Falling in love with Thai BL series makes me appreciate a new language

To be honest, I had never thought it would be Thai. My friends thought that I went mad when I told them I was going to start to learn Thai. The reason that gave was simple, direct, and actually valid (i.e. Not useful in international context). But hey, no one decides what is useful for me. I have been learning Thai for a month, doing roughly 7 hours of classes a week here on amazing talker. I am able to understand a little more from time to time in the Thai series and I am satisfied and delighted with my progress.

What surprises me the most is the similarity between Cantonese (my mother tongue) and Thai (grammar-wise). The sentence final particles make the Thai speech much more melodic and adding so much more color to the speech. As a linguist and speech and language pathologist, I enjoy analyzing syntax and semantics, and I am not going to bore you with that.

Let us get back to BL. We know Thai drama can be cheesy, especially the dtob-juup (Literally means slap then kiss, first 6 episodes pulling pranks and hating each other and then falling in love) kind and filled with hundreds of product placements in an episode, but these are actually what make the drama fun to watch. Work life is stressful enough for me and I want something easy to watch. Watching two men playing the love game chasing each other is like taking a mental break and doing a massage for your brain. Give it a try.

Learning a new language is never easy. Let’s face it. It is taking forever to be able to communicate with the locals using the new language, especially when the locals start to falsely think that we do speak the language and start to talk in bullet train speed, which can be depressing. But this time, I am treating the language as just a hobby. Whether or not I can talk fluently asap with locals is not what I value the most. As long as you are having fun, experiencing the positive emotion when doing something, you keep on doing it and you will be good at it. It’s just a matter of time. That’s positive psychology.