Learning Thai

I took Eliza to her bandage-changing appointment at the hospital today. Her burns look much better and the doctor thinks that Monday may be the last day she will need them. Eliza is getting more comfortable with the whole process. She still hates the part where they peel the tape off of her skin, but she let the doctor hold her (and even gave him a hug) when it was over.

Today marked the completion of my first week of Thai classes. I feel like I'm making progress with some of the difficult sounds and tones - but there's still definitely room for improvement. Today's class went something like this:

Teacher: "What is this"
Class: "That is a pencil"
Teacher: "Is this a ruler?"
Class: "No, that is a pencil"
Teacher: "What color is this pencil?"
Class: "The pencil is green"
Teacher: "Is the pencil red?"
Class: "No, the pencil is green"
Teacher: "What color is the pencil?"
Class: "The pencil is green"

Then we would go around the circle and ask each other the same kind of questions. After several hours it got somewhat tedious, but I can now identify green pencils, red rulers and white pieces of chalk.

Candice had another meeting with her language tutor this week and is enjoying that arrangement. She likes the one-on-one interaction and ability to help set the content of their sessions.

We're both looking forward to speaking Thai with greater proficiency. It's been fun to try out new phrases and words (with varying degress of success). One of the things that I like about the language is that it often makes new words out of two or more already-existing words. For example, while looking for another word in my dictionary today, I discovered that the Thai word for "woodpecker" is "hatchet-head-bird." I have yet to see a woodpecker here in Bangkok, but when I do I'll be ready to cry out "nok-hua-kwaam" to the astonishment of all bystanders.

-Tom