How long does it take to learn Cambodian?

by **paul jordaan** » Mon Jan 20, 2020 9:05 am

Vimean wrote: ↑
Sat Jun 09, 2018 9:18 pm
Where do you live? I am Cambodian and I thought I can teach you Khmer language and I won't charge you because I want some teaching experience.

where do you live ?

by **Canadian Barang** » Fri Jul 19, 2019 11:31 pm

I like it very challenging so although nowadays people can and will use the internet ( I wish these to be helpful for you and whomever attempts to learn either languages, with ASEAN bringing new standards...)

https://download.cnet.com/s/english-khmer-dictionary/ *this will help those with more ancient phones, I know it's not always simple to have the brand new ones which are costly and new apps demand new phones, these are compatible with previous models and will satisfy tighter budgets; most of them are free*

For those that fancy Français, this was a very interesting dictionary from the before last century ( 1886 actually)

https://archive.org/details/abn6261.000 ... du/page/n8

Best of luck to you all

by **ឆ្កែឆ្កួត** » Wed May 15, 2019 11:18 pm

How long is a piece of string? I don't know.
How difficult it is to learn another language depends on a lot of factors, but one of the most important factors is how much you need to. If you speak English well, you can go almost anywhere in the world and there will be some people who understand you. But if English is the only language you speak, you might even have difficulty with different accents, and you won't understand people who are just learning English.
I have been learning Khmer for only 3 months, but I have been studying very hard. This is my experience so far....
I went to Cambodia for 1 month. I found a book called "Practical Cambodian Dictionary". I found someone from Canada who speaks Khmer well and loves teaching Khmer. But after learning all the "common phrases", I still couldn't understand anyone. I lived in a shop and the girls who work there could not speak any English, or understand me when I tried phrases in Khmer. After a month in Malaysia, I had some comprehension and I could form sentences in Malay, so I wondered why Khmer seemed so difficult. It is because basic simplified Malay is used as a lingua franca by millions of people in Indonesia, so Malays, think it is worth teaching to foreigners. Malays are also very proud of their hospitality because it says in the Koran "if a foreigner in your country is lost, you must take care of them until they have found their way." Malays are also proud that a lot of them speak English well, can use big words, and even have a "British" accent. Also, Malay is written in Roman letters most of the time, the sounds correspond closely with sounds in English, and there are only 6 contrasting vowel sounds. (English has 9 and Khmer 10).
I grew up speaking two languages, English, and Warlpiri which is a central desert language of Australia. Warlpiri has literally only 3 contrasting vowel sounds (that's all you need really), which correspond very closely with 3 of the Malay vowel sounds, so I could already "hear" all the sounds they make. Malay and Warlpiri are similar in some ways, and many words can be made by adding suffixes (and prefixes in Malay) to existing words. The rules of grammar are consistently applied.
So Khmer is not considered easy to teach to foreigners, hospitality is not a national pastime in Cambodia as it is in Malaysia, Cambodians are 90% mono-linguistic and therefore most of them find it difficult to learn English and understand "bad" accents, Khmer is written in a different script so if you don't learn it you can't practice by reading signs, Khmer vowels, and even some consonants do not correspond with English sounds, and the grammar is so complicated it seems inconsistent. (For example the same affix could have multiple functions).
But I didn't give up, instead I decided to take a new approach. The breakthrough came when I decided to learn the Khmer script. This made me realized how many different sounds are made in Khmer. Khmer has many spelling rules, and a lot of characters, but once you learn them it is very consistent compared to English. Here is a vowel chart...

Compare it to these vowel charts for English...

I hope this helps you. Now I can hear and contrast all the sounds in Khmer, so I can distinguish between words that are similar, and when I work hard at writing down Khmer song lyrics, I can use the Practical Cambodian Dictionary to get a sort of translation. I also watch Khmer TV series (with English subtitles), and they are much more entertaining than Australian TV. They never let you get comfortable. Just when everything seems to be going well, tragedy strikes! On the positive side, Khmer has a lot of similarities to English in the Grammar and is generally a subject–verb–object (SVO) language. It is not tonal like Thai and Vietnamese, and doesn't have genders for every noun like German. Remember to put the adjectives after the nouns (as in French), and keep in mind that a lot of words can be used in different ways to mean different things. Begin Learning Khmer script here... http://www.pratyeka.org/csw/hlp-csw.pdf
Here is an interesting map.

by **Kachang** » Tue Jul 03, 2018 5:37 pm

ផោមក្លិនស្អុយ wrote:
Miguelito wrote:
youngwill100 wrote:I just wanted to learn basic spoken khmer. I had three hours a week of lessons with an excellent tutor for three months and then just noted down new words in my phone as i heard them and asked what they meant. Having a khmer girlfriend who spoke very basic English also helped a lot, forcing me to learn khmer faster.
I think I could deal with most situations within about five months of starting to learn.
Understanding spoken khmer is another story. The locals in Phnom Penh use a lot of slang and different pronunciations which made it hard to understand people's responses, especially if they were speaking fast.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I completely agree with the speaking/understanding part. It’s the first language I’ve studied that I have a harder time understanding than speaking myself. Of course, there are also times I say what I think is very basic and they can’t understand me either haha.
I don’t get this at all.
For me understanding is always greater than participation. It’s the old ‘passive versus active vocabulary’ thing. I’ve got decent Khmer ability but there are loads of words which I know when I hear them, but when I am speaking I just can’t remember them.
I have been fairly immersed in the language though with people from all over the country. Maybe that makes a difference.

