What are the most common English mistakes that Khmers make?
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What are the most common English mistakes that Khmers make?
I don't want this to turn into a Khmer bashing thread, but I'm interested in what you teachers (and non-teachers) see as the most common English mistakes that Khmers make, particularly mistakes that Khmers make that are sort of specific to Khmers and that other foreign learners of English don't make in the same way.
This may actually help Westerners in Cambodia better understand what Khmers are saying to them in English.
One of the most obvious ones is more of a pronunciation issue than a mistake, they tend to drop off the last consonant sound of words, because a lot of Khmer words are pronounced like that -- the last consonant sound is kind of "swallowed" and barely spoken.
Is a waitress asks you if you want "ryeee," she is asking it you want rice.
If I kid on the riverside asks you to "buy booh" he is asking you to buy a book.
Another once I've noticed, especially in text messages/Facebook chat, is that they overuse "I'm" when they should just say "I." Like "I'm can't go to the store now."
I also see a lot of attempts to use "very" to modify verbs. For example, "I very like this song." I assume this is because the Khmer word "nas" is used to modify both adjectives and verbs.
What the the other big ones that are kind of specific to Khmers?
This may actually help Westerners in Cambodia better understand what Khmers are saying to them in English.
One of the most obvious ones is more of a pronunciation issue than a mistake, they tend to drop off the last consonant sound of words, because a lot of Khmer words are pronounced like that -- the last consonant sound is kind of "swallowed" and barely spoken.
Is a waitress asks you if you want "ryeee," she is asking it you want rice.
If I kid on the riverside asks you to "buy booh" he is asking you to buy a book.
Another once I've noticed, especially in text messages/Facebook chat, is that they overuse "I'm" when they should just say "I." Like "I'm can't go to the store now."
I also see a lot of attempts to use "very" to modify verbs. For example, "I very like this song." I assume this is because the Khmer word "nas" is used to modify both adjectives and verbs.
What the the other big ones that are kind of specific to Khmers?
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Haha, that's right.
I've seen a lot of messages saying "thanks you" or sometimes "thank" (without the "you"). Rarely do they write "thank you" or thanks."
I've seen a lot of messages saying "thanks you" or sometimes "thank" (without the "you"). Rarely do they write "thank you" or thanks."
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They don't like using the S many places, rice is pronounced 'rhy'
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Yes, I think the "s" sound is the one they drop the most. Ice is "eyee," and they are not good at making nouns plural. "I have four sister."
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My ex sprinkled the plural s around at random because she wasn't quite sure where it goes. She has a high school diploma from California.
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1. Seldom pronounce hard consonants at end of words, or 's' sound (rice etc).
2. Subject-verb agreement.
3. Use of present tense for past and future.
2. Subject-verb agreement.
3. Use of present tense for past and future.
ירי ילדים והפצצת אזרחים דורש אומץ, כמו גם הטרדה מינית של עובדי ההוראה.
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You touched on the main 2: the final consonant sounds and especially 's sounds being cut, and the non-conjugation of verbs. Another one might be use of pronouns. I never became adequately conversant in Khmer, but I learned enough to see from the perspective of an English teacher what the causes are.
Cambodians of course learn their native tongue in their mothers' arms, and thereby learn habits that run exceedingly deep. Pronouncing words is one of those habits. Khmer in general cuts final consonant sounds, and the Phnom Penh dialect takes it a degree further. I find that the most highly educated Khmers I know, including those with legitimate overseas PhDs still fall into the trap unless consciously making the effort.
Think about this linguistic analysis: English and other Aryan-family languages focus on consonants.You've seen exercises where all the vowels are removed from a passage yet it's still comprehensible. Furthermore, when you look deeply into different regional and national English accents, you'll see it's the vowel sounds that differ; consonants are fairly constant.
