A Complete Journey Into a New Language - Part 5
An update on my thoughts on the Thai language and plans for the future
สวัสดีครับ!
I’ve been in Thailand for a month and almost three weeks. Sometimes it feels like I arrived yesterday. Sometimes, it feels like I arrived many, many, moons ago. It’s weird to think I’ll be out in less time than I´ve been here.
My Thai level hasn’t increased by much. Well, my active skills haven’t at least. But we’ll get to that in a little bit.
First, I’d like to update you on my plans regarding Thai.
Past and future plans in Thai
I started Thai as a challenge for myself and a way to show the entire1 journey of learning a language. I wanted to show you what I focused on, how I struggled, and how not-so-difficult it could be too.
I put a lot of pressure on myself to perform well.
So much it backfired.
As I mentioned in the last entry of this series, I overthought every action I took.
I tried to only do what could serve me to improve fast. I lost the “enjoy the journey” part over and over again (luckily not coming to the point of disliking the language).
My goal was to reach a high-ish level in Thai but that choice was also made before I dove deep into the language. The truth is, I had no particular love for the language before I started. Hell, I barely had a “like” for it.
I was hella curious but I guess that was it.
Do I love Thai now? Nah. Do I like it? Yup.
It’s a fun language.
And it’s fun to discover connections with languages I do know too. For example, I just learned a few days ago that the word used for comparisons (“~er than”) กว่า (/kwaː˨˩/) came from the middle Chinese 過 (/kuɑ/) which means “to surpass; to exceed.” I loved it.
But do I still want to reach a high level? Maybe not.
I want to improve but I’ve realized I’m not so passionate about being able to converse in the language. I want to read it more. I want to be able to enjoy the Dragon Ball tome I bought when I first arrived.
I want to read that beautiful script as often as possible.
I know being able to read books in Thai seems to mean reaching a higher level than a “simple” conversational level but I don’t mind not being able to talk as long as I understand.
In simpler terms, I want to improve my passive skills (reading and listening) but I don’t mind if my active speaking skills don’t come anytime soon.
And knowing the difference takes a lot of pressure off my shoulders.
Short-term future plans
Before we get to what this will mean for this series, let me inform you of my shorter-term plans.
I was originally planning on spending a month or two in Vietnam and then staying in Asia until the end of August. Due to some long-term goals (and my plane to Vietnam being canceled), I might end up going back to Europe sometime in May—to a destination I’ll keep secret for now, for the kick of it—and stay until the last quarter of 2022.
As I haven’t studied seriously that language for some time, I’ve now decided to try to revive the few skills I had. Contrary to Thai, I currently2 want to be able to have simple conversations. This means I’ll practice output as often as I can in the incoming month.
And also that I won’t be able to keep it secret for long!
Future of this series
What does all this mean for the rest of this series?
Well, it means that I will rely a lot more on written content and spaced-repetition study (Anki) for Thai. Instead of putting pressure on myself to perform, I’ll enjoy it at a relaxing pace and keep you informed on how the journey goes.
There may still be way-too-long articles about specific learning topics3, but these won’t be the focus.
I want to share the quirky bits I discover about Thai, the similarities with other languages I’ve studied—or will study,— resources I encounter and use, and many other topics.
Finally, I also want to share more of my feelings about the journey. Learning Thai has been an enlightening experience but also one filled with doubts. I want to showcase those more.
Learning a language also means dealing with doubts.
Hiding them serves nobody.
Another series?
Finally, as you may have noticed in my last few weekly updates, I’ve been dabbling a lot more in multiple languages. Toki Pona, Burmese, Vietnamese, and Ainu come to mind right now. I also discovered a Japanese dialect I didn’t know: the Hachijo dialect and I might play around with it. Or maybe some Ryukyuan language?
There are so many languages I want to play around with without any pressure. And I want to share my journey with dabbling.
I’m not sure exactly what format these will take but I am considering making tiny “lessons” about them, sharing resources that could be useful, and showing how fun learning with no pressure whatsoever can be.
These would be quite irregular though.
One of the goals could be to make you discover how interesting some languages you’ve never looked into can be!
I’m also thinking of restarting a series I had on my old website, where I explained in English the Japanese 4-character expressions (四字熟語).
If you’re interested and have some idea of what you’d like to read from me, let me know! 🤙
Conclusion
Well, here’s to another rambling article!
Hopefully, one day I’ll stop rambling too much, and hopefully, you’ll still enjoy these ramblings until then.
In the next piece, I’ll ramble4 about the notes I took in March and/or the books I’ve been playing with.
Until then, I leave you with this beautiful welcome sign from the Wat Phrathat Doi Kham (วัดพระธาตุดอยคำ)!
I can’t show you exactly what I do in regards to Thai every second of the day but you get my point, right?
Future-me might have a different opinion on that but I’ll let him decide then.
There will definitely be one about fonts in Thai because this may be one of the hardest parts I’m struggling with, and I doubt I’m the only one.
It’s time I embrace my rambling urges I guess.
It seems like you've really connected with the written form of Thai more than you have with the rest of the language, which makes sense to me as I've met so many students of Japanese over the years, some of whom seem to really love speaking and listening to the language and others who obsess over kanji. Of course there are thousands of people who sit somewhere in the middle, but I'm curious if this holds true for lots of people over lots of languages - finding that their connection to a language is mainly through one "quadrant" like the script, or songs, or a style of poetry, or...
As for what you could do content-wise that I would like to see -- I don't have anything concrete to add as I just enjoy sitting in the sidecar while you drive. That said, I'm always curious to see other people's handwritten study methods. (I know you use Anki, but you've got to have a notebook, too, right?) As an example, when I was studying kanji, I had a sketchbook where I would graffiti a single kanji or word just as a way of working through the stroke order. I'd use colors and designs to create something I could remember more easily. Alternately, I'd just write a kanji normally but then fill in the space around it with connections, synonyms, antonyms, etc. Meanwhile, one of my good friends filled sketchpad after sketchpad with stickfigure illustrations of phrases, jokes, and expressions. So, if you've got something like that, I'd be curious to see it.
And, of course, I think writing more about the yojijukugo sounds fascinating.