How do you pronounce Phuket?
Endless schoolboyish giggles surround the pronunciation of Phuket, and indeed Phi Phi, while everyone is mystified by the new Bangkok Airport - Suvarnabhumi.
Phuket is my home, so I get a bit annoyed sometimes by people saying Fookit or FooKet or anything else with an F sound. There is no F in Phuket, but the transliteration of Thai words is sometimes nearly impossible. You can see signs in Phuket to the same places with slightly different spellings. The "Ph" in Phuket is a hard P sound, but not as hard as a normal "P", slightly softer with undertones of "B"...The island was once called Bukit, which is Malay for "hill".
No F'ing please (although I guess that could apply if talking about Nadi Phuket), the correct pronunciation of Phuket is "Poo-ket", though as I say, the P is softened slightly, the K can sound more like a G and indeed the final T is not a hard T either. Easy, huh.
Oh, and Phi Phi is "Pee Pee", which could be funny if you are 6 years old, like Phuket there is no F in Phi Phi. Oh, and Phi does not mean ghost.
What of the airport - Suvarnabhumi, Suwanapoom is how you pronounce it. The V is a W, the R is silent and the BH is a P. With 4 M's and a silent Q.
Happy New Year from Fookit.
How do you pronounce Phuket? | A Monk in Thailand