[wingerlang]

I just think that ไก่ is miles closer to Gai than Kai, that's all. Another hill would be that ปู is best written as bpuu/bpoo.

I don't really think it matters, no one is consistent, no transliteration covers all cases. Unless maybe ipa? (which no one uses to communicate anyway).

[jdtig]

I can agree that the Paiboon romanization (g/k, b/bp/b, d/dt/t) is probably the most intuitive for English-speakers.

But it's silly to say that it's the best system just because it is easiest for people like yourself.

I do think something IPA-inspired (k/kh, b/p/ph, d/t/th) is consistent and still usable. It will also encourage better pronunciation (at least for somewhat serious students) if they are trying to say the correct sound (unaspirated /k/) instead of approximating it with an English phoneme that isn't used in Thai (voiced /g/).

[wingerlang]

I didn't say it is the best system though, I said that I think some characters are more accurate than others. The implied context being, casually writing Thai in English, to other English speakers.

But I do think that an intuitive system is better than an IPA inspired system, and that's purely because of the fact that only 1% of people will be using it and understanding it. The other 99% will be using other, random, variations. However an intuitive system will at least catch most people who speaks English.

Any romanization that is more than "close enough" is a waste of time though, when compared to simply learning to write in Thai.