The grammar of the Thai language is considerably simpler than Western languages. Words are not modified or conjugated for tenses, plurals, genders, or subject-verb agreement. Articles such as "a", "an", or "the" are also not used. Tenses, levels of politeness, verb-to-noun conversion, and other language concepts are accomplished with the simple addition of various modifying words to the basic subject-verb-object format.
Expats who hunker down to the task of learning Thai are frequently told that Thai is simple to learn because of its uncomplicated grammatical structure. Well okay… Thai is not about grammar, but it is most certainly about song and sound. That’s the formidable wall most Western ears and mouths confront and the sound barrier that must be broken through before one can master Thai.
Thai is a tonal language. This means that each word has a certain pitch characteristic with which it must be spoken to be properly understood. The Thai language uses five tones, called mid, low, high, rising, and falling. That makes it very easy to call someone’s mother a dog, because Maa, with a falling tone, is 'mother'; Mah, with a rising tone, is 'dog'.
This tonal language careening around our foreign ears sometime creates humorous situations. To wit: Yesterday I was sitting with an expat friend who has been trying to convince his Thai wife that they should get a divorce. He has lived here eighteen years, can read and write Thai (a commendable feat in itself) and has a relatively good command of the language. His mobile phone rang. It was his wife. I listened to his end of the conversation, but didn’t understand what was being said. After he hung up, he said, “She said ‘divorce’ – I think she's finally agreeing to a divorce!” It was good news indeed. It is a marriage that should have ended years ago.
