All The Mumbling Worked!

Eleven.  I would like to have lunch at the Sea Fah restaurant. Do you know where Sukomvit Road is? Two in the afternoon!

For over 6 months I’ve been wandering the streets of San Francisco mumbling unintelligibility in Thai. Almost every morning as I’d make my way to BART to go to work I’d take a Thai lesson on CD. “Pimsleur Thai, the world’s most effective language method” promised the man with the sparkling English accent. 

I know that the journey that I’m on cannot simply be for the benefit of this self alone, this is very clear. It occurred to mind that if I could learn Thai I could be of use at meditation centers in Thailand. It seems from the outside that more and more westerners are going to Thailand to attend retreat. It also seems that there are not a plethora of English speaking people at some the retreat centers. So I decided it would be a good idea to attempt to learn Thai. 

I do not know if I have “an affinity for language” as a few people have asked me. I put a minimum of effort into learning Spanish when I was in high school, learned a little German when I backpacked through Europe in 1987 and that was it.

My attitude in learning Thai has been to approach it differently from the way I have previously undertaken most tasks (which is to put in a lot of effort and try very hard to get it right). In this I employed the new way I’m starting to inhabit the world, i.e. calmer about everything. So I just listen to the CD, repeat the phrases and relax about it.  Treat it like a fun brain teaser puzzle, like a game. 

And as I’d walk around I’d think about how someday before too long I would actually be walking the streets in Thailand saying these things in context. Well some of them anyway… 

There is virtually no chance that I will say “Sam mee dichon u ti nown ka” (My husband is over there) or “Dichon kaw bier song kua” (May I please have 2 bottles of beer?)

The interesting thing is the way that mind chose to learn (I say it this way because it was not a deliberate strategy to learn this way). What happens when I listen is that I hear the word and mind sees it phonetically. So I hear the sound and mind “sees” sigh gwah nan di mei ka (literally -  more late that, can it be?). Then, when I try to remember how to say “Later then that ok?” mind sees the phonetic words.

  

As I type this I’m sitting on a train traveling from Bangkok (Thai’s call it Glug Teb) to Surat Thani en route to Koh Phangan to attend a 10 night meditation retreat. Having just spent 2 days in Bangkok I was stoked to have numerous interchanges in Thai where I was understood; and I understood their, admittedly simple, responses.

Although I knew they would speak English at the information booth at Hua Lumpong train station I had this interchange in Thai with the info woman:

Me: hello, tomorrow I’d like to go to Surat Thani. Where can I buy a ticket?

Info woman (referring to the bank of 20 cashier windows): 15 – 20

Me: thank you

I negotiated a tuk tuk ride (3 wheeled open air taxi) to Hua Lumphon train station. The following conversation was all spoken in Thai between myself and the tuk tuk driver:

Me: Hello. I’d like to go to Hua Lomphong. How much do I have to pay?

Driver: 100 bhat

Me: That’s too expensive. How about 50 bhat?

Driver: 70 bhat

Me: ok, 70 bhat. Thank you.

I climbed in and he laughed out loud and said in English, you speak Thai really well. 

<English accent speaking> Pimsleur Thai, the world’s most effective language method.

 Indeed!!