I didn’t realize how much I was going to feel like a college student again during this language learning process. I also didn’t expect that learning the vocabularly of a three-year-old would be more grueling than 400-level course at the UW.
Each morning I take a 20-minute, 10-cent bus ride (usually standing in the packed aisle, sweating at 8 a.m.) to the Center. This is where church services were formerly held, but since moving to the house-church system it is now mainly used as the church office, a place to hold meetings and language lessons, and includes two rooms that are designated to our Santisuk Partners team.
For two hours Jen and I meet with Juum, our language tutor. We are working through a series of books that takes you first through tone and sound reproduction and then into basic vocabularly. We’re not even learning the Thai script yet, but are using a system based on Roman letters. It’s hard enough to distinguish different sounds and tones without having to memorize the extensive Thai alphabet and complex spelling rules.
So far we know our numbers pretty well, can order some basic food and drinks at a restaurant, can (in theory) give simple directions to a taxi driver, identify colors, and say the basics like “hello”, “thank you” and the important greetings “have you eaten yet?” and “where are you going?” which, I’ve learned, don’t require a full answer– they’re more like our “how are you?”
Yesterday was our first day of also creating a “script”, or short paragraph, to memorize and then practice extensively with local vendors and people in the community. Our script yesterday essentially went like this:
“Hello. I am learning Thai. My name is Sara. I come from America. Now I am staying in Bangkok. I will be here two years. Can I come back and see you tomorrow?”
It’s a little ridiculous sounding, but I’ve found that people like to talk to the weird Americans and are just happily amused by us. Almost everyone here is incredibly friendly and helpful.
So now the routine will be two hours with Juum, and hour or two with a “language helper” (someone on staff here) who knows enough English to help us develop a script for the day, and then most of the rest of the day practicing the script. I also set aside time for a daily devotional time, as well as some time to practice parts of the language lesson that we didn’t incorporate into the script.
By the end of yesterday, my first full day of this, I was exhausted. This stuff just hurts my brain. Not to mention it involves much extroversion which for me requires a lot of energy. But I’m also highly motivated. It’s nice to have just one thing to focus all of my efforts on. And it is so rewarding– I’m already noticing I can pick up more words in the conversations around me and can communicate in limited ways already.
Please keep this process in your prayers. Ask for God to increase my memory capacity, to give me increased discipline as this is largely a self-motivated process (much like being a college student– pray that I don’t fall back into some of my old habits of procrastination!). Pray for energy and for patient Thais who will work with me as I practice. Thank God with me for the excitement and hopefulness he’s given me already, and for how much he’s helped me in these first few weeks.
