Wednesday, June 16, 2010

I hope it's my allergies

I didn't actually have class today. I didn't catch exactly what P5 is up to, but they aren't here. I went over to the Mathayom (high school, grades 7-12) to steal some coffee, as I often do. I heard they were getting Thai lessons, so I decided to join.
Khun Noi and Khun Muc (I just made the spelling up) spent over an hour with us. We learned some of the Thai consonants, how to write them and how to pronounce them. For those of you who don't know, there are 44 consonants and 24 vowels in the Thai alphabet. Crazy, no? In addition to that challenge, Thai is a tonal language. This means that the same word pronounced in different ways can have completely different meaning. For example: "mai mai mai mai mai," when pronounced with the correct tones, means: "new wood doesn't burn, does it?". Also, there really aren't spaces between words, nor is there punctuation.
Anyway, today we learned simple phrases and words. We learned how to ask someone who they are, what their name is, where they are from (country and city), and probably something else I am forgetting.
We also got nicknames! Everyone goes by a nickname here! Sometimes they are Thai words, or sometimes they are English words. Our boss's name is Sutima, but her nickname is Oil. Yes, oil. My Thai nickname is Mali, which means jasmine. My classmates (also co-teachers) are Pla (fish), Singkto (lion), and Yim (smile).
My head hurts just a little. I'm blaming it on the weather or my allergies, not the Thai language.

2 comments:

  1. I'm sure it's just your allergies :P. Thai is cool =). Teach me some when you get back :) (the "please" is implied. Hablo en imperativo sometimes, we know that about me, hehe).
    Keep up the blog =), Juju's adventures are a great read ;).

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  2. mali!!! i love it!!! and "mai mai mai mai mai" is my new quote of the week :)

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