e.g. good/well, clear/clearly. Thais overuse the adjectival form in English e.g. You speak Thai very good.
Thai uses the equivalent of more than and the most for superlatives, and so Thais tend to disregard er and est in English and produce sentences such as This dress is beautiful more than others.

Thai nouns are neither singular nor plural and do not have gender or case, relying instead on context. So Thais use the singular form when the plural is required in English e.g. I have many friend.

The Thai sound system has no final s, nor final consonant clusters, so Thais may produce correct written forms, but pronounce them incorrectly.

The Thai number system is more complex than English, using a noun classifier, and this can cause a failure to pluralise a noun after a number e.g. I have five brother.

Pronouns in Thai are more complex than in English to distinguish hierarchy and intimacy. The most common third-person pronoun in Thai makes no distinction between gender or number, resulting in Thais using he and she interchangeably and sentence groups such as, My sisters study at the university. He work very hard.

Thai does not have a possessive pronoun, so in English of is frequently omitted.

The subject is often omitted in Thai when it is clear who is being talked about, and pronouns may be discarded, causing sentences such as, My brother was angry when came home.

English verb+ preposition or adjective+preposition combinations have a single word Thai equivalent, causing sentences such as, I angry you, We interest it, He frighten you.
Complex English sentences cause problems for Thais in getting the correct verb tenses in subordinate clauses, usually resulting in them opting for the unmarked form.

Thai only has one relative pronoun, so in English Who and Which are frequently confused e.g. My friend which I met.

Many English loan words have been adopted into Thai, but they gain a Thai pronunciation which Thais may find difficult to shed when using English e.g. plastic pat-tik, style sa-taay, strike sa-tray.

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