It may seem simple for those that have gone before me but I can now write my name in Thai, better yet I am beginning to understand Thai letters and the relationships between Thai vowels and consonants. It’s not just that I can write my name, but I understand the characters and what they are doing to form my name.
My Thai language classes are now being broken up into two separate learning modules. The first hour of class we work on Sentence structure, grammar, vocabulary and conversation. The second hour of class is now devoted to reading and writing Thai. We didn’t begin as I suspected with the Thai alphabet in total but with small subsets of consonants and vowels broken up into tonal groups.
Tackling the Thai alphabet in this way was actually very enlightening for me because I could not only see how certain words are formed but I can understand the tone very easily. We started off learning about low tone consonants and while these seemed very easy I know as we progress further in it will become tougher. Aside from learning in class I have also picked up a few books on reading and writing Thai as well as a Thai alphabet chart for my wall with removable letters to help me learn and remember the Thai alphabet.
Learning in Thailand is also an immeasurable help due to the fact that Thai script can be found everywhere and I find myself looking at every sign, picking out every part I know and trying to put it together in my head. There is also no end to the help I’ve been receiving from Thai friends that are constantly testing me as well, and sometimes under the harshest of conditions…writing Thai or being tested on Thai sentence structure at 2 am while mao mak mak has got to be against U.N. rules of engagement.
I would suggest anyone considering learning Thai or just beginning to actively learn the Thai alphabet at the same time it will definitely give you a leg up in the learning process and things will start to click like never before.
Today I can write my name and a big handful of small words…tomorrow I will write my manifesto…okay, maybe next year.
Note: For those of you that didn’t know, my real name is Tim but with the internet as it is anytime I was prompted for my name every conceivable combination of Tim was taken so I used my first initial and middle name and never looked back…and now you know.