Words in Thai

This post is my attempt to write out my pronunciation of a few Thai words in English.
I begin with my present understanding of the meaning of each. Each meaning is followed by my idea of its (phonetic) pronunciation.

a medium(like the one who helps you to communicate with your dead uncle Slim)
* khon song

house, home
* ban (a bit like a New England barn)

elephant
* Cha-ang

water
* nam (as in Viet nam)

Presidential Pronunciation.

English pronunciation - s sound and z sound - YouTube

Please forward this to President Obama.

His pronunciation of these sounds distracted me greatly form the message of his jobs talk today.

His grammar and understanding of meanings is magnificent, but I find his pronunciation distracting.

He seems to pronounce 'his' as 'hiss'. I like to hear the 's'  sound in 'sounds' as a buzz not as a hiss. The 's' in the 'jobs' I love is buzzed not hissed.