I'm pleased to announce the addition of three new Thai lessons: the Solar System, On the farm and Birds.
Now there's a funny collection.
The Solar System
Why would anybody, except the most advanced students of Thai imaginable, want to learn the Thai for things in the solar system? Well, actually, anybody who wants to know the Thai for the days of the week would do well to study this lesson. Monday in Thai is "Moon day", Tuesday in Thai is "Mars day", Wednesday is "Mercury day", Thursday is "Jupiter day", Friday is "Venus day", Saturday is "Saturn day", and Sunday is...well, "sun day". So, whatever your level of Thai, if you're learning the days of the week, I recommend you take a look at Lingopolo's Solar System lesson first.
On the farm
The On the farm lesson is a little more 'down to earth' (ahem, two word plays there, since we've come down from the solar system to earth, and the farm is full of earth). The nice thing about the "On the farm" lesson, is that alongside the normal things you'd expect to find on the farm, such as the Thai for farmer, cow and field, are some words which make you realise that you're not dealing with the typical farm in England say: words such as the Thai for rice field and indeed two different words for water buffalo, both the informal form and the formal form.
Birds
The Birds lesson has kind of crept up on me. I wasn't particularly making an effort to add lots of birds, but birds just kind of keep getting added one way or another. Sure, we start with eating them (chicken), we need one or two for the Thai alphabet (chicken again, but also snuk in the end, the wise old owl). I was making a concerted effort to add farm animals (e.g. the Thai for chick, duck and duckling). Not sure how the penguin got in there. Certainly haven't seen many of them in Thailand. Anyway, before I knew it, I realised I probably had enough birds to have a lesson just on the theme of birds. One of the things I did agonise over is words like bird's nest and egg. Do they belong in the Birds lesson? Is egg a bird? Er, no, er, or maybe it is, just a very very young one. What about bird's nest? That certainly isn't a bird by any definition. Finally I decided that, nonetheless, they did belong in the Birds lesson. They may well not be birds, but they are certainly valid entries on the theme of birds, and this is one of Lingopolo's themed lessons, the theme is that of Birds. Maybe one day, if I have enough birds to beef (bird meat?) the lesson up a bit, I will drop the nest and the egg, and maybe create a separate Ornithology lesson, but until then they stay.
Enjoy the new Thai vocab and the new lessons!