This document summarizes research on the Thai language and profiles a Thai English language learner named See Loh. It compares features of the Thai and English languages, such as Thai having 44 consonants and 32 vowels while English has 26 letters. It also discusses See Loh's language errors and interlanguage development, noting differences between Thai and English grammar contribute to her mistakes. The document concludes that understanding these differences can help educators properly instruct Thai English learners.

1. L ANGUAGE C OMPARISON P OSTER
A Summary of Research on the Thai Language.
Carrie Lehman
Wilkes University

2. PROFILE OF SEE LOH:
A THAI ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNER
 Came to the United States from Thailand, where she lived in a
refugee camp
 Arrived here in 2007 – 5 years ago
 23 years old
 Upon arriving here, she studied and received her GED
 First language is Thai; studied English, Burmese, and Karen in
school (back in Thailand) starting at age 6 – learned other
subjects as well, like geography, history, and math
 Currently takes ESL classes at her local church – learning to
speak, write, and read English
 To practice English, she reads books – mostly children’s books –
and copies any words she doesn’t understand.
 Likes going to school and learning – would like to go to school to
become a nurse

3. FEATURES OF THE THAI LANGUAGE
 Made up of an alphabet containing 44 consonants and 32 vowels
(Karoonboonyanan, 1999, p. 1)
 Has five different tones that can be used when pronouncing a
word – these five tones are: low, mid, falling, high, rising
 A change in tone can alter the meaning of a word
 Does not have parts of speech – such as articles
 Where a word is placed in a sentence determines whether the
word is a verb or a noun in Thai
 Words do not change based on the concepts of singular verses
plural
 No third person forms of verbs
 Shows no distinction between past and future tense
 All letters maintain same sound throughout the Thai language
 Writing in Thai:
 No spacing between the words in the sentence
 No use of capital or lower case letters

4. COMPARING THAI TO ENGLISH
Thai English
 Alphabet = 44 consonants & 32  Alphabet = 26 consonants &
vowels vowels
 Phonetic language: each letter  Not a Phonetic language: same
makes the same sound no matter letter can represent multiple
how the letter is used sounds
 No true parts of speech & word  Has many grammatical rules and
order determines whether a word parts of speech
is a noun or a verb  Complete sentence contains at
 Does not require a verb to form a least a subject and verb
complete sentence  Differences between singular
 No difference between singular or words and plural words
plural words

5. EXAMPLES OF DIFFERENCES
 Thai is a phonetic language,  English is not phonetic: The
therefore, each letter has its own vowel in the word cat is
sound that doesn’t change represented as /æ/ while the same
depending on the use of the vowel is represented as /ɑ/ in the
letter. word art.
 A complete sentence in Thai  In English a complete sentence
could be: ‘she beautiful’ – “They contains at least a verb and a
do not require a verb” (McKenzie- noun: ‘She drives.’
Brown, 2006, p. 1)  Singular v. Plural: Tree (s) v.
 No singular v. plural – “An ‘s’ Trees (p)
sound at the end of a word is not
pronounced in Thai which means
that plural nouns are frequently
pronounced as singular” (Anyan,
2006, p. 1).

6. LANGUAGE ERROR DATA :
AS COLLECTED IN DATA ANALYSIS JOURNAL
Left column represents what See Loh said; while the right
Tense  column represents what would be correct in English.
“Six year old” Six years old
“My Mother live with Sister.” My Mother lives with my Sister
“We go home now?” Are we going home now?
Parts of Speech 
“Americans big.” Americans are big.
“He can be on Monday.” He can come on Monday.
Prepositions & Articles 
“I like go to school.” I like [to] go to school.
“All kinds writing.” I am interested in all kinds [of] writing.
“I need job.” I need [a] job.
“Take ESL class.” I take [an] ESL class.

7. INTERLANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
 See Loh would likely fall under WIDA Access level 1:
Entering
 Under this classification (for the category of Speaking) should be capable of the
following – among some others – “affirm or negate, combine words, answer WH-
questions, use high frequency vocabulary, produce one-word answers” (Alternate
Access, 2009, p. 1).
 Problems with communication are likely “because of the gaps in their
linguistic repertoire” (Pawapatcharaudom, 2007, p. 20).
 It may be hard for the ELL to “find an alternative way of getting the meaning
across” (Pawapatcharaudom, 2007, p. 20) mid-way through a conversation –
because of this they may just end the interaction instead of trying to continue.

8. DISCUSSION
 The quality of See Loh’s spoken English as well as her
ability to read English was impressive
 Her vocabulary range was fairly small, which can be
expected of someone still learning English – therefore
some words had to be defined for her
 She had difficulty using parts of speech like articles
and prepositions, but this misuse make sense when
considering her native language is Thai
 Misuse of tense, singular and plural, and third person
verbs also make sense for the same reason – they do
not exist as part of the Thai language

9. CONCLUSION
 Educators may face difficulties when teaching English
language learners who are native speakers of Thai – since
there are many aspects found in English that do not exist
in Thai
 When instructing Thai ELLs extra instruction on some of
the grammatical aspects of English may be important for
proper comprehension
 There may be difficulties with the fact that English is not a
phonetic language – therefore there could be trouble when
learning how to read
 It is important for educators to provide authentic
instruction in order to create meaningful learning on the
part of these students
 Understanding the differences between English and Thai,
will help educators be able to properly instruct native Thai
English language learners.

10. REFERENCES
Anyan, J (2006). Different families, not distant cousins: comparing Thai and
English. MED Magazine, 37. Retrieved from
http://www.macmillandictionaries.com/MED-Magazine/April2006/37-Thai-English-false-
friends.htm
Karoonboonyanan, T (1999). Standardization and implementations of Thai
language . Retrieved from http://www.nectec.or.th/it-standards/thaistd.pdf
McKenzie-Brown, P (2006, November 5). A Study in Thai [Web log post].
Retrieved from http://languageinstinct.blogspot.com/2006/11/thai-language.html
Pawapatcharaudom, R(2007). An investigation of Thai students’ English
language problems and their learning strategies in the international program at
Mahidol university. Retrieved from http://www.nectec.or.th/it-
standards/thaistd.pdf