Customer Reviews

English-Spoken Khmer Dictionary

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While it is always encouraging to see anyone attempt to help students of Southeast Asian languages, any attempt to use phonetics as a base for a dictionary is totally doomed from the get go. This dictionary has a nicely chosen set of entries and several useful lists, but the entire text uses phonetics with absolutely no appearance of the Khmer writing system whatsoever. I fear it will be of little or no use to anyone who wishes to actually learn the language. The Khmer writing system can be EASILY mastered by anyone with no background in Southeast Asian languages in five or six weeks. Those who already read Thai or Lao will require a mere two weeks to learn the beautiful Khmer writing system. The programmed reading texts are already out there (Huffman, Tonkin), but sadly, the necessary audio tapes to accompany those texts are not. Hopefully the author will soon re-publish this work, adding the Khmer script and an accompanying audio CD. A few months additional work could turn this dictionary into a very useful study aid.

Purists who want to learn the Cambodian language should avoid this dictionary and enrol in a formal course, and learn to read the Khmer script. This is a great way to learn the language if time is not an issue.

However, if you happen to be land in Cambodia with the help of a parachute, this dictionary guarantees your physical comfort and minimises hand gestures when you want to make some basic requests. If you work with refugees, or you are trying to get a message through to a Cambodian with little understanding of English, this is the dictionary you want.

As advertised, it is English translated into Romanised Khmer. There is not a single Khmer alphabet in this dictionary of less than 300 pages.

This dictionary is a competent phrasebook as well. Allen Kessee has an uncanny knack of predicting why you want to look up the word in the first place.

Rob v. jchun.
Now, who would want to look up "Rob" unless "Last night I was robbed in the street": yoop munyh gkay jchun kyom taam ploe.

Late adv. Yeut. You will find phrases likely to be useful under this heading, e.g.
Don't come late: kum owi yeut
Too late: yeut nat
Missed a chance: kaat howi, and so on.

Last adj. Muun
Last year: chh'nam mun
Last week: a'ttith muun
At last we meet: jchong krow'ee bompot yeung choop, and so on.

Some entries are very comprehensive, and the emphasis is on commonly used phrases which one needs to order food, book hotels, obtain directions and anything else. When you are looking for a toilet, this is no time to decipher Khmer script.

After 17 obligatory pages introducing you to the Khmer language, particularly grammatical differences with English, there is a list of 149 "clusters".
Chhop - fast; hurry, followed by
n yang chhop - early
n chhop laung - to hurry up

The rest of this cluster #17 takes up over half a page. These clusters also happen to be the most useful phrases in spoken Khmer.

There is a chapter dedicated to lists, such as:
Times of Day: e.g. what time is it - mao pu'man aee

Months:
November - Vi'chi'kaa

Directions of the compass:
South-east - kang kaut chiang kang t'bong

Common Food and Restaurant Terms: examples
French fries - dum'lung jchian
Hot tea - ta'aae k'dau

Telephone terms: examples
Please get me the number of - sum owi lek to'raisap ...mok kyom baan tay
I want to leave a message for Mr - kyom jchong p'nyar daam teuk Lok

There are four proverbs, and only four, which is pathetic.
1. If wealth is preserved it is because women know how to keep it.
2. A home is as large and comfortable as the spirit of the woman of the house.
3. As water flows and never tires, so men swear but should never be believed.
4. He who has a soft heart will never be king.
That is all the proverbs? I will come across as silly trying to say these homilies in Khmer.

It is not comprehensive, and I looked up asthma, diabetes and shingles: all absent. It is unrealistic to have war torn Cambodians in 1995 (date of publication) to worry about diabetes. But the common ailments are, like SICK chh'ooh, stomach ache - chh'ooh poo'ah and parts of the body like shoulder - smaa, skin - s'bye'k. Also present are SLEEP geyng and the phrases which stem from SLEEP. Shut up! is Butt Mwot! Skull is lo lee'a/k'bal and there is no shortage of skulls in the Killing Fields.

The physical book itself is Printed in England and has high quality paper and binding. People who pay a lot for this very pricey book are usually in positions where they have assistants and translators. You will be surprised how badly translation is done everywhere in the third world, and you may want to get things translated the way you intended it, not by a field "translator" who is second-guessing you.

Allen Keesee has produced a gem of a dictionary. It shows his wealth of experience in the region. With the current border dispute going on with the Thais over that border temple, all the military terms become relevant again.

All the Cambodian language you need.