"Are You A Banana?" And Other Linguistic Riddles

 Basically this is my language learning strategy right now.

One of my hopes and a specific goal of my time here these three months is that I can dramatically improve in my Thai language skills.  I know it seems a stretch to think that I could actually gain any level of competence in any new language at my age, let alone one that has a completely different script and is inflected with five different tones.  But I'm ignoring the stats and forging ahead anyways.

It's slow work.

My guess is that at this point, despite all my valiant efforts at home between trips, and when I'm here immersed in it, I still sound basically like a toddler.   It would be the Thai version of  'pasgetti' instead of spaghetti, most of the time.  

My teachers are all so very patient and encouraging, which helps.  And I've perfected the tones of a very few phrases so that I seem to be understood even by strangers in the initial exchange of first meetings and small talk.  Hello.  How are you.  Did you sleep well?  Why yes, I slept very well, thank you.  Nice day.  Today I'm going to Chiang Mai. God bless you.  Please and thank you.  That sort of thing.

One of the most important hurdles to overcome in learning a new language is the fear of making a fool of yourself.  It's very humbling to realize you sound like a very young child.  Hard to manage an image this way, that's for sure.  And you have to be willing to make mistakes, which is harder for the more perfectionistic personalities like mine. 

But sometimes, the mistakes are just fun.

Handy snack dispenser.

Two words that sound very similar to my untrained ear are the word for banana - gloo-way (emphasis on last syllable with a rising tone. I think) - and the word for fear - gloo-wa (emphasis on first syllable, with a falling tone. I think).  The emphases and tones are subtle, however and hard to hear, for me.  For my Thai friends they are two completely different words.  And as an English example, say the words 'shirt' and 'church' out loud.  To a Thai that's exactly the same sound. 

I learned the names of fruits pretty early in my studies, and the word for fear came up later in a real-life situation (best learning moments usually).   Gloo-way, that is, 'banana', seems to roll off my tongue much easier. 

So when one of the children tells me they have a school test tomorrow, for example, it's actually not uncommon for me to ask them, "Are you a banana?"  This is confusing to them, I find.  Until I see the titled head and confused look, realize my mistake and correct my pronunciation.  At that point we usually have a good laugh at my expense.  "Of course I'm not a banana!  Oh Ahjahn Ruth, you are so silly!!!!"

Yesterday in the car I was trying to remember the phrase for 'good mood.'  It was how we were all feeling, I think, given Yupa's Mom only had to wait three hours to see the doctor instead of eight, and we are all happily heading back to Hot Springs with the afternoon before us. 

My mind was able to retrieve part of it.  'Aroom', which is the word that most closely corresponds to 'mood' in English.  But I added 'jai' to the end, which means heart.  'Aroom jai.' This was a logical guess given that many words in Thai seem to focus around the word for heart. 


'Di jai' means 'happy' or, in the right context, 'happy to see you.'
'Noon jai' means 'encouragement'.
'Tok jai' means 'fright', literally 'fall-heart'.
'Tom jai' means 'humble', something language learning will help you along with quite nicely.

So for me to put 'aroom' and 'jai' together seemed like it might work.

Apparently not. 

I collected my sentence and then spoke out loud "Too kuhn aroom jai wani," I said with unmerited confidence.  'Everyone is in a good mood today.'

Slight pause.  Then the car erupted in laughter.  I was corrected very quickly.  'No, no....Aroom di. Oh Ahjahn Ruth!!!'  and dissolving into laughter again.  I suspect I said something quite inappropriate and/or embarrassing, but I can't be sure because they refused to tell me what 'Aroom jai' actually means.  And here I run the risk of perhaps having just been vulgar a few times again, merely by repeating this story!

As the laughter settled down, Suradet wanted to reassure me, so he said in English, "Ahjahn Ruth, no fear.  If you no speak straight, I tell you."

My turn to laugh, not so much at the mistake but at the irony.  So I repeat an agreement we have between us already in this mutual language learning thing we're doing.  "Thank you Ahjahn Suradet.  And if you don't 'speak straight' I will correct you as well."  They got it.  More laughing, all of us.

We certainly were in a good mood, by then.

Isaiah 50:4 has been an intriguing verse for me throughout my journey into ministry.  It has taken on even more meaning now.

The Sovereign Lord has given me an instructed tongue

to know the word that sustains the weary.

He wakens me morning by morning,

wakens my ear to listen like one being taught.

I wonder if the point Isaiah was making was that you can't hope to have any sustaining words for weary others until you've spent a lot of time just listening and learning yourself.  It certainly reminds me that, right here and right now, I am very much in the posture of receiving, of student, of someone who can only speak baby talk. 

I will confess to a moderate amount of mental fatigue at this point in my stay.  One month in, I recognize the extra effort every conversation requires, and the new neurological pathways my brain is courageously trying to create, every single day.

But the fun of it, the joy of it, the knowing deeper my Thai family, their culture, how their thinking thinks and feelings feel....so worth the effort. 

And basically, it all puts me in 'aroom

di'.