A Figure of Speech

 

As Memorial Day approaches, pressure mounts to finalize all the preparations for our journey across the planet. Maps? Check. Vaccinations? Check. Mastering the Thai language. Not even close. I did manage to squeeze a few words and phrases into my brain which I will most likely forget when the actual need to use them arises. At best, I hope to make a few loud, unimportant statements throughout the trip such as, "The mountain is big." or "I like blue." Although these will confuse any Thais within earshot, Bev and Traci will be impressed.

Thai is a fun language. The best part is you don't have to conjugate verbs. Hallelujah! The worst part is it's a tonal language, so many words have up to 5 meanings depending on the tone. There is no way, I can remember all that, so let's just hope the Thai's use context clues to figure out what this farang (foreigner) is saying.

There are 44 consonants in the Thai language, so that poses some challenges in itself. Thai's take letters and shove them together to form brand new sounds which my American tongue wants to reject. For example, they blend d and th to make a sort of "thud" sound. My favorite is the n and g which sounds exactly like one of those old coil door stops after you flick it with your finger.

Every once in a while, there is a word that just cracks me up. Like the word for "bus". It's rotbut. Yep, that's is exactly how my butt will feel on a 6 hour bus ride in rural Thailand. The word for "really?" is "Jing jing rue?" Isn't that so cute?

Lagon laa chock dee na!