I've been staying in Vietnam for some time now (two years on and off) and preparing to spend a few months in Thailand later this year. It's not my first time in Thailand, but it's the first stay that is long enough to warrant developing enough proficiency to order food, read menus, buy produce at the market, etc. comfortably. So, I have started to learn the alphabet and some basic phrases.
But like anyone else, my time is limited and I want to spend it efficiently, so I was Just wondering how similar Thai and Vietnamese grammar are. Looking at the very surface level, they both have SVO order; there are prepositions (not postpositions), but modifiers follow nouns (like Romance languages); words don't inflect; and tense markers are optional. Asking a question requires "not" at the end (mái / không). Etc. etc.
Seems like I can focus on vocabulary (getting it to the level of my Vietnamese) and word recognition, and not worry too much about the grammar. Like I was watching this video and it seems like "dâai mái?" is basically equivalent to "được không?"
So, are there any specific things I'd need to know beyond just substituting words? Of course there are peculiarities (pronoun system in Vietnamese, politeness markers in Thai) but I'm just talking about the broad level of constructing sentences.
[Chị] [mua] [bốn cái] [bánh mì] [hộ] [em] [để] [bọn em] [mang đi], [được] [không]?
[Older sister] [buy] [four things] [baguette] [for (as a favor to)] [younger sibling] [in order to] [we] [take with us (take-go)], [can] [not]?
= Can you (a woman slightly older than me) buy four baguettes for me for us (i.e., me and my friend) to take away? (Just a random example... a phrase I used on a recent bicycle tour)
[link] [comments]
from Nok aba ɗaw | Languagelearning https://ift.tt/2wHa6Mw
via Learn Online English Speaking
Comments
Post a Comment