Friday, January 1, 2010

Lao language lessons...on video

Tongue tied in language lessons and I still feel like after several months of study and practice... that little children know more than me!

But, just so you don't feel left out... I've recorded some of my initial Lao lessons and you can try for yourself. Some of the initial learning is easy; or so I thought. See the hard part is that every word has a tone of ending on a higher, lower, or same tone. Also, every word has a low, middle, or high tone to begin with. And, to top it off, there's the 'shortness' or 'longness' to every word. So, grand total combination of 18 different ways to say the exact same sound and it means different things.

Probably the hardest part is the actual hearing of different sounds and tones. They have sounds that are completely different from ours. Many words begin with a "ng" (similar to how 'song' ends but only using that sound for the beginning) or "ny" or plain "n" sound - extremely hard to tell them apart in normal conversation.

Saleumsai, my tutor, is from Salavanne province in the Southern part of Laos. This makes a big difference because the Lao language is not standardized. Northern Laos, Vientiane, Middle, Southern, and rural Laos all have different tones and words. At one time, Laos and Thailand were similar in language (and they still are to a very great extent - most of my students use a Thai dictionary to help them understand English words; plus all my students understand Thai and have told me if I know Lao well enough, I can understand Thai). So, we are learning a 'southern' dialect of tones. He is also giving me the most common words that would be most widely understood. It helps that he worked in Northern Laos at Luang Prabang with foreigners at a nice hotel; it gives him a broader range of Lao language exposure.

The style of language learning here is "Learning by Immersion." Thus, we try to speak only Lao and I learn words from context rather than depending on English to convey ideas. This is how we all learned our native language - from context - and its the easiest way to truly learn a language in its own context.

Here are the first three lessons I've recorded.

First lesson - basic words for family, people, and different verbs. The words are:father sitting, little boy running, man standing, little girl walking, mother sleeping (or laying down), spoon, pencil (we don't have one so we are pretending), knife, plate, pen, fork (vs the word for #3), bowl, book (either blank paper or reading), large jar, small jar, paper, chair, long chair, table:


Second Lesson - basic words for animals and prepositions with a random ruler stuck in for fun. The words are: cat, pig, dog, horse, cow, chicken, a ruler, water buffalo, on, next to, in front of, behind:


Third Lesson - common everyday words. The words are: shirt, to wear or wearing, pants (vs. the word for the number 2), corn, to eat or eating, ice cream, fish, flower, key, egg (vs the word for chicken), camera, "to take a picture" or "taking a picture", can, rice, breakfast, lunch, dinner:


Here are the links to watch more:
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