Ka, k'a, ga, nga

Head off to the Alliance Francaise for our first class on Monday, May 17. We have a 200 + page booklet, script sheets, reading sheets, and hours of audio files. My friend initiates me into the mysteries of the Yangon bus system: we need to take the # 48 but there are more than one #48 and they don't all end up in the same place. So we hop on and hope. The fare is 200 kyat, roughly .20 cents US, although once I was only charged 100 kyat. I thought it was a senior rate, but my friend says it's probably because conductor guy has no change. Ah yes. The change.

photo by David Zet

There are no Burmese coins; the currency is entirely paper, old paper, paper held together with cellotape and a prayer. My friend calls it 'armpit' money, because often women will store it under their arms. It is folded and folded again, then offered to a bus conductor or shop keeper. You often see people with bricks of 1,000 kyat notes, the most common large note.

At the Alliance we meet our fellow beginning students; about 30 of us, so we are divided into two groups. We will have script and writing in the first hour with Justin Watkins and reading and speaking in the second hour with John Okell, then the teachers will switch groups. John is a gentle older man who has designed and taught this course for many years; he teaches at SOAS, University of London, UK. Justin is younger, with a doctorate in esoteric languages. Their teaching styles are very different so it's a tgood combination of pushing us hard and encouraging us when the going gets rough. Which it does almost immediately.





The script is based on clockwise circles which at first all look exactly alike to me. Justin explains that because the writing was originally done on palm leaves, straight strokes tended to split the leaves, while circles did not; ergo, circles. We are told to practice writing the consonants and vowel combinations we learn over and over and over. And there is something very meditative about it. Now if I could only retain the shapes until the next class!

John has us talking about how hot it is, teaching us basic sentence patterns that we can slot new vocab into. And since Yangon has had 40 days of + 90 degree weather this is very relevant. When we trip over rhythm and pronunciation he will say, ' Wonderful! Now could we have the definitive version of that please?' We learn to count and to read the numbers, essential for those bus routes!
Those are numbers: 5, ka /1, 6, ya, 2

Before class you can see students at the Alliance with ear buds in their ears and flash cards to hand. After class, we ask for coffee or beer in our newly acquired Burmese, much to the amusement of the staff.

Studying is essential; we are told to put in at least 5 or 6 hours a day, which leaves little time for anything else. It's doubly hard on people who are taking time from work here to attend the course.

Slowly, slowly, we struggle to read things like, ' What do you want to order?' ' I would like two Cokes, and some fried noodles.'

But by Day 10, we are feeling quite proud of ourselves. As Justin says, 'Remember when you came in on day 1, you couldn't read or say anything in Burmese.' It is also helpful to hear Burmese all around us on the streets. Now all I have to do is practice, practice, practice. Both Johan and Justin say that if we don't practice a little each day for about a month, we won't retain anything.

ps: Bama saga means burmese language