Last week — with the help of a lot of friends on and off the Internet — I learned something very important pertaining to how tones for syllables without final consonants are produced, and I would like to share what I learned with you today.

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Before I say anything, please watch the following video:

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I fancy myself something of a pretty good martial artist. Back in the day when I was younger (okay, okay, MUCH younger) I used to pride myself on my ability to kick very high and with excellent form. It took a long time for me to be able to kick like that, and I still look back fondly at that time, knowing that not very many people were able to do that.

So you can imagine my reaction when I came across what is, perhaps, the coolest unknown sport in the world – Sepak Takraw.

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Another one of my new favorite bands, NOS. These guys are a little more mellow than I generally like to listen to, but I still dig ‘em. The creator of this video did a great job of including the Thai, phonetics, and a good English translation. Below the video are the lyrics if you want to try and translate them yourself.

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อีติ๋มตายแน่ is the first Thai movie I ever saw, so it holds a special place in my heart. Although my Thai isn’t exactly fluent yet, the movie itself – with the help of my wife – is quite easy to understand and enjoyable. The movie stars Thai comedian Udom “Nose” Taepanich and Japanese bikini model Asuka Yanagi, so right there you know the movie has potential.

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From the movie “Phobia 2″ (which I haven’t seen yet) here is a very cool song by the group Nologo. Hope you like it. The lyrics are posted below the video.

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The word ของ (kɔ̌ɔng), which means “of” in English, is used to show possession. For example, “Josh’s car” or “your friend.” It’s a pretty simple grammatical concept for Thai, thankfully. All you have to do is remember the structure: Noun + ของ + possessor I put it in big text so you won’t forget! (That’s the kind of nice guy that I am.)

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The vowel ใ – called ไม้ม้วน sara ai mai-muan (“sara” means vowel in Thai, “ai” is the sound of the vowel, and “mai-muan” is the vowel’s name) – is found in only 20 words in the Thai language. This list has been repeated many times over in other places on the Internet, but it bears repeating so I’m adding it here. The 20 words are:

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I’m quite sure no one will take notice, but I decided to change the tag line of my blog to “Navigating the New Culture Frontier.” When I started the blog a few months ago my goal was to write about my efforts to learn the Thai language, hoping that I can not only help others with the same goal, but also to engage like-minded people who can help me achieve my language goals.

The deeper I get into my studies, however – not to mention the fact that I’m married to a wonderful Thai woman – the more I realize that I’m exposing myself more and more to other aspects of Thai culture, not just the language. All of this exposure is, of course, helping me with my language learning studies, but I’m now feeling that sticking strictly to the language aspect of Thai is not allowing me to express myself as much as I would like.

So, with all of that being said, you will start to see more Thailand-related posts, not necessarily specific to Thai language. Language posts will continue to be the main focus of the blog, but I will be adding other topics as well to keep things interesting.

Thanks for reading!