Stuart has inspired me to resume my Thai studies. I have been using the fact that I am too busy now that I have a job as an excuse. But I will use down time at work for this purpose.

A few months ago I was a beginning reader. But now I’ll have to spend a week re-familiarizing myself with the letters. I’m also learning the names of the letters this time around. This is how children learn to read. Each letter’s name begins with the sound the letter makes, so it serves as a memory aid, since most of the letters have simple names like “egg (kai),” “child (dek),” “chicken (gai),” etc.

Many Thai people tell foreigners not to bother learning to read, because it’s “too hard.” This is silly, since it’s easier than English. English has so many exceptions, you have to memorize practically everything. And even though I have spoken English all my life, I still can’t spell.

Thai is phonetic, and follows rules, with few exceptions. People who balk at the seemingly high number of letters (definitely 44 consonants, and around 24 vowels, depending on how you define “vowel”) should consider the fact that since the alphabet is phonetic, each character can only have one sound. So instead of having to remember all the different sounds the letter “a” can make (cat, father, bank, etc.), all you have to remember is that two vertical lines with loops on the bottom (apparently Thai vowels don’t have names) is pronounced like the “a” in “cat,” while the loopy thing that looks like a colon is pronounced like the “a” in father, etc. (It’s easier if you have pictures.)

This part is easy. Teaching yourself a new alphabet is actually pretty simple. The wrinkle is the tones, which are built into the characters. There are four special tone marks, which together with the absence of a mark cover the five possible tones. But usually there isn’t a mark. So each consonant is considered either “high,” “mid,” or “low.” And a few consonants are special “stop” consonants. All this stuff combines into seven rules, which will tell you the tone of the syllable. So when I left off a few months ago, I had to read things twice: once for the sound (easy) and once to get the tone (hard). Because if you say the sounds right and the tone wrong, you are saying a completely different word.

Then there are the annoying exceptions: invisible vowels, consonants that change their sound, consonants that are silent but change the tone, and consonants that are said twice, with two different sounds. But there are only a few of these.

Unfortunately, it’s exam time again, and I just got my proctoring schedule. I went from only teaching six hours a week, to having to proctor all day, every day, in addition to teaching. Coupled with the new PS2 at home, I may not get much studying done for the next two weeks.