Language

This week I have had what could honestly be called conversations (with classifiers such as “stumbling,” “simple,” etc). Along with increased speech has come increased errors. One of the most amusing was my response to the question, “how long have you been in Thailand?” I answered, “three minutes.” The word minute and the word for week are reasonably similar (and are both stored in the time part of my brain). 

I had a conversation with a taxi driver last night (I was in a taxi because I was again close to not making it back before the locking of the gate). He several times had to rephrase his questions, but I think I satisfactorily answered nearly all of them eventually (keep in mind he was asking questions of some who had prefaced the whole conversation by saying “I don’t speak Thai, I am learning Thai”). 

I succeeded in telling him I am going to be in Bangkok for three months. I am going to be in Ubon for two years. I told him I was going to be teaching in Ubon. When asked what I was going to teach, I must confess I answered “English” because I do not know the word for mathematics. I told him some of what I have studied so far (colors, numbers, etc). I obviously told him where I live.  

He told me that he can’t speak English but he does know “hotel,” “one hundred baht,” “two hundred baht,” “restaurant,” and a little other assorted taxi language. I’m telling you all this because it felt really good to have a “conversation” with someone who was not a teacher (who knows the limits of my vocabulary) nor someone with whom I could retreat into English.