Simplicity and Double Entendres: Language Lessons Part 2

At its most hopeless, my progress with Thai sounds something like this:

Me: What's that?
Some Patient Thai Friend: That's a dog.
Me: Ok, good now how do you say that in Thai?
Friend: Maa.
Me: Maa?
Friend: No, that's the word for horse.
Me: Maa.
Friend: No, that means come.
Me: Maa.
Friend: Maa, maa, maa. Do you understand?
Me: Maa maa maa maa maa maa, etc etc.

And if it's not some issue with tone, then it's the unique Thai letters- dt, or bp, or my favorite, eu, which sounds like someone with lockjaw who just stepped in shit.

But I have to remind myself when I'm going blind in front of the chart of 44 consonants, that beyond its sounds Thai is a very simple language. The basic vocabulary is much smaller than English and most words longer than one syllable are compounds of shorter words. For instance: "rian" means study. So classroom is "hong rian" (literally: study room) and school is rongrian (study building). And Hotel is rongraem (overnight building).

So despite my struggles to choke down the 36 vowel sounds, I've got my foot in the door with these compound words. For each short word I learn, I've learned one half of about twenty more words. Last night I used this to my great advantage, foraying for the first time into humor, long a bastion for the fluent here in Thailand. I knew the word for water, "nam" and the word for ice, "nam kaeng." But last night it was explained to me that "nam kaeng" means literally, strong water. And "kaeng" in Thai also translates to the word erect and erection. As simple as that I had my first double entendre. The stiffer the drinks the stronger the feelings, etc etc. We got about 10 minutes of laughs out of it, mainly I think out of relief that we could communicate more than just "where are you from" and "what's your name." My real personality could finally shine through. Off-color humor, long a staple of my English-speaking interactions, could once again be mine.