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Mrs. Ratana-Ubol, Kanokwal

Thai Professor in The University of Hong Kong 

 

Learning Thai has to be fun. Why isn't it popular in Hong Kong?

The University of Hong Kong (HKU) and the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) are the two tertiary institutions offering Thai courses in Hong Kong . HKU is the only institute which provide Thai minors, and the courses are divided into beginners, intermediate and advanced levels, with emphasis on students' speaking skills rather than simply writing skills.



We have interviewed Mrs. Ratana-Ubol, Kanokwal, Thai professor in HKU about the Thai learning situation in Hong Kong and the Thai immigrants' perception towards their mother tongue language and Cantonese. Mrs Kanokwal first introduced us the approach she takes in teaching the language. "HKU is the place where I emphasise in speaking mostly. ... they need to know how to read and write during intermediate and advanced (courses) So HKU students are able to speak the language even when they are beginners so they can communicate with Thai people in Hong Kong." said Mrs. Kanokwal.

 

Motivation of HKU students to learn the Language

We went on  asking  Mrs. Kanokwal  about  students'  interest  and  motivation in  taking  her  Thai  courses.  According  to
Mrs. Kanokwal, there are in total 25 students in her Thai class in HKU. When being asked how students could successfully master the Thai language, Mrs. Kanokwal responded that psychological likeness is the key. "Students learning Thai really have to like the culture. Food; food is the biggest attraction...students do not aim to learn Thai for communication with the Thai people in Hong Kong, but for tourism purpose. Thai restaurants are good places where they can practise their language."



"Learning Thai has to be fun"

Learning a new language is often a headache as dealing with the unfamiliar sounds, characters and words require great effort to be put in memorisation. In view of this, Mrs. Kanokwal emphasised that she would not give a very serious and difficult lesson to minimize my students' interest, and she stressed learning Thai has to be fun. "Thai language is fun, it has not to be taught in a serious way...small group teaching is beneficial because students can speak a lot". In class, Cantonese is not used as the medium of instruction but it facilitates Thai learning. Sometimes the pronunciations in Thai resemble Cantonese in a funny way as the same pronunciation means totally different things in two languages. 

"Lai-see" means colourful in Thai but it means "to soil one's pants" in Cantonese. Despite differences, there are also sounds which refer to the same thing in two languages while commonality also exist, such as numbers  sound very much similar in both languages and "Ging" means brilliant in both languages.


If Thai language is fun and easy to learn, why is there not much people learning the language?
There are two reason contributing to the reason why people lack initiative in learning Thai. "People take it for granted in Hong Kong. If you speak in Thai to them, they speak to you in Cantonese back. People do not have to learn because all the Thai people here can speak Cantonese." said Mrs Kanokwal. "Thai people can adapt to the new environment very easily, I think. So Thai people think if they live here, they have to learn the language. But, funny enough, Thai people living in America are different. From my experience, I found that Thai people living in Hong Kong speak Cantonese better than those in the UK or America that they have to speak English, because of the reason mentioned before, Thai people find speaking Cantonese easier than English because of the similarity between the two languages"



Why is Cantonese more popular than English among Thai immigrants while English is a lingua franca?
Most of the Thai expatriates work as domestic helpers and some of their husbands are local Hong Kong Chinese who do not speak a word of English. So they have to struggle with Cantonese for work and communicating with the families of their husbands. To a certain extent, language also constraints whom Thai people get married to, whilst their language ability is closely related to their education level.

 

Thai people become more Cantonese than Thai in Hong Kong?

Mrs Kanokwal pointed out an interesting phenomenon that Thai people tend to become more Cantonese than Thai in Hong Kong as most of them speak Cantonese very fluently because of the resemblance between Thai and Cantonese. How do they master Cantonese so well? Two Thai magics.



Thai Magic in learning Cantonese #1 - Similarity between Thai and Cantonese makes learning easier

" ... Thai language structure and Cantonese structure are very much alike, and we have a lot of similarities in terms of sounds. So for Thai people to learn Cantonese, it's very easy. They can adopt Cantonese in no time."



Thai Magic in learning Cantonese #2 - Working environment and family provide context of Cantonese usage

These are also factors affecting their language choice - their preference towards which language to use.

"...They are surrounded by Hong Kong people...most of them get married with Cantonese people. They speak in Cantonese with their husband. But sadly, once they are married and have kids, very likely the Thai mothers teach their kids Cantonese. Unless the kid was born in Thailand, they would have learned Thai before coming to Hong Kong. Majority Thai ethnicity students in class do not speak the language.  



Myth for Thai Mothers in Bilingual families: My kids cannot handle learning two languages at the same time 

Mrs Kanokwal commented, "I always have to explain to them 'Even Hong Kong kids come to learn Thai, why don't your kids who are half-Chinese half-Thai get to know the language?". She pointed out that there is a misconception towards bilingual learning among many Thai-speaking mothers in Hong Kong. They may fear that their kids could not understand Cantonese after acquiring Thai, so they choose to omit passing the Thai language to their next generation. In fact, bilingual learning is not unmanageable,  especially picking up speaking is an easier task than writing. Anyhow, kids can acquire more than one language naturally by repetition, unlike adults' language learning by logical rules.

As a mother of her half-British child, Mrs Kanokwal suggested that children should grow up and learn the languages in bilingual family naturally, as children are capable to adopt quickly and automatically to the language patterns and environment, so learning two languages at the same time is not impossible as assumed. 

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