Don't know the right word? Use the wrong one

or stay hungry

Last Thursday, around lunchtime, I was in the area of the Carmel Market in Tel Aviv.

I was half-searching for that Brazilian food stand from a month ago so I could say something in Portuguese to its owner, but I couldn’t find it. Maybe they went out of business. Or perhaps it was never really there and I just imagined it (it was the first day I started learning Portuguese, so anything is possible in the haze of excitement.)

Instead, I found a place that served Thai food. It was called “Ahaan Thai” which in Thai means “Thai food.” That food looked good and I was hungry. I thought, wouldn’t it be cool to go there and place my order in Thai?

It would be cool but suddenly I got cold feet.

(Never mind that time when I took it upon myself to learn basic Thai in a week so I could go and talk to an injured person. That was doable. Ordering your lunch in Thai — now that was the real challenge.)

The thing is, I’ve watched plenty of learners’ videos about pets, dentists, office workers, and stay-at-home moms. But I’ve never watched learners’ videos about people ordering food. I have no idea what language you’re supposed to use, how formal I should be, and what kind of politeness particles are appropriate in this scenario.

Not to mention that since my (not very long) conversation with Somchai, I haven’t spoken this language to anyone. Let’s just say, my Thai felt a little rusty.

I approached the place, looked at the menu, then went away.

I considered going hungry because my pride wouldn’t allow me to go to a Thai place and not order food in Thai.

I considered eating somewhere else, but my pride wouldn’t allow me to eat somewhere else either now that it knew there was a Thai place that I was too scared to order from in Thai.

I came back hoping there wouldn’t be a place to sit, or that the line would be too long, or that there’d be a loud annoying crowd of teenagers…. But, no there was plenty of space and no teenagers in sight.

I took a deep breath and approached the counter. I said sà wàt dee khâ “hello” placing my palms together because that’s what you do when you greet someone in Thai. The guy behind the counter also put his palms together and replied quietly sà wàt dee khráp.

I ordered my food saying chǎn yàak… “I want…” then adding all the politeness particles I could remember in case one of them would make me sound polite enough.

I even said mâi yàak khâao… “I don’t want rice”… followed by another long string of politeness particles….. (I didn’t remember the tone for khâao ‘rice’ so it’s possible I accidentally said kháo “he/him” meaning “I don’t want him.”)

That impressed exactly no one. The guy looked so bored at seeing yet another Israeli coming here to practice her broken Thai…. that it seemed he made an effort not to roll his eyes at me.

That’s ok. I was impressed with myself and that’s all that mattered. And I got what I ordered, which was also important. Green curry soup with beef. Sans rice.

And when my food was too spicy and I asked for a glass of water (chǎn tông gan náam “I need water” plus another bunch of politeness particles) voila! I had a glass of water.

The moral of the story is that speaking is usually simpler than we think. I’m sure I didn’t say things the way they’re supposed to be said but that’s ok. I was understood and nobody seemed to be deeply offended.

We only need so many words to start communicating. If you don’t know the right way to say what you wanna say, just use whatever words you know. Pointing at things also counts as communication in my book.

Later a friend asked, well why didn’t you have a longer conversation with the waiter??

I have no idea. They weren’t very busy so I could have had a longer conversation with them. That just didn’t occur to me. And if it had occured to me I wouldn’t know how to go about it.

The thing is that the ability to have conversations with strangers is a skill that doesn’t automatically come with your knowledge of the language (even if you’re fluent in it which I’m not). And that’s a skill I do not possess.

It’s not a great photo because I took it when I first found the place thinking I’d come back here next year when I’m fluent in Thai.