| |
|
|
Have you ever been in another country and smacked
your head right against a real communications barrier? One day I was on a bus on
my way to Kanchanaburi. The bus attendant asked me where I was
going and I replied "Kanchanaburi" but she could not understand
me. Soon there were six other people trying to help her and none
of them could understand where I was going, even though I kept
repeating "Kanchanaburi". Now what is amazing about this is that
once you reach the next city, Nakornpathom, there are only three
direcitons you can go, north to Supanburi, south to Ratchaburi,
or straight through to Kanchanaburi. You would think that by
multiple choice at least one of the them would figure out what I
was saying. As we entered the city and prepared for the bus
change, having been this way several times before, I finally I
told them I would board bus number 81. Then all at once she
exclaimed,"Oh, you mean Kanchanaburi!" As I heard her pronounce
the name of the city correctly I realized that I had been
pronouncing Kanchanaburi with a middle tone on the second "a"
when I should have been using a falling tone. What's really
humorous about this is that today I hear young
foreigners calling the city "Kan" or "Kanch" and everyone knows
exactly what they are talking about. Chuckling to myself, I
wonder if this came about because I wasn't the only one who had
this "Kanchanaburi" conversation. One of the things that makes
learning Thai so hard is that it has tones. English has tones,
too, for example, at the end of a sentence we use a rising tone
to indicate a question. But Thai has tones for every word, there
are five of them, mid, high, low, rising, and falling, and each
tone gives the word a totally different meaning. And if that
isn't confusing enough, the vowels may also be short or long,
which also changes the meaning. For example the word "kao" in
Thai has eight totally different meanings depending on the tone
and whether the vowel is short or long. If you're planning a
trip to Thailand, however, don't worry about it. You can always
find someone around who can speak some English, and this story is the
most extreme example of deadlock that I am aware of. I find that
when speaking Thai,
there is a huge variance from one peron to another. Some Thais I
can communicate with quite well, while occasionally there are
Thais that I cannot communicate with at all. Often I say
something in Thai to two people and one understands while the
other does not, then I find the one who understands telling the
other person what I said. |
|
|
|
