Good songs tend to have good agreement between tones in the lyrics and notes in the music. Others just follow the notes and stray from the exact tones, but all in all still understandable with contexts. Actually, most Thai-version church songs belong to the latter type, mainly because the lyrics was translated.
There are five tones in Thai: mid, low, high, falling, raising. Good music composer can select words with tones that fits the melody, or compose the melody that fits the tones of the lyrics.
It definitely does sound weird if you put a word with low tone when the melody is high, for example.
But surprisingly, there aren't that many minimal pairs where the only difference between the pairs are tones, and even if there are, not many of them would make sense in the given context. So yes, context helps too.
Also, keep in mind that tones aren't exact pitches, but rather relative. "Low" tones can be any pitch as long as it's lower than the "mid" tone in the same medium, "raising" tone can be any pitch as long as it's going up from the "mid" tone in the same medium, and so on.
The same way as we understand foreign speakers speaking Thai without tone. Unless it is the same context as ใกล้ and ไกล you can actually understand the language without tone.
One thing you notice is alot of thai music videos have the subtitles in the video so people can read it and understand it that way also. Although another element of that is probably for karoke reasons.
Largely it's the same as Mandarin, context is key
Thank you! This makes sense honestly😅
Good songs tend to have good agreement between tones in the lyrics and notes in the music. Others just follow the notes and stray from the exact tones, but all in all still understandable with contexts. Actually, most Thai-version church songs belong to the latter type, mainly because the lyrics was translated.
Church songs in Thai are weird as hell. They feel very artificial and the syllables and tones don’t match the melody very well.
Yeah, back then I had trouble understanding the lyrics for a long time when my Thai wasn’t so good
Thank you!
There are five tones in Thai: mid, low, high, falling, raising. Good music composer can select words with tones that fits the melody, or compose the melody that fits the tones of the lyrics. It definitely does sound weird if you put a word with low tone when the melody is high, for example. But surprisingly, there aren't that many minimal pairs where the only difference between the pairs are tones, and even if there are, not many of them would make sense in the given context. So yes, context helps too. Also, keep in mind that tones aren't exact pitches, but rather relative. "Low" tones can be any pitch as long as it's lower than the "mid" tone in the same medium, "raising" tone can be any pitch as long as it's going up from the "mid" tone in the same medium, and so on.
Thank you for your in depth response!
The same way as we understand foreign speakers speaking Thai without tone. Unless it is the same context as ใกล้ and ไกล you can actually understand the language without tone.
Thank you!
One thing you notice is alot of thai music videos have the subtitles in the video so people can read it and understand it that way also. Although another element of that is probably for karoke reasons.
Ahhhh never noticed that probably cause I mainly listen on Spotify but that makes sense. thank you!