School, Part 2

The last post was basically the first week of school in pictures. Now I just finished the 3rd week of school and there's not much in the way of new pictures, so I'll use my words.

I can read Thai now. I'll just throw that out there. I may be the slowest reader on the planet if I want to read the tones correctly or the word has a vowel that is made up of more than one symbol (up to 30 or 40 seconds for any syllable I haven't seen before), and my vocabulary is so small that I still am effectively illiterate, but the alphabet isn't total nonsense to me!

Thanks to the book Read Thai in 10 Days by Arhit Juyaso. I'm not going to finish in 10 days, but it is a really manageable way to learn. I will shamelessly advertise this book to anyone who will listen. Also thanks to my classmates and teacher Natt, who taught me to write the shapes before I started the book, which definitely made it easier to retain the sounds. They also tried to teach me the names of the letters, which wasn't quite as effective, although I did learn the word for "boat" out of it.

Remember how I said the alphabet isn't total nonsense? That isn't quite true, because of fonts like this (on the left):

The one on the right is normal Thai. The nonsense on the left is a stylized font that says exactly the same thing, only actively tries to make it confusing for anyone who knows the Latin alphabet.
Who thought it was a good idea to turn ร (R sound) into S? Or บ (B sound) into U? Please, tell me.

Anyway, enough of that. Overall I don't feel that I've put in enough effort to learn the speaking side since I'm super nervous to talk to anyone and they often don't understand the first time even when I say something perfectly (and people are always telling me how impressed they are with my accent). I'm also having more and more trouble distinguishing between mid, high, and falling tone as I learn more words with the same consonants and vowels but different tones. Actually the only tone I'm really sure of anymore is rising because it sounds like asking a question in European languages, but it's also the hardest for me to use when I'm sure of what I'm saying. I still have my notebook full of words and I think I've learned more than I realize but it's still not enough to even begin to talk about anything.

On the bright side I understand most normal things people ask me to do, although if they ask me about my preference I almost never know how to answer. I feel like I speak Thai because I have phrases in my head and I am used to hearing people speak all the time, but my vocabulary, is of course, nonexistent. I also need to work on a way to differentiate smiling and nodding because I understood and smiling and nodding because I am confused. I also understand more than you would ever think necessary about losing and finding a shirt (an incident with the tug-of-war team I accidentally found myself on. That might have to be its' own post).


Yeah, so things are still going great, but I'm starting to realize that it's kind of a big deal to be on exchange.

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