Thaiglish

The other day I was in the check out line and the check out lady saw my last name on my credit card and asked in Thai if I was Thai. I responded back to her in Thai that yes I was Thai. From there we had a brief conversation in Thai.

And this weekend I had brunch with Best Friend Ever and her family. Out of that whole group, Julia and Julian are the only ones who don’t speak Thai. The conversation was a mixture of Thai and English, and by now Julia is probably used to not understanding half of the things that we are saying. During these outings, I never speak Thai even if someone speaks it to me. I will answer them back in English. It’s my first instinct and I can speak a lot faster in English than Thai. I understand Thai a lot better than I can speak it.

This got me to thinking about how I process language in my head. When someone is speaking Thai, I hear it and understand what they are saying, and in my head I interpret the words as English. So yes, someone is speaking Thai, but my comprehension is in English. When I reply to a person in Thai, I first think of what I want to say in English and then from there speak Thai. I am usually speaking incorrectly because I am following the rules of grammar for English, not Thai. But the people that I am talking with understand that I’m not fluent, so its no big deal. And my accent is god-awful. I sound like a valley girl speaking Thai.

I asked BFE if that’s how she processes Thai in her head, and of course she said no (hahaha, its amazing how her and I use the same parts of our brains in completely different ways). She is more fluent than me because growing up her parents forced her to speak Thai on a regular basis, while my parents didn’t. Sometimes I feel like I’m Julia sitting among the group not understanding a word around me. And its sad, cause I’ve gotten used to it too. From now on, I’m going to make an effort to speak Thai to my parents so that I have a better grasp of the language and can become more fluent, especially if I ever pursue my dreams of living overseas.