NIDA Summer Camp: Day 4

Friday, 19 June 2015

We were having a Thai Language Class by Assistant Proffessor Dr. Jaray Singhakowinta in NIDA Campus on Friday. We learned some basic Thai conversation. It was early morning, seemed like more than half of the participants still half-awaked! LOL.

Anyway, I will write some of them here as I didn't do much things that day. I will post the tutorial written from the class, so you can learn it too! ;)

Here's the class

There are 5 tones in Thai, mid tone, low tone, falling tone, high tone and rising tone. For further explanation you'd better check some videos from natives in YouTube xD

Maybe you have ever heard about khrap/ka at the end of the sentence. Like khop khun kha, or khop khun khrap. See the difference, right? Kha is used to specify the girl as the speaker, and khrap is used to specify the man as the speaker. So, Thai is a gender specific language.

If you are a girl, you can say: Khop khun kha
If you are a boy, you can say: Khop khun khrap

To indicate the future and past tenses, there are certain words. For example: cha = will, laeo = already.

Okay, now let's go to the basic sentences.

Hello!
Sawatdi (khrap/kha)!

How are you?
Sabaidi mai (khrap/kha)?

Fine thank you
Sabaidi (khrap/kha)

Thank you
Khop Khun (khrap/kha)

Sorry/ Excuse me
Kho thot (khrap/kha)

I don't understand
Mai khao chai (khrap/kha)

I cannot speak Thai
Phut Thai mai dai (khrap/kha)

Please speak slowly
Phut sha sha (khrap/kha)

Never mind/ it's okay/ no problem
Mai pen rai (khrap/kha)

Where is the rest room?
Hong nam yu thi nai (khrap/kha)?
Hong nam is rest room, anyway.

What is this?
Ni arai (khrap/kha)?

How much does this cost?
Ra kha thao rai (khrap/kha)?

Very expensive
Phaeng mak (khrap/kha)

The bill please
Khit-gnoen/ kep-tang (khrap/kha)

Goodbye
La kon (khrap/kha)

Goodluck
Kho hai chok di (khrap/kha)

And the most important word! 5555 or ha ha ha ha a.k.a LOL

Actually there are a lot more, I write it in other post. Since I am too lazy to compile all in one post. After learned this language, we were given a task to make a Thai conversation. We were devided into several teams. Each team had to write a scenario and then performed in front of the class. The class was awesome! Everybody turned into Thai 555.

In the afternoon we have an introduction to NIDA curricular. I thought that this was gonna be boring, but what actually happen was the other way round! Super fun. We went to every school in NIDA and learned about the programme they offered for master and doctoral degree.

Again, we were devided based by our original country. I was in Indonesian group. We were given a NIDA passport to be stamped on later after we finished the tasks they gave. To get to know NIDA better, here is the link. Some programme are offered in English, and some are only in Thai.

We also got goody bag! :)

Here are just some example about what we did during the visit in NIDA campus. When we visited the Graduate School of Environmental and Development Administration, they gave us a game. It was an iceberg thingy game. We rolled the dice, and got a number of which carpet will be played. The carpets were in different size, from the smallest to the biggest one. Then we rolled the dice again, to get a number of the people who would stand on that carpet. 

Iceberg thingy game

Then in Graduate School of Law, we were given as task to find words as many as we can from the letters: C O N G R A T U L A T I O N. This was really fun since the letters were scrambled at first. We got 100 words, more or less within 2 minutes hahaha.

This was really fun!

My favorite visit would be to the public policy thing. I forgot whether it was Graduate School of Public Administration or others. I like the way the explained about what they learned in NIDA. At least I got a glimpse about what they were actually studying, and I started to build interest toward that subject.

Indo team :D

So each of us should pick a paper. There were several roles there such as a kid, shop owner, parents, police, etc. The case was about the kid who worked underage. We were given a situation and had to tell what we did as the role we picked. The best part was they thought that we were the best team so far. Indonesian team! :)

I'll continue tomorrow x)