“And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the
trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar
conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.”
―F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
the great gatsby JUST came to thailand a few weeks ago. that event, plus the end of the school year, makes this quote appropriate. so how is life beginning over again for us this summer? two words: thai school. after two years here we finally have the time to devote to language study! and while we are excited and learning and hopeful, there is nothing quite like being made to feel transported back to kindergarten on a daily basis!
the language school is 40 minutes from our house, so i have gotten two daily lessons for the price of one--how to learn thai PLUS get to and from (anyone who knows me well knows that i have no fears in driving, only in navigating)! it's organized by the company ray contracts for, so we were generously given a discount. since it's where ray works we need to take two vehicles in every day. i would be willing to drive him in every morning, but our old car can't make that trip twice a day! so he motorbikes in and i meet him there in the afternoons and then we race each other home (just kidding-- safety first)!
so we now find ourselves waist-deep in flashcards and having stilted, elementary conversations with our delightful teacher (i don't know how many times she can listen to us tell her we have a blue pen and a green notebook, but she always smiles!). the classes are already paying off. we are finally able to say more than the token six words to our neighbours. i think the whole village around our house is invested in this adventure--we're getting more smiles and some helpful vocab advice wherever we go. and just yesterday we met friends for breakfast and we were able to order completely in thai.
my main complaint is that we are taught in english phonetics. while that's not a new language, it's still a lot to remember that the 'c's sound like 'j's and the 'ph's are aspirated 'p's and NOT 'f's--all while we're trying to remember which of the five tones to use. i wish we could go straight to the thai alphabet (it's 'not how things are done,' however). written language makes so much more sense to me. when we first arrived (and we were delusional enough to think we could study thai a few hours a week while working full schedules and adjusting to a new culture) we asked a coworker at school to teach us the alphabet and speaking simultaneously. ray does better with speaking; i do better with the written part. we eventually had to quit due to money and time constraints, but i still remember the little we were shown. i keep practicing with road and street signs, but i need more written thai knowledge before i become dangerous! my solution for the present is to focus on building vocabulary and relationships (since it would be awkward to just pass notes to the neighbours for the rest of my life), but supplement my learning with alphabet flashcards (i just found this helpful site: http://slice-of-thai.com/flashcards) and practice with everyone's favourite kid's book, manee and friends (also helpfully found online here: http://www.learningthai.com/books/manee/)! with those useful links, you can join us in learning this incredible language!
we'll keep stumbling on these tones and maybe pull a tongue muscle or two trying to say the long 'u' with frog mouths... i'll keep questioning where the money will come from and if the car will keep agreeing to make the trip... our teacher will keep learning we are indeed holding a blue pen and that i would not like to order bananas... our neighbours will keep wondering why we're so slow to remember the 10 new words they rattled off to us the day before... but we'll keep trying. the costs of communication are a worthy venture and we can't wait to be able to do more than smile at people!
