Back to childhood - we use a kids primer as the alphabet intro. The vowels are on the left page, and are written either above, below or alongside the consonant. Easy ...Today Susie and I entered a deeper level of the marvel of learning Khmer - the Khmer alphabet. Up to now our learning has been in conversation. However, one of our (very many!) frustrations has been in the pronounciation department. We are constantly revisiting words that we thought that we had down pat - only to discover that the 'ch' is a 'j' or the 't' is a 'd' (there's a bunch of words anglicised as 'dt' or 'bp' - and they can cause pain!
Anyway, we are now on a mission to learn the 23 vowels and 33 consonants as represented by mysterious wiggles and squiggles. There's one sound that we just cannot get - the 'ng' that I reckon I'm saying just like Nimol, and she reckons is another barang who gets real trouble with this one. Nimol makes us feel better by telling us stories about the Korean folk who just cannot get 'rro' - it comes out as 'lo' every time! We'll figure this 'ng' thing - all in getting the tongue flat at the bottom of your mouth as you say 'n' (figure that out!)
The consonants - 'small' (in red) and 'big' (in blue). When a vowel follows a 'small' consonant, the vowel has a different sound to when it follows a 'big' consonant. Do the maths - it makes for a lot of sounds!
Another interesting thing we now learn is that what is written (for example, in a dictionary) very often is not what is pronounced, as the Khmer love dropping off the last sound. So, when the dictionary says 'mork' the pronounciation is 'mor'. That goes a way to explaining why what we have been learning does not always line up with the pocket dictionary!
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