So, we’ve been at this language learning thing for quite a while… About a year and a half to be exact. In that time I’ve managed to tell an office full of bankers that I am gay, learn to read and write in Thai, and have been able to build some decent relationships with Thai people. And it’s all been really encouraging and REALLY difficult (and even boring) at times. Spend just 2 hours in Thailand and you will begin to feel the struggle we’ve had to live with everyday. Speaking, reading and writing in Thai is pretty tough stuff. And after a year and a half we really feel blessed to have accomplished what we have in our Thai studies. But at the same time, we make mistakes everyday. A casual conversation goes South quickly as I fumble over trying to remember which of the 5 tones to use for a word I learned 8 months ago and haven’t used since… All ability to read Thai goes out of the window the moment I need it the most to read a letter that has come to our house from who knows who… And all the rules to write in Thai vanishes just when we need to hand-write directions to our new house for a delivery guy to bring our fridge…
It’s not always this way. But it happens surprisingly more often than we had anticipated experiencing a year and a half into. Sure, we can joke with our neighbors, translate parts of the sermon on Sunday and bargain for lower prices at the market, but every week we make some sort of a mistake that makes us feel just like this:
So many things can go wrong just when you need it the most! Yet we keep at it every week. Studying more. Practicing more. Communicating more.. Overall it’s been a frustrating sort of fun. As people come and visit us in Thailand we get a sense of just how far our Thai language ability has come along. We can translate for them. Help them in nearly any situation that arises. And yet I still struggle with the correct tone to use when saying “behind” or “downstairs” (they are literally only a voice inflection away from each other… Which doesn’t help when I try to tell people where they can find Sara!)
Another thing that we have encountered are Thai people who pretty much refuse to speak Thai to us. I’m sure they want to practice their English and in some instances it really does help, but other times I ask someone a question in Thai and they answer in such broken English that I have no idea what they are trying to say. Then, when I ask them again in Thai, they give me the same broken English answer! I CAN SPEAK THAI PEOPLE!!! (on some occasions better than others…)
And still in other instances all of us are speaking Thai, but none of us have any idea what each other are trying to say. All too many conversations wind up a lot like this:
In just a few days we will travel back to Lopburi for our periodic language tests. We’ve both been working this week to prepare for these tests. Please continue to pray for us. Pray for an increasing ability to remember things we’ve already learned and for stickiness of mind as we study new vocab and sentence structure. Pray also that this hard work in language study in the past year+ would translate into increased meaningful relationships in our new community and ability to be involved in ministries at the Thai church we are partnering with.
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I’m enjoying reading about all your experiences in Thailand. I’m looking forward to my visit in May. Keep blogging you guys are really good at it!