The more you know, the more you realize there's more to learn. isn't it all about that?

Kind of the Khmer tale about the frog in the well.

by **ផោមក្លិនស្អុយ** » Tue Jul 03, 2018 12:14 pm

Miguelito wrote:
youngwill100 wrote:I just wanted to learn basic spoken khmer. I had three hours a week of lessons with an excellent tutor for three months and then just noted down new words in my phone as i heard them and asked what they meant. Having a khmer girlfriend who spoke very basic English also helped a lot, forcing me to learn khmer faster.
I think I could deal with most situations within about five months of starting to learn.
Understanding spoken khmer is another story. The locals in Phnom Penh use a lot of slang and different pronunciations which made it hard to understand people's responses, especially if they were speaking fast.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I completely agree with the speaking/understanding part. It’s the first language I’ve studied that I have a harder time understanding than speaking myself. Of course, there are also times I say what I think is very basic and they can’t understand me either haha.

I don’t get this at all.
For me understanding is always greater than participation. It’s the old ‘passive versus active vocabulary’ thing. I’ve got decent Khmer ability but there are loads of words which I know when I hear them, but when I am speaking I just can’t remember them.
I have been fairly immersed in the language though with people from all over the country. Maybe that makes a difference.

by **Marinaris** » Tue Jul 03, 2018 11:28 am

Miguelito wrote:
youngwill100 wrote:I just wanted to learn basic spoken khmer. I had three hours a week of lessons with an excellent tutor for three months and then just noted down new words in my phone as i heard them and asked what they meant. Having a khmer girlfriend who spoke very basic English also helped a lot, forcing me to learn khmer faster.
I think I could deal with most situations within about five months of starting to learn.
Understanding spoken khmer is another story. The locals in Phnom Penh use a lot of slang and different pronunciations which made it hard to understand people's responses, especially if they were speaking fast.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I completely agree with the speaking/understanding part. It’s the first language I’ve studied that I have a harder time understanding than speaking myself. Of course, there are also times I say what I think is very basic and they can’t understand me either haha.

I have the same feeling with english

by **Miguelito** » Tue Jul 03, 2018 7:04 am

youngwill100 wrote:I just wanted to learn basic spoken khmer. I had three hours a week of lessons with an excellent tutor for three months and then just noted down new words in my phone as i heard them and asked what they meant. Having a khmer girlfriend who spoke very basic English also helped a lot, forcing me to learn khmer faster.
I think I could deal with most situations within about five months of starting to learn.
Understanding spoken khmer is another story. The locals in Phnom Penh use a lot of slang and different pronunciations which made it hard to understand people's responses, especially if they were speaking fast.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I completely agree with the speaking/understanding part. It’s the first language I’ve studied that I have a harder time understanding than speaking myself. Of course, there are also times I say what I think is very basic and they can’t understand me either haha.

by **merchantsmutual** » Tue Jul 03, 2018 5:24 am

I have been studying for 3 years in October and am still not particularly great. I think it is never truly learned; you just reach certain levels at which you feel "okay" with it.

by **Vimean** » Sat Jun 09, 2018 9:18 pm

Where do you live? I am Cambodian and I thought I can teach you Khmer language and I won't charge you because I want some teaching experience.

by **youngwill100** » Mon Jan 23, 2017 4:41 pm

I just wanted to learn basic spoken khmer. I had three hours a week of lessons with an excellent tutor for three months and then just noted down new words in my phone as i heard them and asked what they meant. Having a khmer girlfriend who spoke very basic English also helped a lot, forcing me to learn khmer faster.
I think I could deal with most situations within about five months of starting to learn.
Understanding spoken khmer is another story. The locals in Phnom Penh use a lot of slang and different pronunciations which made it hard to understand people's responses, especially if they were speaking fast.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

by **merchantsmutual** » Mon Jan 23, 2017 12:22 pm

marc45 wrote:
starkmonster wrote:For me it was once I focused on listening and reading rather than speaking and writing. Output will come naturally if you get enough input.
That's good advice starkmonster. I made the mistake of spending a long time learning from books, about 8 months, before I realized that spoken language is completely different. I though I wasn't learning enough and the language was too difficult that's why I didn't understand. As it turns out, the reason I didn't understand is because Cambodians have several ways of shortening and saying the same words, and real spoken language is a completely abridged form of what's in the books. In addition they use particles in every sentence often shortened to vowels only. These particles have a wide range of meaning that is not covered by anything in English. Currently there is no book that will tell you this, or even attempt to tell you this. All the modern books are poor excuses for language teaching material. The only valuable language books are from the 60's and 70's, and only one of these even makes an attempt to address this, which is Cambodian Basic Course from 1966!

