Cambodia Expats Online: Forum | News | Information | Blog

(Just so I'll know where the questions and answers are)

In my efforts to get my head around Khmer, I'm finding words that don't get an adequate explanation from my small circle of Khmer friends, due in part to them not understanding my confusion. It's a work in progress, not helped by having to go back to Europe for a few weeks.

To be clear, the Boss (Girlfriend) is learning English. Slowly. Her friends likewise. Google translate is likely to insert confusion and misdirection, as I've already discovered, and needs to be used carefully. And colloquialisms rarely cross the language barrier intact.

And so, without further ado...

Bat Bong
This was uttered many times in a recent conversation, resulting in mutual frustration.


And while we're at it, acronyms that I haven't caught on to yet.
KOW

Any useful expletives that I could put into daily use, that might result in wide eyes, but no serious beatings?

Baht depends whether it's a rising or falling tone.

Baht = yes. Baht Bong = yes brother freightdog.

Baht? (rising tone) = What? Say again.

KOW = Kingdom of Wonder.


I often get a laugh when I say "G'doy ma vear". Ask your boss for the translation.
"Joy!" can be used to express exasperation or frustration.

Freightdog wrote: ↑Thu May 24, 2018 4:08 pm (Just so I'll know where the questions and answers are)

Wouldn't happen to be millennial, by any chance?

Bat Bong
This was uttered many times in a recent conversation, resulting in mutual frustration.

And while we're at it, acronyms that I haven't caught on to yet.
KOW

Baat bong is gender specific, spoken by males, and means yes.

KOW (c'mon, you're trolling, right?) is Kingdom of Wonder (Why).

Bat Bong is a (hidden) bar

No, not trolling. I was scurrying around looking for something less obvious (KoW). Makes sense, now.

I'm terrible with languages, so keeping stuff in a single place might help in a panic!

Baat, bong means "Yes, bro" or "Yes, older sis" as above
it also means "Batbong" to lose as in to lose an object (disappear, perish).
The word bong also has several meanings seperately, including the pay for something, "Bong luy"
If you want to learn khmer better enroll in a course, I've been learning for 5 years on my own and it's hard as hell.

@superferret

A hah! You may have hit the nail. We were talking via video, and I had misplaced something while we were talking.

I wish I could enroll on a course, but I travel a lot, and there's nothing near to home available. The search continues.

Freightdog wrote: ↑Thu May 24, 2018 4:08 pm

Bat Bong
This was uttered many times in a recent conversation, resulting in mutual frustration.

@Freightdog

បាត់បង់ - Bat Bong means to lose(something) to disappear, vanish, to be missing or lost and can also mean to die lol

when trying to find out the meaning of words its sometimes best to give an example sentence to the situations youve heard it, as many khmer words can mean different meanings depending on the context of the sentence, that is why Khmers sometimes struggle explaining what certain words mean in English

Yeah, that's exactly why I never enrolled in a course, but learning Khmer by yourself if you don't live with them is extremely difficult,
I really regret not taking short courses or getting a private tutor when I was there for months and years. It seems easy at first, but the
logic of the language is completely different from Western languages. That's the hard part for me, not even the vocabulary, which I find pretty easy.

superferret wrote: ↑Fri May 25, 2018 12:04 am Yeah, that's exactly why I never enrolled in a course, but learning Khmer by yourself if you don't live with them is extremely difficult,
I really regret not taking short courses or getting a private tutor when I was there for months and years. It seems easy at first, but the
logic of the language is completely different from Western languages. That's the hard part for me, not even the vocabulary, which I find pretty easy.

yeah i spent a couple of years self teaching, asking questions and trying to learn that way, but its slow and hard,
so i then enrolled at a school and got private tutoring for 3 months as while i knew words and phrases and stuff, i wanted to advance and learn more about the grammar and more words so i can get by and able to make my own sentences etc.. but then after 3 months it got to the stage where my vocabulary was quite large but there were so many similar sounding words that i had learned,
so i then stayed on an extra month to learn the alphabet,
that was over a couple of years ago now and now my reading is great and it helps no end and self teaching is easy, now i just wish everyone could go around with subtitles so i can read what they are saying