The other day I went to a khmer restaurant with a couple of cambodian friends. The waiter came to take my order and I asked in my best khmer if they had sach koh ang (beef on skewers) - one of my favorite cambodian foods. The waiter said no. Then one of my Cambodian friends asked the same question and the waiter said yes, they did have sach koh ang. Turns out that the waiter had thought that in my imperfect Khmer I had asked for sach chkai ang (dog meat skewers). Great laughter all around.
Another of my frequent restaurant requests which is often misheard is cafe teuk do koh takaw (iced coffee with milk). So many times I've had people hear this as cafe takaw, no matter how slowly I speak or how often I repeat it and I end up with iced black coffee without milk.
Would be interested to hear if anyone else has similar khmer phrases that cause confusion or have been misinterpreted by listeners.
Sach koh ang
Nyam dai vs nyam d'ai ... one is to share your food, the other to eat an arm
Meum est propositum in taberna mori,
ut sint Guinness proxima morientis ori.
tunc cantabunt letius angelorum chori:
"Sit Deus propitius huic potatori."
ut sint Guinness proxima morientis ori.
tunc cantabunt letius angelorum chori:
"Sit Deus propitius huic potatori."
Most likely just your pronunciation of the words, especially if you've got a strong, difficult to decipher accent. I regularly think that I am pronouncing things correctly as I hear them, but then the missus corrects me and tells me again the correct words yet I still feel as.if.I'm repeating it the.same.as what I'm hearing
I'm not a negative person, I encourage people all the time...it's usually to f**k off! But, whatever.
Yes I've heard the story of the foreign tourist stranded by the side of the road and calling "help me"..Joon wrote:The ones you want to MASTER: jouy and joy.
Two other ones I have problems with are "luen/lueng" (fast/yellow) and "loy/looy"(money/handsome - perhaps it's wishful thinking on my part that I hear the second of those two when they mean the first)
Last edited by Angelino on Thu Nov 19, 2015 3:46 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Angelino wrote:The other day I went to a khmer restaurant with a couple of cambodian friends. The waiter came to take my order and I asked in my best khmer if they had sach koh ang (beef on skewers) - one of my favorite cambodian foods. The waiter said no. Then one of my Cambodian friends asked the same question and the waiter said yes, they did have sach koh ang. Turns out that the waiter had thought that in my imperfect Khmer I had asked for sach chkai ang (dog meat skewers). Great laughter all around.
Another of my frequent restaurant requests which is often misheard is cafe teuk do koh takaw (iced coffee with milk). So many times I've had people hear this as cafe takaw, no matter how slowly I speak or how often I repeat it and I end up with iced black coffee without milk.
Would be interested to hear if anyone else has similar khmer phrases that cause confusion or have been misinterpreted by listeners.
I have the problem with coffee, too, but it's not just pronunciation. I'll ask for cafe tuk das ko dak tuk kak , and get iced black coffee. I can then ask for tuk das ko and get milk. Two of my neighbors have little stands outside their houses, one sells coffee, one noodles. Noodle seller speaks Chinese, so one morning I asked her for noodles and Bing ka fe jia niu nai. She had to explain patiently to the coffee seller that I really did want coffee with milk in it.
I suspect some people just think - he's a foreigner, he wants foreign food- so no matter what you ask for, they don't have it, because they don't have foreign food.
It's all about the rhythm when you ask for iced coffee with milk: cafe-doh-ko-tkoh. Ask for the short version, not the longer cafe-tuk-doh-koh-tkoh, leave the tuk.sinocidal wrote:Angelino wrote:The other day I went to a khmer restaurant with a couple of cambodian friends. The waiter came to take my order and I asked in my best khmer if they had sach koh ang (beef on skewers) - one of my favorite cambodian foods. The waiter said no. Then one of my Cambodian friends asked the same question and the waiter said yes, they did have sach koh ang. Turns out that the waiter had thought that in my imperfect Khmer I had asked for sach chkai ang (dog meat skewers). Great laughter all around.
Another of my frequent restaurant requests which is often misheard is cafe teuk do koh takaw (iced coffee with milk). So many times I've had people hear this as cafe takaw, no matter how slowly I speak or how often I repeat it and I end up with iced black coffee without milk.
Would be interested to hear if anyone else has similar khmer phrases that cause confusion or have been misinterpreted by listeners.
I have the problem with coffee, too, but it's not just pronunciation. I'll ask for cafe tuk das ko dak tuk kak , and get iced black coffee. I can then ask for tuk das ko and get milk. Two of my neighbors have little stands outside their houses, one sells coffee, one noodles. Noodle seller speaks Chinese, so one morning I asked her for noodles and Bing ka fe jia niu nai. She had to explain patiently to the coffee seller that I really did want coffee with milk in it.
I suspect some people just think - he's a foreigner, he wants foreign food- so no matter what you ask for, they don't have it, because they don't have foreign food.
My experience is also that if you are with Cambodians, the seller will just assume you speak some foreign language and 'switch of', switching on when one your Cambodian friends start talking.
Yes I think you're correct about both those things. When I order coffee I try to enunciate clearly and slowly and end up with the wrong drink. If I'm with a Cambodian they'll mumble out their order and get exactly what they wanted.Kachang wrote:
It's all about the rhythm when you ask for iced coffee with milk: cafe-doh-ko-tkoh. Ask for the short version, not the longer cafe-tuk-doh-koh-tkoh, leave the tuk.
My experience is also that if you are with Cambodians, the seller will just assume you speak some foreign language and 'switch of', switching on when one your Cambodian friends start talking.
And yes, I think the seller is often expecting me to speak English and is concentrating so hard to understand what I'm trying to say that he overlooks that I'm actually speaking Khmer (or at least trying to).
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- MerkinMaker
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Khmer unlike English is all about the vowels. There are many vowel sounds that simply don't exist in English, and for most words if you get the vowel slightly wrong the meaning changes.
Personally I think unless you learn to read Khmer to at least ABC level you will be constantly banging your head against the wall. It's possible to get it right without learning the alphabet, but it's definitely the long way around.
Personally I think unless you learn to read Khmer to at least ABC level you will be constantly banging your head against the wall. It's possible to get it right without learning the alphabet, but it's definitely the long way around.
I am inclined to agree. Children learn to speak a language without being able to spell because they imitate the sounds around them which they're hearing for the first time but by the time you're an adult your native language is so imprinted that any new sounds don't seem natural.starkmonster wrote:Khmer unlike English is all about the vowels. There are many vowel sounds that simply don't exist in English, and for most words if you get the vowel slightly wrong the meaning changes.
Personally I think unless you learn to read Khmer to at least ABC level you will be constantly banging your head against the wall. It's possible to get it right without learning the alphabet, but it's definitely the long way around.
I have great laughs with Cambodians sometimes getting them to pronounce 'th' words like 'thirsty'. No matter how much I tell them to put their tongue between their teeth to make the 'th' sound they can't bring themselves to do it and it comes out as 'sirsty'.
I actually know the Cambodian alphabet and can read a bit. It's very useful for learning knew words and at least having some idea on how to pronounce them correctly.
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my friend had not long been in Cambodia, maybe around a week or 2, and he had got friendly with the Khmer owners of the guesthouse they were staying in SR, and it was the owners birthday and they got invited along at the party, after the meal my friend attempted to make a toast and tried to say "Choul Mouy" but instead came out with something that sounded like "Joi m'rai" luckily they saw the funny side
Mean Dtuk Mean Trey, Mean Loy Mean Srey
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Punchy McShortstacks School of Hard Knocks