Sunday, July 16, 2006

Hello, my name is Roast Dinner!


The Thai language is a very difficult language to pick up, not only because of the British shocking use of language skills.

It is a tonal language and is not written in English, which makes it even harder to pick up. I can pick up phrases in day to day conversation that help me understand what is being said.

One such conversation cropped up on the way home from Nuch’s work. In the car was Nuch’s 17 year old cousin, P’First. I had just taken her to the US Embassy to get her visa for a year long scholarship she as in the States.

I heard the phrase “Rost Dinner”. I took that to mean she had had a roast dinner at the Embassy. I asked what type of meat she had had, explaining my favourite was a lean roast beef. I went into my own world of fantasy, roast potatoes, two veg, mash, gravy, ahhh!

Both of them looked at me gone out! It turns out that near where P’First lives a woman had called her baby Rost Diner. This is how it came out; I knew they meant Roast Dinner. I was shocked that you would call your baby Roast Dinner. Again they looked at me in surprise and a look that said “Why wouldn’t you call your daughter Roast Dinner”

Ok, live and let live, that’s my motto. Nuch wasn’t going to let it go, she spelt the name out and it turned out the babies name was actually Rose Diana. Everything became clear, but this still left me with a craving for beef and two veg.

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