After watching Stray tackle 12 English tenses, gerunds and phonetics and other things I don't even want to know about...I thought Thai Grammar would be a cinch. I'm already confused, but am assured that we'll cover this in more detail somewhere down the track.
What company do you work for?
Khun tham ngaan boorisat aray?
You work company what?
But, if I say....
What street is your company?
Boorisat khun yuu thanon aray?
Company your is street what?
Khun and Boorisat change positions.
WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY?
I'm trying not to ask too many questions in class at this stage. 1. I'll drive my class mates nuts and 2. My teacher will end up sounding like my last one did at college, 'put your hand down Snap, it is, because it JUST IS'.
See what else we're up to at Cooee!
Hi Snap,
ReplyDeleteJust read (and posted sth on) your other blog, and languages is my 'thing', so of course I went to this blog. ;)
Here's what I think is the problem:
the YOUs do not have the same function. One is the subject/pronoun, and the other serves as adjective/possessive pronoun. In Thai, adjectives come AFTER the noun. If you rephrase the examples, you might see it better...
You work for what company?
Your company is what street?
You/your is both KHUN, but in the first example, it’s the subject/pronoun.
In the second example, is a adjective/possessive pronoun, and therefore comes after the noun. Make sense?
Btw, where are you learning Thai?
Hi again :) Languages are NOT my thing. I have forgotten everything about English grammar that I learnt in school, apart from verbs, nouns and adjectives...so will have to go back to the drawing board. Once I can grasp 'what is what', I can then apply it to Thai. Thanks so much for your explanation...I was starting to think there wasn't an answer!
ReplyDeleteI think I've got it Lianne...thanks! And I forgot to mention, I'm going to Pro Language.
ReplyDeleteSnap, it will take a bit but you will get used to it...it's hard to wrap the English speaking ming around the Thai grammar at times.
ReplyDeleteWhere we would say " I would like 2 glasses of beer" in Thai it would be the noun first then the number and classifier " beer 2 glasses"
I kept trying to speak Thai with English grammar and it didn't go over to well...I sometimes still do it inadvertently.
Talen before I started taking classes, I wrote a note in Thai script to give to the housekeeping ladies. Part of it was meant to say "I have purchased my own bed sheets and have returned the hotel's to reception". It took them a while to juggle my words around into the right position...they had a good laugh, which was the main thing I guess.
ReplyDelete