[likpok]

Good morning is a bad example because it has a colloquial meaning that is a least a little idiomatic. Most other words/phrases in English don’t have this effect, while many Chinese words are like 早安. 了解, for example, can’t even be pronounced without correctly parsing the word.

[eric-hu]

Okay, I concede that I may have forgotten that Chinese has its exceptions too. 了解 is indeed a good example. There are plenty in English though. Even with context, sometimes I have to really pause and think whether to pronounce read as red or reed (I read it just fine, I read English just fine).

Where I've had pain specifically with Thai is that I can't even know where a syllable begins and ends until I read a few "syllables" together and decide whether some vowels go with the consonant in front or behind it, and whether some an -ar should be pronounced as an -aan.