After my arrival in Bangkok on the 14th of August, Julia and I headed out on the 16th to the south of Thailand for a two week vacation on the beaches and islands of enchanting Thailand. It was an amazing two weeks, filled with so much amazing food, drinks, dancing, beach-bathing, sunsets, sunrises, boat rides, motor bike riding, and just a general good time. Now I am back in Bangkok, and have begun the serious business of researching what I want to do while Julia is at work 6 days per week. I have been looking into cooking classes, which I’m thinking of doing once per week. I also have been contemplating the idea of taking Thai language classes.
Learning any new language can be daunting. In fact, Julia and I had a long, inconclusive conversation about the complex irregularities of the English language last night, and the possible means and reasons for the change and development of language. Should the language be made more regular in order to facilitate an easier grasp of converstional English, seeing as how it has become the “universal” language in the sense that it facilitates business and tourist transactions all over the world? Needless to say, neither Julia nor I came to a consensus on the topic. But it did get me thinking about what I love about language, and what makes English so difficult to learn. The English language is full of rules, and then is constantly breaking those rules with exceptions for no apparent reason. We have many tenses, once we don’t even realize we use until we reach the 8th grade and are told that we have been speaking in the present perfect tense. Who knew?
In order to get a better understanding of what I was up against when it comes to learning Thai, I was reading a webpage in which the author stated that Thai is much more simple than English in that respect. There is often no use of past or future tense – everything is in the present tense, and the meaning is changed only by the words used in the sentence (ie the verbs do not need to be conjugated, but always remain constant, and time is delineated by the use of the words “will”, “already” or “in the past”). There are no masculine or feminine nouns as there are in Latin languages. There are no articles or particles (a, and, the), and there is no plural. So by reading this first page you start to think that learning Thai might actually be an attainable goal. This of course is before you have ever tried to speak Thai to a Thai person. Once you have done this you understand why so many Westerners don’t even bother. Although the grammar and syntax of Thai might be more simple, the tonal variations and the vowel sounds of the words are so complex that to the untrained ear you might not ever hear the difference between one word that is spelled the same, but when pronounced in different tones can mean completely different things. The author of this article gives a good example:
“A word can have several meanings depending on the tones, for example the sentence 'mai mai mai mai mai' (with varying tones), can mean the ‘new wood doesn’t burn does it?’. This is where the confusion sets in, such as the word kii, which could mean ‘ride’ or ‘shit’ depending on which way you say it. Even worse is the similarity between glai, where only a falling tone differentiates the meaning from ‘near’ and ‘far’.” (http://www.1stopbangkok.com/speak_thai/tones/, 2008)
So, perhaps at this point you can understand why I am sitting in my apartment writing about the complexities of the Thai language. If not, let me elaborate. I know how to get to the train station. I know how to buy a ticket, what stop to get off at to enjoy some food, go shopping, or visit Julia at her job when she gets off work. I know how to say hello and thank you. I know where the grocery store is, and where the open air night market is. But, once I am done with all of these things and I want to catch a motor bike back to the apartment, I don’t know how to pronounce the name of the drop off point! I can get myself to any number of locations, do any number of things, but I can’t tell the driver how to get me home. Of course I’m not going to sit here in the apartment all day until Julia comes home from work. I’m going to go out and give it a try anyways, once I have done my yoga and gotten properly attired (Thai women always look fabulous I have discovered, and short of wearing high heels, I’m going to try to look fabulous as well if I have to leave the house) I’m going to go shopping and cook dinner for Julia and I tonight. I’m going to make green curry with vegetables and rice, one of our favorite dishes. Not from scratch of course because I don’t have the utensils to make the green curry paste myself, but I’ve discovered that anything with copious amounts of coconut milk in it is just by nature absolutely delicious. Thai food is amazing! Ah well, wish me luck ☺
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