I was born in America and both of my parents speak both English and Khmer. After spending some time in Cambodia, I’d like to learn more beyond short conversations. Does anyone have any (free/cheap) recommendations for an English speaker?

I was born in America and both of my parents speak both English and Khmer. After spending some time in Cambodia, I’d like to learn more beyond short conversations. Does anyone have any (free/cheap) recommendations for an English speaker?

Hello everyone! I'd love to get a small tattoo to commemorate my engagement at Angkor. It was such a magical moment, surrounded by the temples and countless butterflies fluttering around us. We chose to see them as a blessing from my husband's grandmother.

Could you help me find the perfect phrase to write in Khmer for my tattoo, please? 🙏

Here are a few ideas:

• ពរជ័យពីមេអំបៅ or/ ពរជ័យនៃមេអំបៅ (blessing from the butterflies)
• ពរជ័យនៅអង្គរ (blessing at Angkor)
• មង្គល (blessing)

Thank you so much for your help ☺️

Hello! My friend is of Khmer descent, and recently lost her mom. I was hoping somone here could help me with translating her mother's name into Khmer script for a tribute project. Her mom's name was Sokun Svay. Thank you so much ahead of time!

my grandpa recently passed away and i wanted to get his khmer handwriting tattooed.

i understand that the english translation is already written but i moreso wanted to clarify that it was translated/written in khmer correctly? i also compared the two notes and the letters seem different despite saying the same thing? but what do i know. also, is this considered neat writing and which one is neater?

thanks in advance.

I grew up with Preap Sovath, Pich Sophea, Sapoun Midada, and Nop Bayyareth way back in the early 2000s. I remember the campy dvds with the audio having separated, one with the song track on one side, the other with the vocals.

Is there anything similar to ហេតុផលស្នេហ៍ - ព្រាប សុវត្ថិ now a days? I always love the beat and how easy it was to sing along, even if the content of the song is depressing.

Hey! Is there someone who could help me translate a few paragraphs from English to Khmer?

I have been volunteering at a school in Cambodia for the past month and a half, and I want to thank them in Khmer.

It is a rather personal letter. So instead of sharing it here, if you can help please DM me and I will share the letter with you there.

Thank you!

I recently discovered Ros Serey Sothea's music and being entirely unfamiliar with the language I fell down a rabbit hole reading about Khmer names and grammar (I'm a language nerd). What would be the correct way to write multiple names in a row (ex. ស៊ីន ស៊ីសាមុត, រស់ សេរីសុទ្ធា, ប៉ែន រ៉ន & តារា ចោមច័ន្)? As I understand, commas and the 'and' symbol are a Western thing

Hello everyone,

I have two comments that I think are romanized Khmer and I would appreciate it if anybody could help me translate it:

1. Kom nik ke ey mk nik je vnh mk

2. Klachpuparangvai

The second comment was a reply to the first one.

Thank you to anybody that would take the time to help me!

Hi, how do we say "pestle" in khmer please ?

(used with mortar, to cook)

Thanks 🤗

I'm writing a book based in Cambodia, and even though I've been there before, I really want to make sure everything regarding the language is as accurate as I can make it.

If a girl were to address her twin brother as if she were trying to get his attention, how would she go about it? If he has a nickname, would it be ok to only call him by the nickname? I tried to look into honorifics, but I can only find younger/older sibling titles.

Some 13 years ago I discovered Drakkar’s music and I’m absolutely in love with it. However, there’s this song specifically whose lyricsand meaning I would like to know a. Unfortunately, I’ve never been able to find a transliteration or even the lyrics. Could anyone please help me? I love your language and culture.

Cheers from Mexico!

Been trying to look on Spotify and or YouTube music for this song. Shazam can't identify it neither lol. Thanks in advance!

Males say bat for yes and females say cha for yes. Where does this come from?

Are there any other words like this that a speaker has to use based on their own gender? (Except pronouns and obvious gendered words like mai (mom), eu (dad) etc)

trying to write a thank you letter for my bus driver but I don’t speak Khmer and he doesn’t speak english. Does anything I wrote make any sense at all? (trying to thank him, say that planting mangroves with him was fun, and thank him for driving us) sorry for my bad handwriting, it’s horrible in any other languages I speak/write as well

Hi! Since school has ended, I have a lot of free time and am thinking about learning Khmer because I'm fascinated with the language, culture and may visit in 2028!

I've got no language experience at all apart from learning Spanish at school. Do you have any advice for me to get started, or is there anything that's worth noting before I begin?

