Pchum Ben

[thePeck]

So how many of you been dragged out to the Wats to partake in this?

Fortunately we went to one here in PP last week, spent 2 days in her province and went there then made it back to PP and going one more time tomorrow here. Then I believe it's over, at least for us going to the Wats.

We made it back to PP as a lot of people were exiting the city, should be quite here for the next several days.

Going to the Wats in the province was interesting. The monks were laughing at me as I burnt my hand trying to put the incense in the pot. Then wanted us to stay so the Monks could talk with us but she politely declined and we moved on.

Edit:

If you don't know much about the festival, here;s a good link.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pchum_Ben

[Mr Curious]

someone could parlay this into tourist money telling them twits it's the Cambo Day of the Dead. Bring on anything with skeleton motif, tours, etc. Invent bogus tourist friendly celebrations. Seems to work for Mexico

[wackyjacky]

Every time I here it, it sounds like 'jum bun'. Why do translators have to make it so difficult ? I mispronounce so many words in Khmer & Thai because what's written in the dictionary is just plain wrong. I don't know if that applies in this case, but every time I said Pchum Ben nobody knew what the fuck I was saying.

[frank lee bent]

there is no accepted transliteration into rom char set i believe- so spelling- they all just wing it.
the labial fricatives are particularly difficulty to assign.
B, P, F and V are some what interchangeable example : pilipeens for philippines instead of teh F sound we use in Eng.

the indonesian alphabet has tried to deal with this by reducing the character count to 21. this eliminates a lot of the spelling ambiguity. it is pretty successful in it's attempt to be phonetic.

certainly this lack of transliteration is a very harmful thing for cambodia.

[Username Taken]

Most Australians think the capital city of Cambodia is called Nom Penh!

As for Pchum, it's like the difference in saying 'pajamas' and 'jamas'. The 'P' is there.

[LTO]

The 'p' is there, but it is unaspirated, which is particularly difficult for native English speakers to hear and pronounce.

[General Mackevili]

The 'p' is there, but it is unaspirated, which is particularly difficult for native English speakers to hear and pronounce.

I was living in Phnom Penh for well over a year before I could say "Phnom Penh" without every Cambodian within shouting distance feeling the need to correct me and have me repeat it over and over until they realized I was a lost cause.

[StroppyChops]

As I understand it the Ph sound of Phnom is the unaspirated bp sound, and the P of Penh is the same as the English aspirated P sound.

[LTO]

As I understand it the Ph sound of Phnom is the unaspirated bp sound, and the P of Penh is the same as the English aspirated P sound.

I guess it might depend in part on who is doing the transliteration. I have seen it spelled Phra Chum Benh in some places, though not as common as Prachum Benh. Also, to get the full 'ch' sound like it is pronounced in English, it should be transliterated 'chh' like Kampong Chhnang. Or is it a different 'ch' sound here?

A possibly related question, does the 'Benh' in Prachum Benh mean holiday/festival like the 'Bon' in Bon Om Tuk?

[StroppyChops]

Landlord and language tutor seem to be saying Ph'jum Ben (aspirated P)