Kampuchea will be always in my heart....

Friday, April 21, 2006

Trying to write in Khmer

Writing in Khmer is not easy for me, the most difficult part of Khmer language is high frequency or sight words. There are too many silent letters that we don't pronounce but have to write it. It took me quite some times to finish this one paragraph. Perhaps, if I had formal Khmer education, it would be easier. I only had three weeks of learning Khmer alphabets when I was a little girl. Due to war, I was unable to continue my study but with the love of my mother tongue, I've been keeping it up studying off and on at home by myself from Huffman-English-Khmer dictionary. I looked up any english word and tried to read it Khmer translation. Karaoke really helped me reading and sounding out the words. I also tried to read anything in Khmer. It took me 15 years to be able to read up to college level, now it's not a foreign language for me anymore.My next step is to keep on writing.

koun Kampuchea throv kann dai kneah ruom kom`nit kaay
muay chom`hien chean chpuos tov mok douy kdei songkhem
seksah rean`sote mok reej nhor`nhem yerng khom tho`su min naay chet lery
throv khom sloat`bote neng kah seksah tnak tum toch kdei khet khom smaradei vek`vern rean`sote veleah min jam yerng the` kom nov thom`nay throv vi`neas derm bei tngai sa`ek.

3 Comments:

  • Wow, the Khmer written language seems to be quite difficult to learn. How many alphabets are there in Khmer language?

    By Blogger あまてらす, At 12:16 PM  

  • Hayato san,
    Cambodia has the longest alphabet in the world. We have 74 letters compared to the 26 in English.

    By Blogger Location:, At 5:16 PM  

  • you're good, keep learning!

    By Blogger Unknown, At 3:31 PM  

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