Language update

I make a living out of the English language. Correcting, suggesting, creating - so it's very frustrating to feel so out of my depth with this new language, and to be powerless as a communicator. I have gone back to square one and had to start from scratch with this language that is so different from my own.

The different tones are the problem - not the tones themselves, but the innate cultural barrier to using alternating tones when you speak. It's very hard for an Australian male to use expressive tones at all, let alone varying tones from word to word. About the most you get is something at the end of a sentence such as: "Bloody 'ot, eh?" We don't naturally raise and lower our pitch in the one word - and certainly not several times in the one sentence.

When I was staying in Phuket, I would tell people I was staying at the Phu-ke-ta hotel. Thai people couldn't understand what I was saying. I would point to the name - and they would say "Ohh, Phu-ke-taar!" That's what I said.

If you order a Coke, you have to say "Cooooohhc" with a rising intonation and a very slight "c" sound on the end - not a hard "k" as we know it. Even Singha beer I'm told by the locals, is pronounced "Singh" - presumably it has a silent "a". Well it's your beer - why did you put the "a" there if you're not going to pronounce it?

Still, who am I to talk about language rules. We have: where, wear, and we're; Canowindra; gaol; though, through, and thought; and a few hundred other weird and wonderful English names and words.

But it's not just the tones, it's also the grammar. When you listen to ex-pats who have been here for a while - and they tell me this themselves - you can hear them talking in Thai grammar, even when they're talking English.

To try it out yourself, just stop using pronouns, and forget all about past and future tense, to say nothing of future continuous, past perfect, etc ("yippee, when do I start" I hear some of you shout). Here's an example of what it may sound like.

If your English friend were to offer you a drink, and you were to decline, it would go something like this:
"I say old chap, care for a spot of Pimms?"
"Oh, thanks awfully old bean, but perhaps later, what?"

In Thai, the same conversation - translated literally into English - goes something like this:
"Drink, yes?"
"Not want, thanks."

And the thanks on the end is the ever present "khup" for men and "kha" for women. It's like a swiss army knife - 1000 uses in one word. If in doubt, pull out khup/kha and it's bound to work.

Khup for listening khup.

D.