How I Learned the Months of the Year...

I've lived in Thailand for two months officially today. Since being here I have fallen in love with the language. This is not because it's beautiful sounding or rolls of the tip of your tongue, but for precisely the opposite reasons. It's choppy, it's nasal and it makes no sense. I love that it so completely different from any other language I have attempted to speak. It is a challenge and by learning it I feel like I am conquering something very huge.

I have already noted the difficulties of a language barrier and those of learning this tonal Thai language. There is just no correlation between English and Thai words. Because of this I have had to think of more creative ways to memorize/learn the language.

My most creative lesson was one I gave myself on the way to the Floating Markets. I decided to learn the months. I suppose the months are not necessary when you're living somewhere for just four months, but I like to learn any word I can get my hands on.

When I learned the numbers I learned them in order. That means that if I want to say the number 8 (bad) I have to count all the way up to 8 to figure it out. The months of the year are lengthy and I knew that succession memorization (made that phrase up) was not going to work here.

Also, the Thai months sound nothing like the English months so I couldn't rely on any memory triggering there.

Instead I created my own technique. I repeated the months over in my head and pictured someone whose birthday is that month reciting it. That way if I want to say the Thai word for June I just have to picture my dad, whose birthday is June 2nd, and think of the Thai word that I memorized him saying.

It sounds complicated but actually has worked flawlessly. I can go straight to that month in my brain instead of running through the list of them. The best part for me is imagining these people in my life saying the words in Thai.

I have to admit though that I do not picture anyone saying January or February. I know many people with birthdays in those months, but since the months had already gone by before I memorized the whole list, I already had those two engrained in my brain...

There is an interesting fact about the Thai names for months that also helped me memorize them. At the end of every month with 30 days you say 'yon'; the months with 31 days you say 'kom' and for February, with 28 or 29 days you say 'pun.'

Let's see if anyone else can learn them:

**Side note, these are my own made-up spellings. Because the Thai language uses different characters for letters there is never any agreed upon English spelling for anything. This is also why I spell the same word differently almost every time I spell it (Sawat dee ka, swadeeka, sawa tee ka, etc) The pronunciation also varies from Thai person to Thai person, so this is how I have interpreted the words**

January: no one: mocha-ra-kom

February: no one: goom-pa-pun

March: Gina: mee-na-kom

(me-na rhymes with Gina)

April: Brittany: may-sa-yon

May: Adam: preut-sa-pa-kom

June: Dad: mee-tuna-yon

(my dad likes tuna?)

July: Alicia Hageman: ga-ra-ga-da-kom

(yes I know many people with July birthdays, but Alicia was one of my first friends ever and her birthday will always stick in my head)

August: Gramma Jeanne: sing-ha-kom

(singha is the Thai beer here, so I picture my gramma, drinking a beer, which she never does, which is why its hilarious and I remember it)

September: Auntie Teresa: gun-yar-yon

October: Me and Lauren: too-lar-kom

(this was an interesting one in my brain because I have shared October with Lauren since she was born and I was no longer the baby of the family. I thought that this would be the time when I finally got the month to myself, but no, the month has to be named too-lar which is saying "Laure(n) too!" However, I love Laure and am happy to continue sharing my month)

November: no one: preut-sa-jig-ha yon

(although I know people who have November birthdays I already had this one memorized because it was the longest and most absurd sounding month to me)

December: Mom: tun-wa-kom

There you have it. The months as I see them. A lot of thought originally went into memorizing them, but now I can say them right off the top of my head! I've surprisingly gotten to use them a few times and the Thais are always quite impressed!