สวัสด

I just finished my last Thai language lesson. Meg and I have been taking weekly lessons since May but we have definitely not practiced as much as we should (isn't that always the case). I suppose we do know enough Thai to navigate Bangkok, order food, and have very basic conversations - and I mean BASIC!

Being a tonal language, meaning pitch defines the meaning of a word, it took awhile to train our ears to identify the tone being used (it's still very difficult to distinguish when speaking to Thais in ordinary conversation as they tend to speak quickly). And using the wrong tone can cause some major misunderstands. For example, "klay" spoken in a medium tone means "far" while spoken in a rising tone means "near". You get the idea.

Nonetheless, the Thai we have learned has made life easier in Thailand and, more importantly, gave us better insight into the wonderfully unique Thai culture. Next up, written Thai....

ฌอน (Sean)