Feminine voice required?

[Sofa King High]

Maybe it's because the only Thai I ever hear is from females, but I can't for the life of me do the legit Thai accent (ie not 'Englishising' the sounds) for many words without, a, well, feminine voice. Think about the word for clothes seua-phaa or neua (above), the 'eua' combined with the rising tone just naturally makes my voice hit the 5-yr old girl tone. What gives? Am I just a fuck up? Does my voice just need to be a bit more feminine to pronounce the words right? Do you know wtf I'm goin on about?

[slick67]

The pitch of the tones are all relative to your own voice, so it would sound a bit strange if you copy the (higher) pitch of a woman.

 

Here's a good explanation of how the rising tone works:

http://slice-of-thai.com/tones/#rising

 

Better stop hanging around 5-yr old girls I guess (just kidding)

[Sofa King High]

Haha, thanks man, that's what I was getting at.