khmerhamster wrote: ↑Mon Feb 04, 2019 11:24 am

Jamie_Lambo wrote: សុំទោស Som Toah - can mean a number of things like "Sorry" or "Excuse me/Pardon me..."
សុំ Som(1) - means to ask/beg for something
ទោស Toah - means "Fault" "Error" "Guilt" "Blame" etc
so basically Som Toas is you Asking/Begging for forgiveness

សូម Som(2) - whilst generally it can be used interchangeably with the សុំ Som(1) above, សូម Som(2) is the word that by its self means "Please" and is used at the start of a sentence as a pre sentence Particle,
for example if you was to order a beer at the bar you would say "Som(2) Beer Mouy Orkun"
verbally they are exactly the same, but when written down (in Khmer or translating) they are slightly different


So basically the answer to your question is "Som Toe" doesnt really mean please, it means more like i'm sorry/excuse me, "Som(2)" by its self means please when used as a pre sentence particle, but when paired with a word it means the same as Som(1) and can be used interchangeably

My confusion was because I understood similar to Jamie (in bold above) but this isn’t actually correct.
They are two different words, have slightly different meanings and are pronounced slightly differently. Not surprising that many foreigners get it wrong and have no idea we are doing so.

សុំ som
1a v to ask (for), beg, request, demand.
1b initverb to ask to (do something) (may be used in a polite way by older people to younger ones. It is often used interchangeably with សូម which however more accurately occurs in sentence initial position)

s សូម soom
1 p to ask (for something), to beg.
2 pt a polite term used to introduce a sentence. It means 'please,' would you...,' 'would you please.'