26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
a good beginning book and tape, July 23, 2001
By A Customer
This is a good starting point for someone who doesn't know any Cambodian. It is certainly the most affordable course and the easiest to obtain. From the very first lesson, you get real sentences with real content instead of just formulas- Hello, Good morning, how are you?- which is where so many language courses start. So from the opening bell you can get a sense of how the language works and how sentences are put together. The grammatical explanations are good, although some of them could be more detailed.
Another feather in the author's cap is that the material on the tapes really does follow the book. The speakers are quite easy to follow and one can get into the flow of the language very quickly. I suppose you could buy the book without the tapes, but would you feel very confident saying a words like "t'ngai" or "g'baal" for instance? In a lot of language courses (including some in the "Colloquial's" series) the material on the tapes does not coordinate well with the printed text. This one does.
The major minus in this book is its system of transcription. Given the choice between trying to represent Cambodian phonemes accurately (especially the vowels) and approximating what is now a very unphonetic system of writing, the author has come up with system that does a poor job of both. I really believe that he should have used Huffman's system which is much more precise in representing phonemes that differ only very slightly to a Westerner's ear. It would certainly help someone who also wants to consult Huffman's text. The author makes no bones about the fact that he wants to wean the learner away from transcription, and he succeeds, but mostly because his system is too inaccurate to be any help. He does introduce the writing system gradually and there are illustrations in the book showing how the letters are handwritten- which is another feature not every language book has when there is a writing system different from our own.
So- I'll give it four stars. I'd give five stars to a future edition if the author found a better solution to his transcription problems.
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17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
good language book, November 27, 1999
Tha roman-alphabet renderings of the Khmer words is misleading, but for most aspects of the course only good things can be said. The exercises are well-chosen and paced in a way that makes learning Khmer about as painless as it can be, which is still pretty painful.
This book supposes no prior knowledge of Khmer. The other Khmer book I have seen, by Huffman, is very technical and seems to suppose a level of training in structural linguistics and phonetics that is beyond what most people have.
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16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A quick look at the language that may draw you more inside., January 24, 2001
This package is probably as good as it gets for a broadbrush presentation of Khmer. Those with several languages behind them realize that for most people it takes two thousand hours or so of study to develop a working foundation in most languages. Khmer may seem intimidating in the initial stages, but it really is an achievable goal for those who have a deep interest in the country and its people. Try "Colloquial Cambodian" on for size, and if you become infected with the Cambodia bug you can always order the full Foreign Service Institute course and pursue Khmer to the hilt. A new language gives you a new life, a new identity. A good investment! Even if you just master the material presented in Colloquial Cambodian, you'll come away with more than many official Americans assigned to the country in recent years did.
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