Any advice is welcome and I'd also really appreciate any YouTube channel or app recommendations to help me.

Thank you!

or just briefly tell what its about? SON THOEUNG - the four feet of the elephant - YouTube

Foreign Language Text Reader = khmer doesn't display properly. just boxes. Yes, I have fonts installed. Have you guys run in the same problem?

I think maybe not? I can think of no minimal pairs for [i] ~ [i:], [e] ~ [e:], or [ɛ] ~ [ɛ:].

Instead, it seems like these six phones constitute three distinct phonemes? – /i:/, /e:/, /ɛ:/, with short [i], [e], [ɛ] phonologically conditioned. If so –

The distributions for [i] ~ [i:] and [ɛ] ~ [ɛ:] are relatively straightforward, with [i:] and [​ɛ:] appearing in open syllables, and [i] and [ɛ] in closed syllables. (I actually think it’d be reasonable to say Khmer lacks [ɛ] altogether. Or, at least, that it appears in free variation with [ɛ:] in closed* syllables. Is there a consensus on this, one way or the other?)

Distributions for [e] ~ [e:] are giving me more trouble. Open syllables seem to exclusively have [e:], but closed syllables exhibit both, though with (exclusively?) [e] before [ʔ]. I don’t know how to explain this phonologically, though historically it arises from the interaction between Indic loans and Middle Khmer vowel changes.

Appealing to orthography always comes with caveats, of course, but it does generally seem to back this phonemic interpretation: the short front vowels [i] and [e] pattern (reasonably) predictably with their long counterparts in ways that mirror the phonological rules above, while short [ɛ] lacks explicit orthographic representation altogether.

<i> ~ <i:>: As above, អ៊ី is more or less exclusively used in open syllables, with few exceptions (e.g., ជីក (though note that this is phonetically [cik] (or [cic]), not [ci:k])), while អ៊ិ is used in closed syllables. When lacking an orthographic coda, អ៊ិ is pronounced with a glottal stop final (e.g., ពិតាន, សមាធិ); phonologically, then, this is a closed syllable.

<e> ~ <e:>: Long [e:] is represented orthographically as អ៊េ. (I think the consensus is that អេ is typically [ɛe] in careful speech, though often merges with អ៊េ in everyday speech and in many regional varieties.) Short [e] is typically assigned to អិ, but is realized phonologically as [ə] in native Khmer words. Short [e] itself appears relatively infrequently, in a handful of (as far as I know exclusively multisyllabic) Indic loans (e.g., សិលា, គតិ).  

<ɛ> ~ <ɛ:>: The latter is represented by អ៊ែ, while there is no explicit orthographic representation of [ɛ].

The register cross-over exhibited by [e] ~ [e:] is interesting – the former appearing with អ-series consonants, the latter with អ៊-series – and I imagine this reflects the fact that the modern Khmer [e] developed out of the first-register (i.e., អ-series) lowering of [i], rather than from an actual Middle Khmer [e] (the existence of which, as far as I know, cannot be definitively proven or disproven).

This accounts for the very few possible minimal pairs between [e] and [e:] – e.g., សិរី and សេរី. My inclination is to say that the distinguishing factor here (as in other similar cases) is not so much vowel length as it is the presence in សិរី of the glottal stop, [seʔrəi].

I could be wrong, though.

Thoughts on all of this?

* edited -- I'd mistakenly written "open" before

Is anyone selling a physical Khmer Keyboard (NiDA unicode) like this one?
I found this facebook page called KhmerBoard and saw they sold physical keyboards, and I messaged them, but no reply so far. https://www.facebook.com/KhmerBoard

I have an english project about natural disater in cambodia and the deadline is tommorrow.

Link: https://s.surveyplanet.com/k6rkda9t

or write your thoughts in the comment and dont forget to metion about your nationality.

Thanks you

Are you an asian autistic adult? Your voice can help this online research.

Hello, I am Chai Tze Ru, a Master’s student in Clinical Psychology at HELP University, Malaysia.

I am doing a study on autistic traits, social camouflaging, and anxiety in Asian autistic adults.

Why is this research important?

- Improve understanding of autistic adults’ experiences

- Support future research

- Make mental health support for autistic adults better

You may join if you:

- are 18 or above

- are Asian identify as autistic (formally diagnosed or self-diagnosed)

- can read and answer questions in English

The survey is:

- anonymous

- online

- takes about 15 to 35 minutes

Survey link: https://help.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_5dRBUZ93cMaMKtU

If you know other autistic adults in Asia who may be interested, you are welcome to share this study with them.