Top Ten Mistakes when learning khmer
10. Giving up
Most foreigners eagerly start trying to learn khmer. At first there learning is going up exponentially and their confidence is growing as now they can eat at local restaurants, can go to the market and negotiate, and direct a motodop. Sadly after learning the basics, going from beginner to intermediate is hard. It takes a lot of work and practice to move up from basic to intermediate and eliminating all those basic mistakes when learning Khmer.
9. Only listening and not watching
When trying to learn new sounds, if one just listens to the new sounds he does not know how to recreate that sound. He needs to look at the teacher and examine their mouth movements and where the tongue is. Then he or she needs to try to copy that action.
8. Ego
Some of those new sounds will involve using your tongue in some strange new locations and some students will be shy and will revert to saying the khmer word with their foreigner transliteration instead of trying to pronounce like a khmer. If you dont try, you will never get better and wiil continue to make mistakes when learning Khmer.
7. Thinking a tutor is magic
The student needs to learn through a plethora of methods. One method is one on one lessons. Another method is studying flashcards…Youtube is a great tool, while just going out on the street and trying to use new khmer words to the native speakers is good too. Stop hating that egg seller at 7 am, and start trying to decipher what he is saying!
6. Translating A=A (verbatim)
Khmer is different then English. A khmer word might have multiple meanings or you might have to say that, ‘’the book is at on the table” in khmer…Some students will say that is stupid to say at on the table, but that is how we do in Cambodia….remember English has a bunch of funky rules.
Click more to read the last 5 mistakes when learning Khmer.