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I recently heard someone day, keung keung tau. Now I know that keung tau, keung tau means angrier and angrier, but no one in my village can explain the former to me, except to say there is a nuance of meaning between the two. Can a native speaker translate this into English for me? Thanks.

What i understand from this phrase, it means that you don't care whether the person is mad with you or not. We normally used when we refused to give something to someone or do something for someone.

Thanks for that Samouth. The problem with idiomatic colloquial speech is that the meaning usually transcends the literal meaning of the words used. I could never have understood it on my own. I assume it can be used with other verbs, can you offer a few examples?

For example

My friend came to borrow my some money then i refused to give him or her. After that, they walked away with angrily face. Then, my another friend came and asked me. Didn't you afraid that she or he might anger with you. So i would say keung keung tau, meaning i don't care at all.

Yeah, I got that Samouth but what I'm asking is can the construction of verb+same verb+tau be used with OTHER verbs to show that you don't care? Cheers

taabarang wrote:Yeah, I got that Samouth but what I'm asking is can the construction of verb+same verb+tau be used with OTHER verbs to show that you don't care? Cheers

I think there is no such structure. When we say it two times, we already stress it. However, you also can say, keung ey kor keung tau, but it is not necessary. Just say Keung Keung tau, we get it.

It can be used with any verb, the structure usually starts with ចង់​ (jong) to imply intent. When it's said softly, it's nagative and means they are indifferent to your suggestion. When it's strongly it's more like a challenge in an argument.

e.g.

husband បង​ទៅផឹក​នៅ​ក្រៅ
wife ចង់​ផឹក​ផឹក​ទៅ

It's also a common response to a threat.

e.g.

husband លេង​ទូរស័ព្ទ​រហូត​​ ចង់​ចោល
wife ចង់​ចោល​ចោល​ទៅ​ ចង់​ចោល​អញ​ដែរ​អត់?

OK, here's the feedback from my village. One of the locals, a female, told me that if she were told by her neighbors that her husband drinks too much, she would reply by saying
peuk peuk tau meaning she is indifferent both to here husband's drinking and their opinion. But if she says it to her husband; it indicates anger on her part. So, it would seem to indicate who the original speaker is in the social situation. That may be what Starkmonster was referring to, but since I am illiterate in Cambodian, I don't know.

starkmonster wrote: husband បង​ទៅផឹក​នៅ​ក្រៅ
wife ចង់​ផឹក​ផឹក​ទៅ

Yep, that's pretty much what I wrote:

Husband: bong tov puk now krow
Wife: jong puk puk tov

The second one:

Husband: laing turosap rorhote jong jowel

Wife: jong jowel jowel tov, jong jowel ainy diar aut?

Excuse the poor phonetics, I'm just spelling it out roughly how it sounds to me in English.

Yeah, they seem to be headed in the same direction except in our village there is no "jong' to soften the phrase; it seems to depend more on social context. It is no surprise that in a village where the majority of the inhabitants are either illiterate or semi literate that variances between their spoken Khmer and dictionary Khmer exist. I'm not stating an argument in favor of illiteracy, neither mine nor theirs. For me the point is I live here and I would rather speak like one of them. It is highly rare for a foreigner to live as the only non-Cambodian in a small rural village and it is far better for me to integrate linguistically as well as socially than to stand out.