Sunday Lao Class

Above is the link for the culture section of tonight's class. It describes the story behind the Lao New Years celebration.

We held class this evening for the Lao students and it went great! Great turnout and an exceptional new student, Sonyta!

Once again, I apologize for not being able to make it to class these past couple weeks. However, I'm glad we all got to catch up tonight and for those of you who missed out, don't worry! I have posted links to new material (Reading lesson 4 and "At Home") on this page in the links section of the Lao class. If you have any questions please ask me! I will also skim through this material next weekend before beginning new material.

We started the class out this evening, reviewing from Reading exercise one (accessible in the links section). I explained how the exercise works and by the sound of it, you've all got it down!

After reviewing the consonants and vowels from previous lessons, we continued with a whole new lesson. Today we covered not two but FOUR consonants, FOUR vowels, and two sets of vocabulary terms. Please refer to the following links:

• Lao: Reading Exercise 1
• Lao: Reading Lesson 3
• Lao: Days of the Week
• Lao: Reading Lesson 4
• Lao: At Home

I initially planned to teach only one lesson. However, judging by the progress we all were making and the fact that we began much earlier this evening, I added another lesson to what I had originally planned to teach.

You all did great! Remember to practice your tones as the Laotian language is tonal. As far as the vowel sounds, remember that there are short vowels and long vowels. Laotian days of the week are very similar to Khmer days of the week and as far as the vocabulary for "today, tomorrow, yesterday, etc." you all did awesome! Keep it up! For the "At Home" section I felt like we all had it down but the reason I didn't get too critical on pronunciation part of it was because I did not want to bombard you all with so much information in one sitting. Do not worry! I will go over "At Home" again next weekend.

With that said, after class the students were able to teach me some Khmer as well and I am very grateful! I look forward to teaching you more and also LEARNING from you all. I've got the Lao language down for sure but the Khmer language is yet another language I feel I MUST master one day! I appreciate all your help in teaching me Khmer (Not just Naroth, but all of you).

To wrap things up I just wanted to say, don't be afraid to learn! Don't be afraid to mess up! To learn is to speak and to speak is to learn so I encourage you all to please study, practice, and ask questions! It's the best way to learn. I hope to speak Laotian with you all one day!

Goodnight Class,

Alonzo S.