In East Asian languages the opposite is true - people can cut the consonant sounds and still be mutually comprehensible so long as the vowel sounds are articulated clearly. There are more vowel sounds than we Westerners are used to; hence, we get flustered when we think we've pronounced a Khmer phrase perfectly clearly and are met with blank looks. The consonants were fine, and the vowels sounded fine to our ears, but were a bit off to a Khmer and so our pronunciation was actually too awful to be understood.
With my lower level students I do a lot of listening work and it is interesting (if frustrating) to note how they just don't HEAR the 's' sound in a plural. I can replay a phrase a dozen times and they just don't hear it! As I say, at the highest levels they hear and they know, but the sound just doesn't emanate from their mouths. What I'm saying is that this is exactly the same with some of the subtle vowel sounds Khmer has that English doesn't have when we are speaking Khmer.
Then there are verbs. Verb tenses do exist in Khmer but colloquially they're not used so much and most students I've known admit to being hopeless at Khmer grammar. People perfectly adequately get by with 'I go', 'I go already', 'I go tomorrow'. Therefore, thinking about appropriate tenses doesn't come naturally and even at the highest levels I constantly find uncertainty over whether to use present simple, past simple or present perfect. I'm not even talking about getting the forms correct - just the right decision over which tense to choose.
Finally, I mention pronouns, which is a wholly different logic. When a Khmer says 'bong'- do they mean you or me? Same with 'oan'. There's this whole hierarchical/formal/familial logic to engage with. So if they're transliterating the Khmer logic to English, it will go awry.
Cambodians of course learn their native tongue in their mothers' arms, and thereby learn habits that run exceedingly deep. Pronouncing words is one of those habits. Khmer in general cuts final consonant sounds, and the Phnom Penh dialect takes it a degree further. I find that the most highly educated Khmers I know, including those with legitimate overseas PhDs still fall into the trap unless consciously making the effort.
Think about this linguistic analysis: English and other Aryan-family languages focus on consonants.You've seen exercises where all the vowels are removed from a passage yet it's still comprehensible. Furthermore, when you look deeply into different regional and national English accents, you'll see it's the vowel sounds that differ; consonants are fairly constant.
In East Asian languages the opposite is true - people can cut the consonant sounds and still be mutually comprehensible so long as the vowel sounds are articulated clearly. There are more vowel sounds than we Westerners are used to; hence, we get flustered when we think we've pronounced a Khmer phrase perfectly clearly and are met with blank looks. The consonants were fine, and the vowels sounded fine to our ears, but were a bit off to a Khmer and so our pronunciation was actually too awful to be understood.
With my lower level students I do a lot of listening work and it is interesting (if frustrating) to note how they just don't HEAR the 's' sound in a plural. I can replay a phrase a dozen times and they just don't hear it! As I say, at the highest levels they hear and they know, but the sound just doesn't emanate from their mouths. What I'm saying is that this is exactly the same with some of the subtle vowel sounds Khmer has that English doesn't have when we are speaking Khmer.
Then there are verbs. Verb tenses do exist in Khmer but colloquially they're not used so much and most students I've known admit to being hopeless at Khmer grammar. People perfectly adequately get by with 'I go', 'I go already', 'I go tomorrow'. Therefore, thinking about appropriate tenses doesn't come naturally and even at the highest levels I constantly find uncertainty over whether to use present simple, past simple or present perfect. I'm not even talking about getting the forms correct - just the right decision over which tense to choose.
Finally, I mention pronouns, which is a wholly different logic. When a Khmer says 'bong'- do they mean you or me? Same with 'oan'. There's this whole hierarchical/formal/familial logic to engage with. So if they're transliterating the Khmer logic to English, it will go awry.
I came, I argued, I'm out
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Give the next hostess who hassles you this tongue-twister:ali baba wrote:sick
six
sex
"Sixty-six sick sex workers"
I came, I argued, I'm out
I notice a lot of Cambodians adding "the" in front of proper nouns and names. For countries and especially for people. Which then could sound offensive to native English speakers.
Last edited by Joon on Sun Jul 13, 2014 2:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"Ask" also becomes "ass."ali baba wrote:sick
six
sex
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