Language School-101

Here we are looking totally un-posed
with Khru (teacher) Wanthani, one of our
teachers after we had learned to read a bit 

To learn a new language as an adult is just tough and mentally exhausting. Based on how much crying babies and toddlers do their first few years of life, I suppose it is just as tough for them as well. Too bad as adults we aren’t allowed to cry as much!

Fortunately, we were fairly young when we started to learn Thai as one of the natural laws of language learning is that the younger a person is, the better it is. I was 28 and Marcia was 25 when we arrived in Thailand so our brain cells were still relatively nimble.

According to their website, Union Language School (ULS) was started in 1955 by three Christian mission organizations. The website didn’t say, but I suspect the three organizations were the American Baptists, Southern Baptists and Presbyterians. It was one of the few cooperative efforts between American Baptists and Southern Baptists in Thailand but has now largely been turned over to the Church of Christ in Thailand.

Our ULS program would consist of 9 modules with each module taking about 1 month. Classes were held for 4 hours each weekday and it was strongly suggested we spend the afternoons practicing so the lessons would stick. The TBMF said we should consider taking a module off to let our brains rest about mid-way through the program and eventually that is what we did.

Learning English, it is common to start with the “A,B,Cs” but at ULS we wouldn’t start working on the Thai alphabet until Module 4. We would start learning Thai using a phonetic system to depict the Thai sounds. This phonetic system was easy to teach and would have us speaking at least a little Thai even the first day. By Module (month) 4, we’d have a lot of the basic sentence structure and some vocabulary down already. From the beginning, efforts were made to use very little English.

The reason for the delay in learning the alphabet is that it is complicated. Google says there are 44 consonants in the Thai alphabet but only 20 – 21 sounds. Some consonants remain in the alphabet as they are used in the historical spelling of certain words but are no longer commonly used. Google also says there are 16 vowel symbols that combine into 32 sounds. In my memory, I feel like I was taught there were 76 letters in the Tahi alphabet which would match with the 44 consonants and 32 vowels. However they are counted, it is a lot of letters and sounds.

That’s complicated enough, but there are also 5 tones. As taught by ULS the tones are a mid tone, a high tone, a low tone, a rising tone and a falling tone. Some letters might require a particular tone in some instances, but the same letter might require a different tone if used at the beginning of a consonant vs the end of a consonant or depending on what other letters it was combined with. Ask a native Thai speaker about tones though, and they won’t know what you are talking about. They are aware that various letters require different pronunciations but as they learn to read it’s just part of the process. In my American born mind at least, the tones were a separate thing to be learned and an additional thing to think about when considering how to say something.

As for reading, there is usually no space between words but there might be a space between sentences.  Both for reading and speaking there is regular (Central) Thai and then there is a “high language” used when referring to the royal family or for religious purposes (including preaching and used in the Christian Bible). There are also regional dialects like Northern Thai, Northeastern Thai and Southern Thai which are not mutually intelligible, then there are accents maybe based on these dialects or maybe based on some other regional or national differences.  As I said, “It’s complicated”. Of course, a person can’t be analyzing all this while reading or speaking. It must be instinctive and habitual.

Language School Homework

Another law of language learning is “don’t ask why”. Languages are inherently illogical (think about all the exceptions to the rules in English) as they have developed over long, long periods of time and selectively change according to the whims of people over a variety of time periods. We would have fellow students ask why the Thai language was this way or that way and usually the teacher would just say something like, “Don’t ask, it’s just the way it is so learn it”. Likewise, some students would fall into the trap of wanting to compare Thai grammar to English grammar or their own language. Most teachers would just say something like, “It doesn’t matter. Thai is this way so learn it.” A couple teachers took the bait though and took a deep dive into the intricacies of adverbs, pronouns, prepositions and participles and that was it for the rest of the hour. The danger of language learning for some adults is that they want to study about the language which might be an interesting academic exercise but doesn’t help if the goal is to speak and understand.

So, we tried to play the game and we dove into the program. It was the only choice. There were no other language schools even in Bangkok. The only past language study either of us had was to do the minimum academic style of study of Spanish (Duane) and French (Marcia) in high school. Neither of us though could speak either language at all. Was it even possible for us to learn Thai? We didn’t know but we were determined to try. There was a lot riding on it. Little to no English was spoken in those days even in Bangkok or Chiang Mai and there were even fewer English speakers in the Karen villages where we were meant to work. If we were to remain in Thailand, we had to learn Thai.