Now or Never

Have I mentioned lately how much I love the Thai language? If I haven't, I should have, because I do! Some days it is the most frustrating thing in the world and other days it is a lot of fun. Over the past six months I've noticed that I now know enough of the language that I can joke around in it. This comes in quite handy for cheering up Aon and Ya when they come home at the end of a long day. Every night when they are headed to bed I say, "bye non Max!" which is basically just telling the dog that it is time for bed. It is not at all funny but every night Aon and Ya laugh at me and tell me they love it when I speak Thai.

One of my favorite things about the language is all the words that sound like English words but have completely different meanings. Example: First of all, keep in mind that I live in a house with two Thai girls so we speak A LOT of Tinglish (Thai&English). Last night I was getting ready to go to bed and I said, "bye apnam now." Aon said, "Why are you taking a cold shower?" and Ya said, "Is the hot water not working?! Do I need to call the landlord? You can't take a cold shower!!" "Bye apnam" meant that I was going to take a shower. Here is where it gets confusing, "now" in Thai means "cold", however I was using the English word and simply meant that I was going right then. The whole thing made me laugh because Aon and Ya take such good care of me that they were ready to call the landlord and start boiling water for my shower and there wasn't even a problem.

Have I mentioned that I love the Thai language? By the way, my favorite Thai word that sounds like an English word is "men." In Thai it means, "smells bad" which I think is just hilarious. Men=smells bad! :)

P.S. My spellchecker goes absolutely crazy every time I try to spell Thai words with English letters...