They ARE Speaking Correctly

Wednesday, 19 October 2005

This week in Thai class I had a revelation and discussed it with others at break time tonight. Since our Thai language adult class has now dwindled to about 8 students, most likely due to the complex grammar exercises we've been learning over the past few weeks, several conversations have come up as to why learning a second language is so difficult. Of course, it is easier to learn a second language when you are a young child, when one is still acquiring language, and of course being immersed in it helps. But, when I thought about my ESL students and friends in Thailand (who were learning English as a second language) and how I am constantly correcting the "s"s they leave off of words and past tense verbs (with "ed") and the use of the pronoun "he" or "she", I came to realize, that they ARE speaking correct English. According to their native language sentence structure that is (Sentence structure in Thai is just the reverse of that in English. So for example, to say "My big fat ass" in Thai, you would say "Ass big fat of mine"). In Thai, you don't really use plurals or past tense, and there is only one word for the pronouns "he"/"she"/"they". English has so many little rules (and too many exceptions to those rules) for everything, but in Thai, everything is just understood in context.

Tonight, I asked our teacher if there was a Thai word for "cousin" because one of my students in Thailand would always call his cousin "sister" in English, and I would constantly try to correct him and his parents and remind him that Na was his cousin, not his sister, according to the family tree. The word for cousin, "look pee look na", is the correct word for cousin on paper. But conversationally, Thais usually just say "pee" or "na" to refer to a cousin, words which literally mean "younger sibling" or "older sibling". Aha! So, this would explain why Jun would always refer to his cousin Na in English as his sister.

Another fellow in class was commenting on how some Americans will make negative comments on the way Thai adults speak broken English. But, most often than not, they are actually speaking correctly...(and most often quite better than WE can speak their native language!) It's just our (which some THINK is superior) English language that is so frickin' complicated and confusing!!