Sawàtdii khrâp

Well, it has been almost two weeks since I last posted here and I'm feeling the urge to at least put up a few words.

I'm settling in nicely albeit gradually in my new life here in Madison. Despite the course overload this semester, I'm still not wholly overwhelmed though I'm a bit behind in some of my assigned readings. A few issues about graduate students taking undergraduate courses, which I'm doing this semester: More assigned readings, longer term papers, higher expectation, among others. The upsides are I get to choose what kind of assigments/papers/research I want to do for the class, more personal time with the professors outside of class, and most importantly, no exams (only papers). Also, we are on the first-name basis with the professors.

Anyway, my hardest class this semester is and will be First Semester Thai (an intro to Thai language). Thai is a tonal language and it has five tones: mid, rising, falling, high, and low. The same exact word (spelling-wise) can assume different meanings depending on the tones, say, like the word "maa". To tell the God's honest truth, I still could not tell the difference between all the tones. To add, there's a whole new alphabetical system that I have to master, and let me tell you, writing in Thai is not as easy as A,B,C (literally and figuratively).

For starters, it has forty-four consonants (English has twenty-one) and fifteen basic vowels (five for English). Instead of the two-dimensional nature of the English vowels (before and after the consonants), Thai has two additional vowel placements: above and below. The vowels have long beautiful names like máy hăn ?aakàat or sara? ay máy malaay and seven of the consonants are called sonorants, well, because they are sonorous and have a melodic tune to them and they are somehow associated with animal names or some sort. On the bright-side, Thai writing system has a very loose grammatical structure (no conjugates, no past, present, past progressive tenses, or even plural and singular words) and more matter-of-factly in terms of words usage. A minor annoyance is there are no gaps between words in any given Thai sentence and a sentence seems like a long overrunning word. In a way, it does feel like learning to write alif, ba, ta (Arabic) again, and this time without an ustaz wielding a rotan to pounce on your every misplaced dot and missed connection.

Here's what I need to do for the class: Go to the language lab EVERYDAY for at least an hour; revise the day's lesson when I get home every night, practice writing the alphabets every night; find a native Thai speaker to talk to (there are two Thai girls that I know who could probably help me out); and maybe set up a weekly Thai conversation table on campus (other SE Asian language classes have their own weekly conversation table where novice speakers get to practice their newly-acquired language skills, but not for the Thai language.) Now, that's a heckuva lot of work for one class!

On the contrary, I have been hanging out at the Indonesian conversation table with its two language teachers, Amelia and Sisca, and some other Indonesian-speaking bule or better known to Malaysians as orang putih (Caucasians) and I'm not entirely convinced that this would actually help the Thai beginners in improving their verbal skills. One thing I notice about the Indonesian conversation table is that all the participants are either on the advanced or native level. Think about it, how much conversation can one carry or be a part of if one is not well-equipped with at least a useful set of commonplace vocabulary. How far along into the conversation can one get by only knowing how to introduce oneself and to ask for directions? Or, how many times can one actually say "khun tháksin mây dii ləəy" or "khun tháksin mây sabaay ləəy."

Anyway, I cannot wait for the day when I can go to Bangkok and chat up a cute Thammasat University student by the Democracy Square without resorting flailingly to sign language!! Hahaha...