Thai student pronunciation problems – advice needed

I am currently working with a Thai student and would be grateful if anyone could enlighten me as to the reasons behind the following errors:

The student says weading instead of reading. I read that r often presents a problem to Thai speakers even in their own language. My understanding is that Thai speakers often substitute it with I, however the student is substituting it with W. What is the reason?

Student says e instead of we. What is the reason?

Student can’t pronounce th in maths and says marts or some other strange variation . I am aware of the problems Thai students have with consonants, however I have read that Thai students don’t specifically have a problem with th unvoiced pronunciation. So what is going on here?

The student told me they studied German in Thailand (when I asked them what they studied), however I know this is defiantly not true (I can speak German and the student can’t say anything in German). Any idea what they were trying to pronounce? They seem to really struggle pronouncing the word German – what do you think they meant to say? Is there a subject in Thailand that sounds like German?

The student says weading instead of reading. I read that r often presents a problem to Thai speakers even in their own language. My understanding is that Thai speakers often substitute it with I, however the student is substituting it with W. What is the reason?

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This substitution is called "Gliding of Liquids". I have heard some Thai students substitute W for R. but it is very common in native English speaking Children too. Think about Elmer Fudd and that “waskally wabbit”. Thai has an L sound (ล) very much like our English L, but they also have an “R” sound (ร) which is quite close to the L sound (NOT the same as the English R sound). In everyday speech, they often use (ล) in place of (ร). See here for more details on Thai consonants.

Student can’t pronounce th in maths and says marts or some other strange variation . I am aware of the problems Thai students have with consonants, however I have read that Thai students don’t specifically have a problem with th unvoiced pronunciation. So what is going on here?

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There is no “Th” sound in Thai, so you will have to teach it from scratch. In my experience, almost all Thai students have huge problems with “th”. Even fluent adult speakers sometimes slip and substitute “t” or “d” sounds. I taught maths to Thai kids (in English) and I would hear them say “maat” almost every day, no matter how many times I reminded them.

The student told me they studied German in Thailand (when I asked them what they studied), however I know this is defiantly not true (I can speak German and the student can’t say anything in German). Any idea what they were trying to pronounce? They seem to really struggle pronouncing the word German – what do you think they meant to say? Is there a subject in Thailand that sounds like German?

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The Thai word for German is something like “Yer-a-man”. Foreign language education in Thailand can be terrible. Just because they studied German, it doesn’t mean they can speak even a single word.

I expect you will encounter more pronunciation issues too. Of the top of my head: consonant clusters (huge issue), SH/CH, V/W, problems with final "S", "L", "J", "V", sounds. Good luck!

When they say weading, are they aware of the sound they're making, or do they think it's /r/?

98055760 said:

Why do you think the student says e instead of we? They can obviously pronounce W as they say weading for reading. How do you think the students native language is interfering with the correct pronunciation?

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That is a strange one, because Thai has a W sound and even a word or two that sound just like the English "we". It sounds just like a peculiarity of that student and not an issue of Thai language interference. I don't think I ever heard a Thai speaker drop a W either.

I think I see what Tdol is saying, but Thai speakers don't drop the L or R at the start of a syllable, only when it is immediately after another consonant.

For example:

krap -> kap (dropped r)
rian -> lian (r changes to l)

But never:

[STRIKE]ling -> ing
rian -> ian[/STRIKE]

L and R here refer to ล and ร, not the English L and R.

Hi Munch

Thanks for your explanations. You seem to know a lot about Thai, have you lived / taught in Thailand before?

I find it fascinating learning about how the student’s native language interferes with learning English.

Just one more thing that is puzzling me – the student seems to add unnecessary words when speaking. As an example I asked her what she studied at college and she replied:

"Just only Thai language"

Any idea why she would make an error like this?

Having worked with Korean kids for several years, I've realized that theirs and several other Asian students have a problem with the letters 'R', 'L', and the sound created by the letters 'TH'.
This is a phonics problem that they have to be taught since, in the case of my Korean students, the sound does not exist in their native language.
I gave my students several sentences as an exercise in order to help them. One is "The girl with a curl found a pearl".
Another is: "Though he thought he was through he threw away his thoughts".

Once they mastered these (an a few others) I knew they had mastered the sounds.
Hope this helps.