Thai is a tonal language. The Thai alphabet has specific letters which indicate the tone but for the benefit of those of us using romanized phonetic spellings a set of squiggles has been developed to indicate either a high, low, rising or falling tone. I seem to have a penchant for mixing up the squiggles which can devastate a simple phrase like 'kaw thot' which, depending on the tone can mean either, 'excuse me' or 'may I fart' ~ not quite interchangeable. However, I can see the possibility of using them together.
When I explained to my teacher that I am after all, a visual person ~ 'phom chang thi rhup' - (I am a photographer) ~ she asked why I take pictures of elephants. It seems the word 'chang' with a high tone means elephant. I needed to use a low tone. When one asks for a 'chang' in a restaurant there's no confusion. It's a brand of beer. Doesn't matter which tone you use.
I have booked 3 more lessons this coming week. I shall persevere and then perhaps switch over to ukelele lessons. They're very popular here in Chiang Mai. For any of you that have tried to add comments to these blogs I have just discovered that when setting up my site I failed to toggle one little switch in the preferences. I have now tiggled the toggle and your comment should come through loud and clear and I'll be delighted to hear from you.
Some more photos for your viewing pleasure;
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| The toy truck - Santa Claus is coming to town |
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| Schools out ~ students waiting for their ride home |
Good luck with learning the language! I remember you playing the ukelele years ago, driving a little convertible sportscar, barefoot, in Barrie, Ontario.... we called you a hippie! Nice snapshots.
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