Tough - tuff
Trough - troff
Enough - enuff
Slough - Slaoh
Edinborough - Edinburrer
Etc
Who said English was easy for non native speakers?
Khmer language school / teachers in PP?
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- Lucky Lucan
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I would be surprised, considering English has the largest vocabulary of any language. There are plenty of words for eating in both English and Khmer, but are there Khmer words for "disambiguation," "axiomatic"or "abstraction" etc?Miguelito wrote: I wouldn't be surprised if there were more words in Khmer than English - just think about how many ways they have to say "to eat." They have such different levels of speaking based on formalities, I feel like whenever I'm learning a word, I need to learn two that mean the same thing.
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true, English does have a very complex vocabularyLucky Lucan wrote:I would be surprised, considering English has the largest vocabulary of any language. There are plenty of words for eating in both English and Khmer, but are there Khmer words for "disambiguation," "axiomatic"or "abstraction" etc?Miguelito wrote: I wouldn't be surprised if there were more words in Khmer than English - just think about how many ways they have to say "to eat." They have such different levels of speaking based on formalities, I feel like whenever I'm learning a word, I need to learn two that mean the same thing.
Mean Dtuk Mean Trey, Mean Loy Mean Srey
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Maybe English overall has more words than Khmer, I don't know, but I think in daily conversation Khmer uses more words than English. English often uses a single word having several meanings where the meaning changes with the context, Khmer is much more precise using different words with different meanings for most words. Than there's all the different words used in different social contexts....Lucky Lucan wrote:I would be surprised, considering English has the largest vocabulary of any language. There are plenty of words for eating in both English and Khmer, but are there Khmer words for "disambiguation," "axiomatic"or "abstraction" etc?Miguelito wrote: I wouldn't be surprised if there were more words in Khmer than English - just think about how many ways they have to say "to eat." They have such different levels of speaking based on formalities, I feel like whenever I'm learning a word, I need to learn two that mean the same thing.
When I started learning Khmer I just had to learn so many words for what seemed the same to me.
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It's interesting that several of us have very different perceptions.Kachang wrote:Maybe English overall has more words than Khmer, I don't know, but I think in daily conversation Khmer uses more words than English. English often uses a single word having several meanings where the meaning changes with the context, Khmer is much more precise using different words with different meanings for most words. Than there's all the different words used in different social contexts....Lucky Lucan wrote:I would be surprised, considering English has the largest vocabulary of any language. There are plenty of words for eating in both English and Khmer, but are there Khmer words for "disambiguation," "axiomatic"or "abstraction" etc?Miguelito wrote: I wouldn't be surprised if there were more words in Khmer than English - just think about how many ways they have to say "to eat." They have such different levels of speaking based on formalities, I feel like whenever I'm learning a word, I need to learn two that mean the same thing.
When I started learning Khmer I just had to learn so many words for what seemed the same to me.
In dual language books, sentences in Khmer are much longer than in English, I put this down to Khmer often having to use several words (or a small sentence) to convey the meaning of one English word.
I tried to find an estimate of the number of Khmer words in the language but failed. English though has over a million.
Where's Joon at? I'm sure she could add some value to this conversation.
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IMO:
Pronunciation:
English is far more forgiving, it's not hard understand very poorly pronounced English but if someone is fluffing the vowels in Khmer it's impossible.
Talking:
Khmer doesn't lay it on think with grammatical bravado so you can get a lot done with a relatively small vocabulary, you can get to pigeon Khmer pretty quickly, however speaking in a way that's fast, flowing and correct in terms of the formality of the situation is hard.
Reading:
You can get to beginner level more quickly with English thanks to the short alphabet but to advanced level much quicker with Khmer. The syntax is far more accurate than English and it has far fewer exceptions. It also has the advantage of not having its spelling locked in a couple of hundred years ago whilst pronunciation continued to evolve.
Spelling:
Spelling is tough in Khmer, in English most words will only have a small number of plausible options when trying to spell, in Khmer there can be dozens. This is the downside to the accuracy mentioned above, it also makes it hard to find words you have only heard but not read in the dictionary.
Pronunciation:
English is far more forgiving, it's not hard understand very poorly pronounced English but if someone is fluffing the vowels in Khmer it's impossible.
Talking:
Khmer doesn't lay it on think with grammatical bravado so you can get a lot done with a relatively small vocabulary, you can get to pigeon Khmer pretty quickly, however speaking in a way that's fast, flowing and correct in terms of the formality of the situation is hard.
Reading:
You can get to beginner level more quickly with English thanks to the short alphabet but to advanced level much quicker with Khmer. The syntax is far more accurate than English and it has far fewer exceptions. It also has the advantage of not having its spelling locked in a couple of hundred years ago whilst pronunciation continued to evolve.
Spelling:
Spelling is tough in Khmer, in English most words will only have a small number of plausible options when trying to spell, in Khmer there can be dozens. This is the downside to the accuracy mentioned above, it also makes it hard to find words you have only heard but not read in the dictionary.
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Brilliant analysis, agree 100%starkmonster wrote:IMO:
Pronunciation:
English is far more forgiving, it's not hard understand very poorly pronounced English but if someone is fluffing the vowels in Khmer it's impossible.
Talking:
Khmer doesn't lay it on think with grammatical bravado so you can get a lot done with a relatively small vocabulary, you can get to pigeon Khmer pretty quickly, however speaking in a way that's fast, flowing and correct in terms of the formality of the situation is hard.
Reading:
You can get to beginner level more quickly with English thanks to the short alphabet but to advanced level much quicker with Khmer. The syntax is far more accurate than English and it has far fewer exceptions. It also has the advantage of not having its spelling locked in a couple of hundred years ago whilst pronunciation continued to evolve.
Spelling:
Spelling is tough in Khmer, in English most words will only have a small number of plausible options when trying to spell, in Khmer there can be dozens. This is the downside to the accuracy mentioned above, it also makes it hard to find words you have only heard but not read in the dictionary.
Mean Dtuk Mean Trey, Mean Loy Mean Srey
Punchy McShortstacks School of Hard Knocks
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I think this is the part that I find most difficult. The fact that there is almost a new vocabulary list for formal setting or speaking to old/important people.starkmonster wrote:IMO:
however speaking in a way that's fast, flowing and correct in terms of the formality of the situation is hard.
.
Not a bad summary at all BTW
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Asian languages, Khmer for instance is more complicated when conversing with others in term of manner. The word eat was an excellent example from a post above. I had people getting offended for misused of words when conversing to the 'seniors.'
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