Page:Adapting and Writing Language Lessons.pdf/259

CHAPTER 5 English words. Accordingly, we have learned to ignore it. In Thai, on the other hand, many pairs of words differ only in this respect.

16. Just as English may be either aspirated or unaspirated, so English  may be voiced or unvoiced. This choice depends less on position in the word than on the identity of the speaker: some people almost always voice in English, but many others virtually never do. The result, however is the same as for - because the difference between voiced and unvoiced never carries a difference of meaning in English, we have learned to ignore it.

17. English speakers therefore may have considerable difficulty in hearing the difference between Thai and, or between  and , or both. Comparable problems exist in dealing with Thai ,,;, ; ,.

18. One logically minor but in practice troublesome fact is that the consonant which occurs only at the ends of English syllables (e.g. ) is hard for English speakers to pronounce when it begins a word, as it often does in Thai.

19. ''

If we compare a chart of the simple vowel contrasts of the surface structure of English with a chart of the vowels of Thai, the two charts look virtually identical: