Thai and English use the mouth differently. These are the places where judges most often lose a Thai student’s words, and what to do about each.
Do one sound a day, for five minutes, in front of a mirror. Record it. Your ear learns faster when it hears your own voice played back.
Thai words end softly, and many English endings do not exist in Thai. So “rice” becomes “rye”, “walked” becomes “walk”, and “cats” becomes “cat”. This one habit hides more meaning than any other.
Do this: Finish every word before you start the next. Let the last sound out with a little air.
Say rice, house, walked, jumped, cats, dogs, world, asked
Then She walked to the house and asked for rice.
In everyday Thai, R often turns into L, or disappears. In English they change the word: “rice” and “lice”, “fry” and “fly”.
Do this: For L, touch the tip of your tongue behind your top teeth. For R, pull the tongue back so that it touches nothing, and round your lips.
Say light, right, long, wrong, fly, fry, play, pray
Then The river ran along the long road.
Thai has no TH, so it becomes T, D or S. “Three” becomes “tree”, “think” becomes “sink”.
Do this: Put the tip of your tongue between your teeth, so that you can see it in the mirror, and blow.
Say three, think, thank, mother, brother, this, that, with
Then My mother thinks that three is enough.
Thai has W but no V, so “very” becomes “wery” and “village” becomes “willage”.
Do this: For V, rest your top teeth on your bottom lip and make your voice buzz. For W, make a small round kiss and open it.
Say very, village, voice, river, west, wind, water, away
Then The wind in the village was very wild.
These two fall together. “Ship” becomes “chip”, “wash” becomes “watch”.
Do this: SH is one long quiet sound, the sound for “be quiet”. CH starts with a stop, like a small sneeze.
Say ship, chip, shoe, chew, wash, watch, fish, each
Then She watched the fish and chose the big one.
In Thai every syllable gets its turn. English is not fair: one syllable in a word is loud and long, and the rest are quick and quiet. Flat English is hard to follow even when every sound is right.
Do this: Find the strong syllable in each long word. Clap on it. Make it longer, not only louder.
Say buffalo, umbrella, grandmother, afraid, together
Then My grandmother had an umbrella that was older than my mother.
A sound you can only say alone is not finished. Take one sentence from your story that has your hard sound in it, and say it ten times: slowly, then at story speed. This is day 14.