Of Khmer Vowels and Consonants...

Hi! I'm back! My old lappy "kong".... now with Toshiba...hehe

Fascinated by Josephine and all the rest who were able to learn new language in 3 months... I was wondering if I am able to at least get somewhere to learning new language in 8 months??? Haha.

I may achieve it, I may not....but this is really fun.

But .... whoa .... Khmer is not an easy language to learn. Let me begin my story...

I started out learning numbers in Khmer which of course I had more fun writing it than actually memorizing it.

My 1st time writing in Khmer...this is just numbers....e.g. 1, 2, 3 etc...

Then I was thinking...why not I try learning their ABC.... I found out they have 23 vowels. Wow! And everything sounded the same!!! No!!!

My 2nd attempt writing their vowels because I found that my handwriting was horrible.

I was so excited writing, I went into writing out their consonants which consist 33 of them and lo and behold, it was even worse than the vowels, it sounded all alike, I could not differentiate them.

Some of the consonants...

After the consonants, I found out this below....I can't remember what is it called but in Khmer it is called [jerng]. Another thing to memorize. Sharks!

The [jerng]... the extra tiny and not so tiny writing...

Before I completed my numbers and vowels and consonants, I went straight into word, which was my mistake but I just love writing it...hehe...

Vowels and consonants and [jerng] formed words!!! Haha...so happy...!!

After everything, I found out that I was really too fast. I slowed down, memorized all the vowels and get all the pronunciation correct before I move to consonants.

Now, after all the confusion on the consonants, I learned that it is easier for me to group it up like below. Now, it's a little easier for me to remember, because it has some similarity.

I wrote again all the consonants because I forgot to bring my book.

My writing gets better, right? Haha...

Now, I'm trying to memorize this 15 consonants. Sure not easy for me who has attention span of not more than 10 minutes...haha...

Apart from all these writings and learning vowels and consonants, I need to learn how to learm "nih yey khmer" (to speak khmer). In the situation now, speaking is better for me than reading.

Will I succeed? Hahaha...I am not sure myself....but I am enjoying every moment. I have roughly 8 months to go. So, chia yiu..gambateh...go go go!!!