Speaking Thai as a Host Family Fun Time

Aside from daily language lessons with a Thai Ajan (teacher), speaking Thai with the host family offers a surplus of language practice.

If you know me, you know I can be a bit of a silly person at times and I like to laugh a lot. Which, turns out to be quite an advantage while living in a completely foreign (in many forms) environment. Especially when it comes to language. Speaking Thai is a painstaking process. Though, it is often fun and undoubtedly, rewarding over time. Luckily, my host family enjoys teaching Thai and practicing with me every day. Plus, they like to laugh a lot as well.

In Thai, there are 44 consonants and 32 vowels—just think in English there are only 5, sometime 6 vowels! It is also very tone-sensitive with 5 different distinguishing tones: mid/neutral, rising, falling, high, and low. The meaning of a word then depends on the tone marking associated with it as well as the context. For instance, kǎao and kâao have two different meanings; though they are spelled the same, they have different tone markings. The first means white and the later means rice. So you begin to see how important it is to use the correct tones, less the wrong meaning is conveyed. It is a constant struggle of mine to say things correctly. However, it can be fun to practice saying things. I find words that I particularly like and tend to say them over and over again. Such as, toad (Kang Kōk). We happened to have a family of these funny little creatures living under our dining table and whenever I see one, I like to blurt out Kang Kōk! I also do this with random food dishes and feelings such as saying it’s hot or that tastes cold. It’s a humbling experience all together—to be childlike and accept that inevitable mistakes will be made.

What’s the easiest part about Thai? Forget memorizing 10 different time tenses! To express future and past actions in Thai, simply adding a word that expresses an action has occurred or will occur is all that needs to be done. For example, to say I have already eaten, I just say ‘ Gin Leeo’ –the ‘leeo’ in this context, expresses an action that has already happened. Literally, I have eaten already. But the verb itself “to eat” (gin) does not change.
I find that if I take time, practice, talk to anyone about anything I can remember, laugh a lot, pardon my own losses, and keep at it, then—at the end of each day—I decide to give it a go again tomorrow.

By the end of training, as a CBOD Volunteer, I am expected to reach Intermediate-Low language proficiency. This consists of using language to talk about basic and some techical topics such as asking directions, telling time, describing tastes and feelings, recognize and respond to questions, talk about daily activities, and getting into simples technicalities of CBOD work.

I will have some of my own pictures up soon!