Or, in other words,
สวัสดีค่ะ. That's Thai for hello (or good bye, but only if you're a girl. . .). And I know that because My Man and I are taking Thai! Most days I can hardly believe my luck! Other days, I wonder what I was thinking when I gave up a life of leisure (OK, maybe not leisure, but comparative calm!) for the hectic craziness of full-time school. It was actually quite a surprise that I got in the class at all. When I initially tried to get in the class, there wasn't room for me, but when one of the registered students didn't arrive the first day, and it became clear that she wouldn't be attending, My Man lobbied hard to get me the spot (thanks Love!). The first day was a little crazy since I'd already made other commitments and didn't have babysitting lined up, but somehow I managed to get there in time for the afternoon classes. My Man helped me catch up with what I'd missed that morning (having my own personal tutor at home is definitely one of the best parts of this class) and a gracious friend offered to watch kids after school until I could arrange something else. Since I've always worked from home, I've never had to arrange the logistics of after-school daycare, snow days, sick days, doctors appointments, etc. It's been an adjustment to be sure, but I'm so grateful that the kids and My Man have been flexible and patient to allow me this incredible opportunity. The house isn't as clean, dinners aren't as elaborate (or timely), and I don't have as much time to devote to being a mom/wife, but after only about 12 days of class, I can sound out Thai characters, introduce myself, tell you all about my family (or ask you about yours), where we're from, what we do, and so forth. That seems like a pretty fair trade to me.
It's strange being back in school after an 11-year hiatus. My brain has been complaining about the unaccustomed exercise but it's just as exhilarating as getting into shape again after a sluggish winter. We are in class at least 5 hours a day (with a 1 to 4 teacher to student ratio for most of the classes, 1 to 3 in the reading classes) and then have a couple hours of homework each day. But all that study is paying off. And it's fun to be able to study and learn along with My Man.
To give you an idea of how it's like reading Thai, here's what it would be like in English (only pretend that you only know one in ten of the words): thisisachartofthethaiconsonantswehavelearnedtheonlyreallytrickypartisthatabouthalfofthemchangesoundsiftheyreattheendofasyllableohandalsothattheyredividedintothreedifferentclasseswhichaffecthowwordsarepronouncedandtherearentspacesbetweenwordsorsentencessoyoujusthavetofigureoutorguesswhentheyareattheendofthesyllablesandtherearelotsofdifferentfontsthatlookcompletelydifferenttousฝรั่งforeignersotherthanthatitsallverystraightforward. (As an English grammarian, I can tell you that the lack of spacing, punctuation, and consistent grammar is
killing me a refreshing change.)
This is a chart of the vowels we've been working on. The only tricky part is that sometimes the vowels are assumed instead of written, or they change form and look completely different, and they can be written before, after, over, or under the consonants, or some combination of all of those. And oh yeah, see those phonetic suggestions underneath? Yeah, they don't really sound like that. My Man and I can already count in Thai to 999 (at least theoretically, we haven't actually tried going that high!). Writing the numbers though, that's a whole different story. Here's what the numbers look like:
I'm still not quite sure if I'll be in the class for 8 weeks or 16 or the full class. I'm hoping they'll let me do 16, so I can go right up until school gets out for the summer. That will be just long enough to get a good foundation but not so long that the class gets bogged down in diplomatic shop talk. :-) I'll let My Man handle all that professional vocab, so I can focus on the important things like ordering
ผัดไทย (pad Thai). Yum.
And speaking of pad Thai, My Man and I found a delicious Thai food restaurant near FSI called Sawatdii where all of the food is fantastic. We've snuck off for a few lunch dates there, all in the spirit of research so that we know what to expect in Chiang Mai and to practice our Thai. It's our hardest homework, really, but we've resigned ourselves to the fact that when you're trying to learn a difficult language like Thai, you really have to go all in, even if that means eating copious amounts of incredibly delicious food. Frankly, I'm hoping there's a positive correlation to the amount of Thai food we eat and the level of our Thai language. In fact, at the rate we're going, we should be able to read this in no time:
ร้านหนังสือของเราจำหน่ายสินค้ามากมายทั้งหนังสือภาษาไทยมากมายทั้งด้านความรู้วรรณกรรมนิยายและการ์ตูนจากหลากหลายนักเขียนนักแปลสำนักพิมพ์ทางร้านเรายังจัดจำหน่ายซีดีซีดีดีวีดีภาพยนตร์และดนตรีพร้อมให้บริการจัดส่งสินค้าทั่วโลกท่านสามารถสั่งซื้อสินค้าของเราได้ไม่ว่าท่านจะอยู่ที่ใดในโลกด้วยราคายุติธรรมซึ่งตรงกับสโลแกนของเราคือลูกค้ามีความสำคัญสูงสุดสำหรับเราเพราะฉะนั้นเราจะดูแลทุกการสั่งซื้อด้วยความรวดเร็วถูกต้องแม่นยำ
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