Cafe Indochine

Restaurant Favorites Throughout Thailand
-And favorite recipes and recipe requests-
User avatar
Gaybutton
Posts: 21461
Joined: Sat Jul 31, 2010 11:21 am
Location: Thailand
Has thanked: 2 times
Been thanked: 1306 times

Re: Cafe Indochine

Post by Gaybutton »

richsilver wrote:It's not correct to assume that a transliteration system was created for Americans.
Maybe that explains why some people tell me to just pho off . . .
RichLB
Posts: 1217
Joined: Sat Jul 31, 2010 4:13 pm
Has thanked: 2 times
Been thanked: 88 times

Re: Cafe Indochine

Post by RichLB »

It seems to me that if a menu is written in English, the transliteration system would correspond to English pronunciation.
User avatar
richsilver
Posts: 206
Joined: Sun Aug 01, 2010 6:22 pm
Location: Pattaya, Thailand
Been thanked: 41 times

Re: Cafe Indochine

Post by richsilver »

RichLB wrote:It seems to me that if a menu is written in English, the transliteration system would correspond to English pronunciation.
That may be true, but there is no accepted way to pronounce vowels in English (unlike some other languages where you don't have to guess).

For example, the o in go is pronounced completed different from the o in to. So if you saw the word fo, how would you know how to pronounce it? You would not. The only way for a transliteration system to work is to have rules that are agreed upon. And without knowing those rules, you might think the system is not logical or correct.

For example, when you see a ph at the beginning of a Thai word (like in Phuket in the most common transliteration system) you must know that rules say you do NOT pronounce it as f like you would think. Instead, it merely denotes a "soft" p. The rules also tell you that at th at the beginning of a word (like Theprasit) is NOT pronounced as the th in then, but it is a "soft" t.
User avatar
Gaybutton
Posts: 21461
Joined: Sat Jul 31, 2010 11:21 am
Location: Thailand
Has thanked: 2 times
Been thanked: 1306 times

Re: Cafe Indochine

Post by Gaybutton »

richsilver wrote:So if you saw the word fo, how would you know how to pronounce it?
Fee, fi, fo, fum
I smell the blood of an Englishman
Post Reply