two10eleven | Brook Sarver » Lopburi

Still learning Thai???

Brook — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 14:45:41 +0000

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.

And, as always, Leave a Comment!

Lost in the forest of your mind

Brook — Thu, 06 May 2010 07:05:24 +0000

I had my language exam today. And overall, it went… …ok. It wasn’t awesome; although, I didn’t make a single mistake in reading and telling my two stories in Thai. But another part of the exam is to just explain how you would use these stories to teach other people about Christ. No problem, I did that all the time back in the States; or so I thought.

It started off well. I responded to the teacher’s question by starting down a path talking about some things we did back home in ministry there and how people are people and how we should be more concerned about the people coming in the front door of the church than the Christians leaving out the back door all ticked off about something. The problem is that I was thinking perfectly in English and knew what I wanted to say, but I couldn’t get it out in Thai. I just couldn’t get it out. I was missing words in Thai in my story that were really integral to the telling of my story…. And it sounded awful. It was a train wreck where every time I attempted to say it in a different way, I just kept digging my hole deeper, more trains would come join the wreck.

Eventually we moved on and I was able to scrap together a decent enough Round #2 to salvage the language exam. But it did get me thinking. It’s often easy to get tripped up on words in our own language. You know, like you just can’t think of the word to best use in your situation. Usually you can easily add in a substitute word that will suffice and everyone will move on in conversation. But, in Thai, we don’t have those words yet. The substitute words. And while the Thai person stares at me trying to stumble across the word needed to actually start making sense, I’m running around the in the forest of my mind lost as ever. And every attempt at fixing the train wreck of a conversation on the outside of my head gets me more and more lost in the forest of my mind.

Ah… The joys of language learning…

lazy photographer :: a recent photowalk

Brook — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 09:35:08 +0000

I haven’t really gotten back into the swing of making photos since coming to Thailand. It’s quite sad really. I love photography and it is a great stress reliever for me. Recently, though, a friend came into town and him and I went out for a photowalk through Lopburi’s fresh market and ruins.

Here are a few of my favorites:

There are several more that I haven’t posted here but will invite you to see at our Flickr site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelsarver

So my question for you now is, what do you do to relieve stress?

Bangkok | Diverse and Dedicated

Brook — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 14:42:42 +0000

Soon Sara and I will be spending some time in Bangkok as we look for some possible ministry locations after completing our time studying Thai here in Lopburi, Thailand. Once finished at the language school in Lopburi, we will move away and continue to learn Thai with a personal tutor while beginning work in ministry to the Thai people.

I happened across this short video clip produced by OMF (the organization we are partnering with here in Thailand) which helps paint a picture of life in Bangkok, the people living in this HUGE city and ministries that are taking place there. The video is a few years old now, directors mentioned here have changed positions, but life in the City of Angels is still much the same.

If you have a minute or two, this will be worth watching!