THAI LANGUAGE - High Class Consonants (HCC) (to give you an idea how difficult that language is)

High Class Consonants (HCC)

when considering the spelling of a word in Thai, the consonant class influences the tone of the word. There are three consonant classes: low, mid, and high.

The high class consonants are:

ข, ฉ, ฐ, ถ, ผ, ฝ, ศ, ษ, ส, ห

You will need to memorize this list. The HCC are the only consonants that can create a rising tone without the use of the อ๋ tone mark. The HCC cannot be used to create a mid-tone. If you hear a rising tone, chances are it uses an HCC. In the following rules I won’t go over every letter, but the rules apply to any of the HCC.

1. If a HCC is with a live (or no) ending consonant, and has no tone mark and no dead consonant, the tone is rising.

เขา

ขัน

ขา

สาม

ศาลา

ฝน

ถึง

2. If a HCC has a อ้ tone mark, and no dead consonant, the tone is falling.

เข้า

ขั้น

ข้า

ห้าม

ห้า

3. If a HCC is with a อ่ tone mark, and/or has a dead ending consonant, the tone is low.

ขัด

ขาด

หีบ

ฉิ่ง

ข่า

ข่าว

4. When the first syllable is an alone HCC without a visible vowel (and is not a consonant cluster), it becomes a low tone while the second consonant becomes an HCC. The ห is always silent if there is no vowel with it – it solely exists to modify the tone of the word.

สยาม sa2yaam5

สนาม sa2naam5

ขนม ka2nom5

หลาย laai5

หน้า naa3

เหรอ law5

เหงา ngao5

ใหญ่ yai2

now I'm an inhabitant from MARS hahaha

Just joking, we just visited the exhibition by National Geographic, on the planet Mars. Virtual reality shows you on the surface of this planet and lets you experience how rough life will be there. Nevertheless, I'm already the proud owner of a Marsian ID :-)

Japan in Malaysia: ISETAN

Isetan is a well-known shopping mall in Japan. The first Isetan outside of Japan was located in Kuala Lumpur (KL), Lot 10, Bukit Bintang (BB), many years ago. Time for a renovation!

We remembered the old Isetan in KL, as a more or less run down mall, with many cheap items, interesting but not inspiring.

Our recent visit showed a totally new Isetan: fresh ideas, sparkling design, innovative products, totally the opposite of the old one. Now it's really a showcase of the best that Japan has to offer. Amazing. If you have time, do go there and pay it a visit in Lot 10, BB. Although being a showcase, the items are still for sale (most of them). Unfortunately, no longer cheap. One price one quality!