I'm sorry but what do you mean by particles. Can you give some examples?

I have been studying over a year and consider myself an overenthusiastic beginner. The funny thing is that texting with Khmer people (even native speakers) I will communicate quite easily and I read and write Khmer relatively quickly. However, the same is not true for my listening, which is still not great. I chalk this up to never living in Cambodia; I am sure I would feel differently with time there.

by **DMK** » Sun Dec 28, 2014 2:54 pm

I almost never used Khmer spoken, really just on a few occasions. I learned by reading and it probably takes too much time and resources, endless looking in the dictionary etc. In the books too many Pali/Sanskrit terms are used that almost never used in the everyday speech, also there's many old Mon/Khmer adjectives, rustic speech, borrowings from Thai, French etc. Some words are not in the dictionary so you have to figure it out yourself.

From reading Khmer you can copy some patterns, idioms, words etc. which would give you more intellectual look. On average I read a page in 5 minutes. What is a hard thing is a motivation. If you think Khmer culture inferior to Western it's hard to push yourslelf to read the novels. If you think it's superior then you will be disappointed too. Many novels are pretty straight forward and monotonous but there are a few exceptions. But I think they give a good insight in what's happenning in Khmer culture, behind so called "smile".

by **starkmonster** » Sat Dec 20, 2014 6:01 am

I don't think I'll ever feel 100% proficient in Khmer, every time I think I've got it licked I get reminded I'm not even close.

Yesterday was one of those days, while watching a karaoke video I saw an old actor that I had met the week previous at the screening of The Last Reel at the PP film festival and asked the people I was with if he was very famous.

I then got asked what the film I'd seen was about, I said it was a sad romance and left it at that, then they wanted to know the story. Wow, that was an ask, it was a quite complex story that spanned generations, jumping back and forward in time and had a few big twists. What also made it super complicated from a language perspective was that the movie was about people making a movie.

I tried brushing them off, but they weren't having it. Anyway, I got there in the end, but it was exhausting and I can assure you it was far from poetic. It reminded me that I've got the vocab and finesse of an over enthusiastic eight year old. Lots of work still to do.

by **Joon** » Fri Dec 19, 2014 11:02 pm

Hello Marc, since you name-checked me in your OP, I'm replying but there have been great feedback and pieces of advice so far, that I would've given to you as well (but much less clearly explained!). LexusSchmexus has actually described what I had done when learning the language by myself, so you can definitely consider his tips and see if they work for you.

Falcon Randwich mentioned that I probably had a home ground advantage... which is partly true, as my parents spoke in Khmer at home when I was in France so my ears were used to the Khmer language, but I was unable and actually reluctant to speak in Khmer, besides the mandatory "Chum reap sour" and "Chum reap lear."
My native language is really French, then I learned English at school and it's only when I decided to live in Cambodia 10 years ago that I took upon myself to seriously learn Khmer. When I was coming to Cambodia for holidays, among my siblings, I was the worst in Khmer. I was self-conscious, didn't want to make an ass of myself and was frustrated with Cambodians laughing and not understanding what I was trying to say.

I daresay that I'm self-taught. I didn't have a regular tutor, didn't use books, except for a few hours during which a "tutor" (a distant cousin) had me write and learn the Cambodian alphabet. In the beginning, I was pretty obsessed with "rules" and wanted to understand WHY spelling, sentence structure and words were designed as they were. Then, at some point, I had an epiphany and realized that it didn't matter, because all I wanted to know was how to read, speak, listen and write. I didn't need to be a linguist! So I just took every pronunciation and phrase structures as a given rule.

So after I got the basics of how to read and pronounce the combination of Khmer letters, I just went ahead and read articles from gossip magazines with someone. Didn't matter if I understood it or not. I just focused on deciphering the words. Then, in my case, it made it easier to recognize spoken words.

And as mentioned by other non-native Khmer speakers here, nothing will beat practice and conversing with Cambodians!
I pick up new words (both conversational and technical) everyday. For the various words usage, idioms, phrase structure, I would just carefully listen to people around me and mimic them. At some point, there are some speech idiosyncrasies that keep popping and they start to get imprinted in your mind just by sheer repetition.
I make a point in pronouncing words "as they should be pronounced" because even if I fuck it up with my accent, people will still get what words I'm trying to say and they will happily correct me.
Don't be afraid of trying and making mistakes, even embarrassing ones! The worst thing that you'll get is some hearty laugh, a correction and a bit of embarrassment, which is totally harmless.

As for your question about how long it took for me to understand people around me speaking in Khmer so that I would feel confident going anywhere on my own... that's pretty hard to say! Because I've come to visit Phnom Penh in spurts, 2 months for holidays almost every year between 1999 and 2003... Then I came to live in Cambodia in October-November 2003 and the growing proficiency in my Khmer has been steady. Can't pinpoint or remember at what point I was able to hold my own at the market!

If you can't get a tutor, the next best thing (or maybe I would say the better thing) is to make friends with Cambodians around you. I've learned the most when reading and speaking with my then-Cambodian boyfriend, friends, and then work colleagues.