Phaasa Thai...here I come!

So, I've finally signed up for a Thai language course, after being here for 3 months! I will start in a few days and have signed up for a one-month 40-hour intensive course in March, at the Thai Language Achievement School. It will focus on mainly on the phonetics and basic sentences. And then if I go on to the next level, I will learn the grammar in depth. Time and practice will tell if the school is worth sharing, I got a recommendation for it, so am curious:)

I have a small vocabulary that will get me to my house, tell the housekeeper that I will be away and for how many days, ask how much and get around in the market, numbers and when the advertisement on radio is saying call this number xxx5555 (ha-ha-ha-ha).

I realised when I started picking up Danish that it is important to listen to the language, so that you soften your ears to the tone and the speech. So I have the radio on most of the time, in Thai. When learning Danish, it was the movies that did the trick. I'm not sure I have the patience with Thai movies now, I'll stick to the radio. It helps that I live among mainly Thais (with the exception of my neighbours whom I've not bumped into) in my area so I have no choice but to learn the language.

[Incidentally, the person I learnt Danish from, Sripen, is from Phuket, who has been living in Denmark for many years:)]

I've been adequately warned that with Thai, there are words that could mean the total opposite. For example the word that describes beautiful and ugly (suay), or that there are stoppers among the alphabets in the words and those that sound different depending on the location in the word. Well, if life wasn't challenging already.

And funny how some sounds appear in the different languages too and that is quite fun:

• kun (only, in Danish) - Noun for you in Thai
• nok (enough) - bird (Thai)

Someone I met had said that the principles of the sounds are quite close to the Indian language and so I've been trying to make out the script myself and try to figure out how the words work. I have two goals in the short term:
1) Be able to converse with the people in my area
2) Read the stops on the bus

And I don't know how long, long term will represent but then I hope I can understand the radio/news and discussions when attending forums.

So, sawasdee kha or sawatdee kha!