Well, not that people are particularly interested but
;
In an effort to get my spoken Thai beaten into something more than the "mangled, off-toned, American accented" stuff I speak; which only marginally resembles Thai
, I enrolled in this school for one of their 60 hour modules.
I was less than thrilled I had to "test into" this module as I'd never attended their school before, but I did okay, although I was dripping with sweat after speaking ONLY Thai during the "test in process"
. I'm also not all that keen on their "no spoken English allowed in class" rule either.
I'd rather the teacher spit the English meaning of a Thai word out and move on with the class rather than enduring a five minute dissertation in Thai replete with charades, drawings and diagrams on the white board to get a single meaning of a word I don't happen to know.. (Note to self; write down the words so I can look ‘em up outta class..
)
Be that as may, and understanding this is a THAI language class with the objective of speaking the target language; I can say I'm thoroughly enjoying the class (and comin' from me that about the highest compliment I can give)
. I know most all of the vocab already but what I am learning is a lot of good correct structural stuff. It was this area I wanted to improve my Thai in the most anyway.
It's my experience that a Thais comprehension goes up incredibly when faced with foreigners speaking off or errant toned Thai IF that foreigner is using correct Thai sentence structure
. What I mean by that is IF the foreigner is saying things said the way Thais are used to hearing it phrased they can understand it WAY better (and makes "leaps in logic" to correct the errant tones without that deer in the head-lites
ไม่เข้าใจ look they give
).
I certainly bit off a big chunk this month (maybe more than I can chew
). This class is 3 hour a day, 5 days a week class and I am attending class at another school, twice a week for 2 hours a class to get my Thai reading/writing to a higher degree as well. Yesterday was the first 5 hour study day I did. To be honest; I was pretty darned "Thai'd out" at the end of the day
.
Time will tell if an old guy like me has the wherewithal to maintain this level of learning. I mean I ain't a "spring chicken" anymore.
Still, like I say; "I'll learn to speak Thai if it kills these people...."