Telling Time

I just want to take this blog to show you a little bit of the language that I’m learning. So I’m going to teach you how to tell time. Can’t be that hard, can it? It’s just numbers on a clock. Yeah, not so much. There are 9 different segments of time throughout a 24 hour period. So here we go :) Hope you can keep up!

ŋ – the ng sound can be at the beginning or the end of a word
ə - the u sound as in the word cut
ɔ - the au sound as in the word caught
ɛ - the a sound as in ram
ʉ - we don’t have this sound in English it’s a u sound but from the back of the throat
‘ - there is an unvoiced consonant in Thai I’m using the apostrophe because I can’t find the symbol online.
There are also 5 tones that I will be putting in parentheses because it will be next to impossible for me to get the symbols in the right places.
th – makes the t sound not the th sound like it does in English.
c – c by itself makes almost a j sound
k – k by itself makes a g sound
Numbers in Thai:
1 - n ʉ ŋ (low tone)
2 - s ɔ ɔ ŋ (rising tone)
3 – saam (rising tone)
4 – sii (low tone)
5 – haa (falling tone)
6 – hok (low tone)
7 – cet (low tone)
8 - pb ɛ ɛ t (low tone)
9 – kaaw (falling tone)
10 – sip (low tone)
11 – sip (low tone) ‘et (low tone)

• dt ɔ ɔ n (mid tone) chaaw (high tone): 6-9 am
• dt ɔ ɔ n (mid tone) saay (rising tone): 9-11.59 am
• dt ɔ ɔ n (mid tone) thia ŋ (falling tone): noon-12.59 pm
• dt ɔ ɔ n (mid tone) baay (low tone): 1-4 pm
• dt ɔ ɔ n (mid tone) yen (mid tone): 4-6 pm
• dt ɔ ɔ n (mid tone) kham (falling tone): 6-9 pm
• dt ɔ ɔ n (mid tone) d ʉ k (low tone): 9-11.59 pm
• dt ɔ ɔ n (mid tone) thia ŋ (falling tone) kh ʉ ʉ n (mid tone): midnight-12.59 am
• then 1-5.59 am is dtii 1, 2, etc.
okay, so those are just the segments of time. Kind of like us saying morning, noon, afternoon, evening, night.
So here is how to tell time. I’m only going to give you a few examples b/c 24 hours and 2 different ways to say most times is a lot of typing for me, and a lot of reading for you that you probably won’t understand anyway.
7 am: cet (low tone) moo ŋ (mid tone) chaaw (high tone) OR
n ʉ ŋ (low tone) moo ŋ (mid tone) chaaw (high tone)
11 am: sip (low tone) ‘et (low tone) moo ŋ (mid tone) chaaw (high tone) OR haa (falling tone) moo ŋ (mid tone) chaaw (high tone)
noon: thia ŋ (falling tone)
4 pm: baay (low tone) sii (low tone) moo ŋ (mid tone) OR sii (low tone moo ŋ (mid tone) yen (mid tone)
7 pm: n ʉ ŋ (low tone) thum (falling tone)
11 pm: haa (falling tone) thum (falling tone)
midnight: thia ŋ (falling tone) kh ʉ ʉ n (mid tone)
3 am: dtii saam (rising tone)

So… doesn’t that sound like fun??? I’m sure all of you are jealous you aren’t learning this amazing language! :)