# 25 Thai Language

Thai Alphabet ^^^
The one thing I was most nervous about before coming to Thailand was the language. Having zero experience with a tonal language I knew it would be a challenge to learn sounds unknown to the english language. Take the following sentence for example " mai mai mai mai mai (with varying tones), can mean the ‘new wood doesn’t burn does it?’ Or the length of sound in kii, which could mean ‘ride’ or ‘shit’ depending on which way you say it as volunteer Ben found out as he tried to explain "ride" the bus but instead said "shit" the bus to his students. Even worse is the similarity between glai, where only a falling tone differentiates the meaning from ‘near’ and ‘far’. I have definitely had my moments of mixing up the tones sending my students into fits of laughter but at the end of the day you just have to roll with it and laugh at yourself. In all honesty I'm extremely impressed by how much language the other volunteers and I have been able to pick up over the course of the year. I can't have in-depth conversations with my co-teachers but I've gotten to the point where I can understand the topic of whatever their conversation. My best language teachers have definitely been my students. My thai vocabulary mainly has come from them if its the words that we are learning in english or simple classroom commands. They are pacient with me as I butcher thai words at them slowly repeating them back at me in correct sounds.

Living in northeastern Thailand, has its own set of challenges learning thai since predominenately the village people in this region speak in a dialect of thai called Issan. This has caused quite a bit of confusion mixing up the languages often. However, I have really come to like the Thai language due to its practicality. There is no tenses, no plurals, no ending puncuation, no capitals, no spaces between words, rare use of pronouns, and no articles . However, you can probably now see how difficult it is to teach a language with as much grammar as english does, to students who have no experience with it in their native language. I spend lessons solely on teaching my youngest students that you need a space in between words and how you can't switch back in between capital and lowercase letters. Here are some direct translations of Thai words that I find really great.

Meow Nam: Cat Water: Seal

Ma Lie: Horse stripes: Zebra

Nam: can be used for water, soup, juice

See Fah: Color sky: Blue

See Khao: Color rice: White

Dtam Ahan: Do food: cook

Hong Nam: Room water: Bathroom

Nam Kaeng: Water strong: Ice